Utelys

 

I anledning maling av huset ble denne utelampen ved terrassen demontert så jeg kunne male rundt/bak den

Da den skulle settes på plass manglet noen av skruene, etter hvert ble den også ødelagt,

men ble bare hengende.

Leeeeeenge.

Nå måtte jeg bestemme meg for om jeg skulle prøve å finne en lignende erstatning, eller om jeg skulle finne noe helt annet, og i så tilfellet bytte ut alle utelampene.

 

Jeg bestemte meg for det siste. Valget falt på denne skjønnheten (fra Clas Ohlson).

Hvit, enkel og stilren.

Så nett i designet at den fikk plass ved siden av den monterte skilleveggen.  

Ventet spent på at lampen skulle slå seg på da skumringen kom, og ble veldig fornøyd med lyset den ga.

Den er en effektiv downlight og  lyser veldig spesifikt på det som måtte være rett under lampen, så får passe på å holde det fint akkurat der:)

Ser nå at denne lampen ikke gir så mye generell belysning ut over hagen som jeg kunne tenke meg, men så kan man vel ikke få alt likevel?

  



Nytt trekk til strykebrettet

Jeg har et lite strykebrett i bordstørrelse som passer meg fint, ikke krever det ekstra gulvplass når det skal brukes og ikke trenger det store lagerplassen heller.

Etter et ublidt møte med ivrige valpetenner tidligere i år trengte mitt lille strykebrett sårt til en omtrekking.

Ministrykebrettet kommer fra IKEA og jeg ser det fremdeles selges, og til en rimelig penge, men heller enn å kjøpe nytt ville jeg velge litt grønnere og trekke om det jeg allerede hadde og gjøre paddingen på bordet litt tykkere så ikke gitteret viser i nystrøket tøy.  

 

Jeg fant et tøy jeg ville bruke til trekk og i tillegg til den gamle paddingen brukte jeg to lag platevatt og et stykke fra et gammelt laken.

Strykebrettet ble brukt som mal for å legge kantebåndet på.

 Etter at det var sydd fast klippet jeg av stoffet som ble for mye.

 Før jeg sydde andre siden av kantebåndet fast la jeg inni hyssingen til å snøre fast trekket.
Hyssingen hadde jeg tatt vare på fra det opprinnelige trekket.

Nå begynner det å bli fasong på det!

Jeg smøg brettet nedi trekket og måtte ha hjelp av min datter for å knytte hyssing fast.

Her er brettet fiks ferdig.

Var litt redd for at paddingen skulle være for myk og ødelegge tøyet mens det ble strøket, men etter litt bruk har luften gått utav det og paddingen er passe fast nå.

 

Etter at jeg var ferdig med mitt eget omtrekkingsprosjekt fant jeg denne linken  med en litt enklere framgangsmåte.

Skulle ønske jeg hadde sett det før jeg gikk i gang med mitt :)

 

 

 



Moving up

Siden jeg malte stueveggene i oktober (tror jeg) i fjor har denne kulltegningen stått på lager på gulvet bak vedovnen i påvente av ny veggplass. Jeg hadde planer om å henge opp bildelister over lenestolene, bildelister ble kjøpt inn ca oktober og har dermed ventet like lenge på å bli satt opp. 

Since I painted the living room walls autumn last year, 

this charcoal drawing has been waiting for å new spot on the wall. 

I planned to mount a couple of picture ledges above the living room chairs, and although the ledges were also in waiting, it took me almost a year to get the job done.  

Helt utrolig, med tanke på at selve jobben tok mindre enn en halvtime bare jeg kom i gang. 

Jeg hadde planer om å sette opp to hyller, 

men på grunn av mangel skruer ble bare denne ene satt opp nå.

Men resultatet ble flott da, jeg er veldig fornøyd. 

Incredible, since in less than half an hour one of the ledges was up,

and I'm very pleased with the result.

Her kan jeg dekorere med bilder og vaser og lys og what not, og skifte ut når tid som helst. 

I dag satte jeg på en svart vase fra Søstrene Grene med en avlegger av Forsythia-busk som venter på å bli plantet ut. På den andre siden av bildet står min lille Omaggio-vase og et par svart og hvite telysholdere. 

Greit å være klar for talgelys-sesongen, nå som første høstmåned er i gang. 

Here I can decorate with pictures and flowers and candles and what nots, and change whenever I please. 

Back to school

This week my daughter started school again - but it was her mum who got the first homework!

To bind her school books. 

Previous years my daughter's been supervising the binding but this time I did it all on my own, 

With brown paper, maskingtape and stickers I got to it. 

I hope she'll approve.

The magnet letters do not, of course, stick to paper and was all for the pictures. 

Inspiration found in the very inspiring blog of Stine Hoelgaard Johansen. 

For a How-to on binding books, see the super blog of Marie Friis.

Stickers and notebooks from Søstrene Grene. 

Magnet letters from Tiger. 

Dressing the bedroom windows

A room with a view - at least from a certain angle

Our bedroom windows have been rather neglected  - ever since we moved in five years ago.

Not so anymore. 

Finally l've dressed them the way we want them. 

I've put up black roller blinds in the window frames. I chose black primarily because they show the least on the outside, I was a bit concerned that it would feel too dark in the room, but there are gaps between the blinds and window frame that let the light in. Always nice to be able to differ night from day.

Additionally we chose hanging curtains on the sides, in a thin, light fabric that prevent insight, but not daylight, during the day. 

These pictures are from my daughter's room, but the window dressing is the same, except for the banter, in the other bedroom.     

Before
The wooden roman blinds were heavy and difficult to pull up, and the fastening mecanism was starting to falter.

After
Roller blinds and curtains are up, the walls are painted all white and the trim around the window, door and ceiling have gotten their second coat of white paint. 

Growing in the shadows

Blomsterkassen på nordsiden av huset har fått litt ekstra oppmerksomhet i det siste. Jeg har omsider fått malt den, nå er den nymalt og fin.

Fra før av vokser revebjelle,  hosta, julerose, klatrebeinved og   bregne her. Og nå også den nyplantede bergflette/eføy, 

 - håper den vil trives på denne skyggefulle plassen.

Skal ordne netting og feste på pålene rundt kassen så den har noe å klatre på.

Har fylt på litt jord (blanding av sand og vanlig plantejord) og gjødsel, og håper dette vil få fart på voksingen.

Upgrading the big flower box on the north side of the house:
A couple of coats of white paint and the addition of an ivy  .
From before grow foxglove, hosta, wintercreeper, fern, Christmas rose.

Refreshing the kitchen

For ages I've been meaning to paint the walls in the kitchen, and now finally I have - at least one of them. It's not a big change - going from pale to white on the walls but I love it. 

Hopefully I'll get round to paint the rest of the walls before long...

Before - a cluttered counter and painting the wall halfway finished.

Clouds and raindrops

As I'm moving towards more graphic pattern in my interor deisgn I wanted to make a change to these very flowery flower pots. 

I got out a black permanent marker and doodled away. 

Big black raindrops on the one.

And stripy clouds on the other.

Before -  too flowery

After  - stripey clouds

A simple, easy and fun change

Box tower

Turned out we had some available storage space.

So on my latest trip to IKEA I found these boxes on sale, and I bought a lot of them.

We build them together, my daughter and I,
we folded and screwed,
and had fun making towers :)

Now all we have to do is fill up the boxes!

Redressing the dining room bench

Finally the redressing of the dining room bench  is finished.
Here you can see what it looked like before.



I started earlier this autumn sewing new covers for the seating pillows,
but when they were finished  things sort of went on hold.



Since there were a lot of patterns in the seating pillows
I decided to go for all white on the back pillows.

My storage of fabrics is fairly big, but it didn't hold any suitable all white fabric.
It took me awhile before I got round to buy it,
but now the fabric is bought and the sewing is done and
 the bench is thoroughly dressed in
black and white.

I'm so pleased.

Decision making is so hard

Things are at a stand still here.

While I'm trying to decide whether or not to take on a paint job on all the walls in the house.

It's not strictly necessary but it would look sooo nice.

The walls are already whitish but I would like them to be all white.

That's on the pro side
plus that it would be a lot easier to do it now than later because of some other wall constructing projects. 

On the con side is that I had an idea to finish projects before starting new ones 

plus that I'm not sure I'd have what it takes to finish the job.

 The last thing I need is yet another project that doesn't finish.

So I'm pondering back and forth.
Meanwhile everything is at a stand still.

The living room looks a mess,

with materials, fabrics, equipments and tools all over.

This is the only nice corner.

I have to make a decision!

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!