When we were thinking about the exterior of the house, Anne noted that many houses we have seen look stark, because there are no plantings along the foundation. She said she wanted to have some plants near the base of the walls, including some rosemary and lavender.
I asked Kevin about this. He said that traditional construction in Marche has a marciapiede, a sidewalk, surrounding the house. This is done primarily for practical reasons, as it keeps water from right next to the foundation.
Typically, a marciapiede is 80cm (2.5 ft) wide and you put the plantings on the outside of it.
This seemed fine for most of the house, but we wondered if it shouldn’t be wider in some places, especially in the back of the house outside the French doors.
We already have the portico outside the kitchen French door, so our fix was to widen the marciapiede outside the rest of the back to 140cm (3.7 ft) and add a little more width outside the bedroom door, forming a bit of a terrazza.
Here’s a diagram of the planned marciapiede.
Image source
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