OUR STORY
The Mudu family
The story of the Casa Vecchia begins at the end of the 1940s. It was built by Salvatore Mudu, known as "Boiccu", a farmer from Nuraminis, who lived there with his wife and children: his initials M and S decorate the front door and the main door, as was the custom at the time.
The house was then inherited by one of his sons, who however was already living elsewhere.
The house then remained uninhabited, but never abandoned: its rooms hosted family parties, Christmases and New Years for years; its ancient oven continued to bake bread, cakes and pizzas; from its terrace we continued to watch the fireworks of San Lussorio.
So for the whole Mudu family "the Old House" has become a welcoming and always open place, where to share special moments and have fun together.
In recent years we have had the opportunity to completely renovate it, and we decided to do so while respecting the materials and style of tradition.
The "terra cruda" houses
Like all the Campidanese houses of that period, the Casa Vecchia is built in làdiri , that is, bricks made of a mixture of dried mud and straw, raised on a stone base.
The walls thus created were then covered with various layers of plaster, still composed of raw mud ("terra cruda") mixed with increasingly fine straw layer after layer, until a very smooth wall was obtained.
When renovating the Casa Vecchia we created two walls with this plaster: a coarser grained one in the entrance room and a finer grained one in the Borage Room. Some original terra cruda bricks are still visible in the courtyard.
The coppi and s'incannizzàu
The roof was made with a wooden and reed structure, called incannizzàu , which was covered with classic terracotta tiles (called coppi).
Today the roof of the house has been completely restored and made more efficient, but we have reused the tiles from the original covering (some of which are visible up close in the garden).
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It was not possible to keep the original incannizzàu , now too damaged, but we wanted to replicate it in the attic of the entrance door; on the upper floor, however, the ceilings were entirely rebuilt in wood.
The "good" rooms
In the houses of the time it was customary to have "good rooms" made with more refined materials, to welcome guests in the best possible way.
In the Casa Vecchia, the entrance room and the two adjacent rooms on the street side are embellished with coloured cement tile floors and frescoed ceilings, still well preserved.
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The other rooms originally had a beaten concrete floor (still present on the upper floor).
The sardinian oven
The house could not be without an outside oven, where every Saturday Teresa, Boiccu's wife, baked the bread that had to last the whole week and, during the holidays, also baked the Sardinian pastries.
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The oven is also built of terra cruda, and has continued to function for all these years.
The "Old House" opens its doors
After this major renovation, since 2025 we decided to make the house a tourist rental, where guests can enjoy the quiet and relaxing atmosphere of the Sardinian countryside in a typical environment.
We could not give our property any other name than "The Old House", as our family and friends have affectionately called the place for the last 30 years.
