ABOUT SOME STUFF

(Yes, I know, I am among the more creative out there when it comes to headlines.)


We actually have two more rooms in our flat; the study and the kids' room, but they were not tidy enough to snap pics of.
(They are to the right in the pic, before our bedroom. The birdie-bathroom is to the left.)

Anyway, I intended to write about the armchairs and the wallpaper and other things quite many of you have asked about in the previous post about home already , but wasn't up to it then. So here goes now instead:

The wall paper is called Ken Kiuruista Kaunein ("Who is the Fairest of the Nightingales") and was designed by Birger Kaipiainen in the 1950's. It comes in a four colour variations and has a sister design in Kiurujen Yö ("Night of the Nightingales"). You can get it at Tapettitalo. They have an English translation of the site, and maybe, maybe, it could be possible to order abroad also.


My make up table cost me 20 euros from the finnish auction site Huuto.net, along with the stool. I also got our living room table trough that site. The stool was just a frame to which I build a seat of some left over wood from the renovation and a piece of foam, some fabric and ribbon. The lace is cut from a waxed cloth. The string shelves in the living room I spent a small fortune on, but the one here in the bedroom and the one in the study I got from my grandparents (they left one here in the flat for me) and from my mom and dad's garage.


I have the same waxed lace cloth on the shelves in the wardrobe too. I have received a lot of request to show pictures of my wardrobe during the years. Here's just a tiny sneak peek; I keep my clothes in here but also on a rack and then in the mini walk in closet in the study (among with lots of burlesque outfits and props, winter clothes and summer sandals, tools and other more undefined items…). The bedroom closets are original; I repainted them white on the outside and painted them soft pink on the inside and changed the old not-so-functional shelves into an Elfa drawer system.


(Bonus cat and cabinet radio-pic.)


A lot in our livingroom happens to be old and vintage, but the arm chairs are in fact not. They are a classic model from Finnish furniture comapy Asko that has been produced since way back. I am not sure if it has been in production constantly, but anyway, it is at least now. The chair is called Helena. It comes in a wide range of fabrics; I originally wanted a pair in a soft woven gray fabric, but one such would've cost more than the two deep red together so red it was. And better that way actually. There is also a similar chair called Richard in a classic fifties design with more patterned fabrics.

AT HOME

The bright light shining in trough the windows (that still are waiting to be washed) at as late as six in the evening is a sign that spring has not only begun but h´been here a while already. The weather however disagrees.

As the light was rather nice at the same time as something rare occurred; the flat was almost tidy; I decided to take some pictures of home. There has actually not been that many since the renovation was finished.


I intended to write a bunch about tapestry, furniture and revamping items but you know what - I'll leave that to another time!

And yes, I still only have two cats, but they really do manage to be everywhere all at once.

SNOW IS WHATEVER COLOUR THE SKY IS

That makes a lot of blue at night.

SWANS AND NATURE

The beautiful colours from a few weeks back have now fallen off the trees and are on the ground instead, most of the branches are bare. Which is beautiful still, only a different kind of beautiful.

Biking trough the park into town is like biking trough a small piece of nature documentary each and every time; fasans strutting about, squirrels munching on cones (Eddi hates squirrels but I still find them pretty cute, although I know they eat bird babies) and lots of small little birdies whose names I learned in school but cannot recall anymore. Every single time I curse not bridging my camera along.

Last week however I happened to carry it and took some photos of the swan couple that has been haning around here lately.






I find the fact that swans are monogamous romantic, although I know that it's only nature and features of a species. A few summers back however we had a crazy killer swan hanging around our island in the archipelago, attacking others. There was also a lone mother and her swan baby. One day the male swan attacked the mother. We interfered with nature by driving the male swan away but then he returned and drowned the mother by keeping her head under water while the little baby swan went all peep-peep next to them. Nature is cruel, but I didn't know birds did that, whatever the reason was... and now I made everyone feel bad, myself at least, the story always makes me cry a little bit, while this post was meant to be more of a feelgood one.

Oh, ignore it, just think of the nice park and loving swans instead OK.

THE BIRDS ARE LEAVING

It is always as fascinating how they go from what seems like a total chaos into being perfectly organized.

(The middle on of the three houses in the first picture was my first ever home btw.)

SO MUCH COLOUR, SO MANY SHADES

Autumn is here and the colours of the park outside our house has changed.


I sat down a bit on my way in to town.


A little green still, but mostly shades of yellow, red and rust.


Yellow, red and rust - matching the colours of the trees :)


The light is incredably sharp.


It's hard to keep ones eyes open. (our building is the one between my head and my arm btw :)


Heading home.

Well that was yesterday; today however it is raining and they have threatened us with snow!

No way I say.

FLAT-TO-BE phase 4; DETAILS

I've been running around on meetings and doing errands and renovating. In other words, I've been way from the internet most of the time and that makes me feel terribly isolated.
(Such a 21- century problem, getting all anxious after couple of days away from the internet!)

But with the flat; we're getting there. (There's not too much else to blog about this week I'm afraid :)
The living room is getting it's wall paper and I've put the old, cleaned light switches back on.


A lot of thing s will be in my favorite color combination, pearl grey and white (as seen in my header among other things). The door frames for example.


My mom was cleaning out one of the closets and saved this tin jar for me. Fazer is the biggest company (and also and one of the oldest) of bred, biscuits and most of all sweets, in Finland.


We are also keeping the original wardrobe closet. I planned to paint the closets sky blue but there was a lot of pink over from the kitchen. Alas, closet is now pink.


And the kitchen is coming up. We're making it pretty much the same as the original kitchen, only with some modern benefits. Some parts were bought ready but we have also ordered some items handmade from a carpenter. We've kept the original door handles from the old kitchen.


Eddi put up the tiles yesterday. Kitchen will be ready today and I'm off now to pick up some more wall paper we've ordered!

FLAT-TO-BE, phase 2 1/2 & 3

Mostly phase three, as I forgot to take pictures there in between... pretty much how things are now:

This is the room with all the stuff in it you could see in the previous post. The study. Btw you'd never believe on of the most heavily trafficked roads in Finland runs just behind those trees.

Bedroom floor done. We'll most likely paint it, but struggle between two colors; pearl grey and black. A shiny black wooden floor looks great, but it might be too dark for this room though.

New shiny kitchen floor and strawberry milkshake-coloured walls! There's not much else in the kitchen for the moment though, except electrical stuff (as you can see).

My grandparents lived in Canada and the US, California mostly in the 1950's and 60's and later in Tanzania. There are some items of that time "left over". I found this wooden box in the basement. I think I'll keep flowers in it, on the balcony. (I'm also keeping the small table the box is on as my grandmother had no use for it in their new home.)

The wooden fruit box was lined with old, early 60's newspaper ads.

Soon it will be kitchen time!

FLAT-TO-BE, phase 1.

Or, what I've been up to lately.


Here are some pictures I took just before we started the renovation, which have now been going on for two weeks. I feel I've done nothing but renovate lately.
I hate renovations.
But I love the result.
I aimed to do as little as possible and hire as many professionals as possible, but still, in some strange ways, we see ourselves doing a lot of work all the time. Well, I guess that's the way it goes.

The flat we are moving to is my grandparent's. They moved out this winter when the whole building was having the plumming changed, into a more suitable building for those 90+. (With like, well, you know, elevators and such. Ovens that are not electrically damaged and dangerous and so on).

I spent a lot of time in this flat as a kid, and grew up just behind the corner myself. So its kind fo like going back to my roots then I guess :) Which is not a long way, only across town; barely 10 km from where I am now. But since it's at the other side of the highway bridge into -or, out of- town, making it another city, it is considered far away.
And sometimes feels like that too.
Sometimes just like home.

It looks so different now already!

We'd love to have kept the old stove, but like said; it has become kind of life threatening.

There was a lot of my granparents' stuff around. And still is, only hid in the closets for now. Tons, really, tons of books.

There hasn't really happened much in the past 40 years since they moved there - or 50 since it was built either, so there's quite a lot to do. Like taking out ugly carpets. Which I'm not doing in this picture though. I'm just pretending.

But I did break a lot of stuff! Stuff that had to be broken to get out. I felt very strong afterwards. Me and my crowbar were like this: X

The view is nice -

-you can catch a glimpse of sea from behind the trees.

More phases coming up.