Like summer

What a lovely day!

Couldn't wait to get home from work. 

Skipped dinner and went straight for the terrace. 

Just to make sure we'd get some of those lovely sunbeams.

Ice cream and coffee. 

Laughter and weekend:) 

A couple of minor jobs

Improvements have more or less come to a stand still here.
It's so much more important, interesting, fun to do other stuff. Time passes so quickly.
All he usual excuses.  

We've backlashed into old habits of dragging things out and not putting them back to where they are supposed to belong. And also bringing more stuff to the house and not removing anything. 

This weekend I had a couple of hours to do something I could tick off from my to do list and I decided to  paint the trim around the windows in my daughter's room.

For unknown reasons the trim around the windows and in the ceiling throughout the house have various finishings; some have been painted, some not, and some have been varnished.
When we moved in four years ago I planned painting these to be amongst the first tasks I'd deal with...

This room needs more than just a lick of paint on the trimmings...

Wish I had a before-picture, then this after-picture of the downstairs closet would make sense ; big improvements:)

Anyways... I cleared the desk of stuff and cleaned the trim with a damp cloth. I probably should have cleaned it properly but this will have to do. 

Went looking for paint - knew I had some in the downstairs closet. 

Which was full to the brim and paint nowhere to be seen.

I ended up dragging out half of the closet's content before getting to the paint.
Quite a job - but the good thing is that in the process I filled three bags of trash/recycling. 

I found two cans of white paint that might be suitable, one of which had a funny looking brownish topping - didn't go with that one, but opted for the fresher looking paint in the bigger can.  

The only brush I found was the one used for painting the blue floor. Hopefully I'd cleaned it well enough to be used in this white paint job.
Really bad planning this - I know.

Two trimmings on the sides freshly painted and the paint job itself took less then twenty minutes!

Incredibly pink

Thought I'd brighten up the color scheme on the walls of the living room, so when I found this very bright pink sheet of paper (from a neon trend back in the 80'ies) I just had to frame it. 

The little ceramic piece with the male torso is signed Elin Brudvik.

The charcoal drawing is from 1958, can't make out the signature. It was previously showing off in a dark attic, now we are lending it a wall in our living room.

The bird illustration is from IKEA.

The color is so bright it almost melts the camera and it's impossible to bring out the exact color. Here it looks orangy-red, but is in fact a deeper pink. 

Fire to the room.

Energy to life.

A second chance

Earlier this summer I had a thorough weed out of my wardrobe. 

Quite a lot were let go, but there were a few items that I didn't want to throw out nor let back into the wardrobe. 

I really like these fabrics, there's a soft pale pink and two different pinstriped black&whites. 

Now I'm looking for ideas to use them in some crafting projects. 

Friday inspiration

Trying to inspire myself to keep on sorting our house. 

The dining room bench needs new pillow cushions, I've had this elephant fabric waiting for that. 

A white and black tin has become  a new container for kitchen utensils. 

A little white tray for corralling cooking oil, olive oil and balsamico. 

These are just tiny spots in our tiny house that are presentable. 

When I get home from work this afternoon I'll have to invest a couple of hours in a cleaning round before weekend begins for real.  

HAPPY WEEKEND

Representing me

The beautiful blog Sukkertøy for øyet / Eye candy has a challenge to show one picture to represent the entire blog. 

I don't want to have my blog's picture be a picture of Mess&Clutter even though that might be the most representative for my blog:)

Instead I chose this archive picture from our kitchen. 

I feel very at home with: 

light&white,

black&white,  

bright colours,

something round, 

something vintage,

utility. 

Shrubbery

In the north east corner of the garden, next to the hostas, I wanted to make a shrubbery.
I had five shrubs that needed a place to live, from the left; a dontknowwhat, a Juniperus medla (in Norwegian kinaeiner), a spirea, a symphoficarpus albus (in Norwegian snøballtre) and a rhododendron.

Symphoricarpus albus "White Hedge" (Hagesnøbær). Gives small pink flowers in June-July. White fruits the entire winter. Like it best in sun. Hight 1 m.

The spot I chose for the new shrubbery is just to the right of the hostas. 

The weeds had completely taken over this spot so it was quite a lot of work to prepare it for planting.

Here the weed has been cut back,  the bushes laid out to be planted and I am trying out various placements for them before deciding which goes where.

 Then it was time for digging;  all of the weed and quite a lot of smaller and bigger stones had to come up. The soil was compact and sandy and full of stones - I felt it took forever. 

I didn't do it all in one go - but divided it into three sessions with a couple of weeks in between. 

When planting I tried to make room for growth - particularly the rhododendron is supposed to grow a lot bigger. 

This meant the bushes are planted quite far apart, leaving this corner not at all as the luscious shrubbery I had imagined.  

For the open spaces I'll plant some tulips for the spring blossoming, here I've  laid out where I want them to go. 

Still left to do is tidy up in the shrubbery, remove a lot of the stones in the soil, and also make the borders     to the street and the neighbour better looking.  

Knitteries

                  

This is where and how I've spent most of my spare time the last week , sitting on the sofa, feet on the table - knitting.
I decided I had to equip my daughter for autumn and coming winter so I started on a jumper for her, in a model she OK'ed and in the color of her choice.

I started a week ago and if I keep up the speed then hopefully I'll finish it in time to keep her warm during the cold season. 

She very kindly agreed to try on the not yet finished jumper. 

I'm joining in with this week's Yarn Along, hosted by Ginny @ small things.  

Flower box renewal

As the summer has come to an end it's apparent that the summer flowers are also finished. 

Time for a season change. 

The pansies in the kitchen window flower box has faithfully blossomed since april. The three pictures showing the pansies as newly planted, then mid-season, and at last today. 

They were now relieved from duty (and about time it was too) and exchanged for some rich colored Erica (lyng). 

  

Harvest

There has not been much of a garden produce this year. 

I thought nothing at all, but then I discovered this neglected and forgotten tomato plant, 

originally tucked away to seek shelter from bad summer weather. 

And out of sight it had to make do on it's own. 

And still it produced the sweetest tomatoes. 

Soo small but soo very sweet. 

Autumn evening

On my table right now the faithful petunia representing summer and lit candles representing autumn. 

Autumn's coming. 

As it always does when summer fades out. 

One can tell by the chilly mornings and dark evenings. 

I used to love the autumn; 

the sharp air, 

the drumming rain(!), 

the freshness 

and the energy after a warm and light summer building up  strength

 - a new start. 

Figures

In an effort to keep my paper work in order I've dedicated a cupboard in the dining room bench to this. 

I've collected stationary paper and drawing paper in two boxes. 

And there's a two chested card board drawer to keep bills and other important papers in order while they're waiting to be dealt with. 

I have a really old fashioned way of keeping track of the household figures; I just write down the sum of each bill I've paid each month, and to whom, in a notebook. 

I pay my bills electronically and of course I can find them in my net bank, but I think it's so much easier to  backtrack them in this notebook. 

Enjoying the fruits of the season - Opal plums.

Yummi!!

Little Big Secret's Doll

This cute little japanese doll knows how to keep a secret!

In a compartment at the bottom there's room to leave a secret message .

I've left a note there for my daughter - wonder if she will think to look :)

The doll's been resting in a cupboard for a couple of years.
Now she's presiding on the dining table, squinting her eyes in the sharp autumn sunlight.