Somebody else’s kitchen

There is very little happening on the interior front at the moment, partly because we’re slow, partly because Christmas is not the right time to have the place all ahoo (though my mother and mother-in-law would obviously claim it’s all ahoo right now, but who listens to them, anyway?) and partly because all three of us have been knocked out by some sort of thing going round. The husband seems to have a straightforward cold, but the lass and I have something more complicated and fluey. She seems to be better, though, and is back in daycare today, while I finally get to sit down and simply be sick instead of also being mother, at least for a few hours. Bliss.

Anyway, we visited with friends in Sweden a little over a week ago, and I grabbed the chance to shoot a few pictures of their excellent refurbishment job, mainly for my own reference, since they’ve managed to get quite a few details in that I really want to make sure we remember whenever we get around to doing something with the kitchen here. But since I’ve got the shots I thought I’d share. They were shot at night, which was a bit stupid of me, but I didn’t get around to it earlier, and there was no attempt at styling (which will be obvious). Still, here goes:

Overview
Overview

I love the red tiles with the white fronts and black floor. I also love the lamp over the dining table, which is unusual, since I hate most lamps I see. The table is a natural gathering area, I’m a sofa-person myself, but even I tend to sit at the table here – it’s in the centre of the open-plan living space (the sofa area being off to the left of where I’m standing to take this picture), and it works really well.

My absolute favourite part
My absolute favourite part

Ignore the dirty dishes, look at that countertop, and most especially look at that sink! It’s huge! Certainly big enough to get full-size baking sheets and oven dishes in without any sort of maneuvering. The countertop, with sink, was made to specifications, so it fits the whole counter seamlessly. This is top of my list of WANTS for our own kitchen.

The corner
The corner

Some open shelving in the corner provides an opportunity to display a few decorative (and useful) items.

Details, details
Details, details

But this, this is perfect. It’s located at the dining table end of the kitchen island and can be hidden when not in use. It provides power for laptops used at the dining table or in the kitchen for recepies, and for charging mobiles and other devices right there where people congregate. Such a brilliant detail.

In fact, apart from changing the black laminate for linoleum flooring, I’d quite like to simply adopt the whole kitchen as it is. Problem is, it won’t fit in our flat. Pity. Still, inspiration is good, too.

Christmas in da house

Technically, I don’t get the Christmas decorations out before the 23rd. Well, except the advent star (which is up) and a wreath for the front door (which is not up, no idea where it is, actually), but I’ve been shopping legos lately (and how) and some of them are Christmas-related. So I started building the wintery sets. I’m planning on demolishing them and packing it all away after Christmas and taking it out each year to rebuild, eventually the lass will hopefully be able to help. This is the Winter Toy Shop set, and I’ve also got the Winter Village Bakery waiting to be started.

20101207_lego1

I adore the train in the window
I adore the train in the window

20101207_lego3I need to work on my Lego photography, though. Better lighting would help – and perhaps it would be a good idea to create some sort of set background for these? At the very least a white backdrop, but perhaps a bit of night sky or something would look good?

Oh, and I found a place to hang my beloved snowflake fairy lights, because somehow I don’t think we’re going to get around to putting curtains up in the hallway for some time yet:

20101207_lyskjede

Aperangle

I finished my first (I say first, because this is such an adorable pattern, I’m going to have to make more) monkey rattle just in time to give it away to Little N when we visited her last weekend. She is just three months old, and not quite grabbing things herself yet – almost there though, cause boy, did she want to grab! – but was quite clearly fascinated when someone else rattled the thing in front of her. As demonstrated by the lass in this picture:

20101128_aperangle1Ah, well, yes. Now, I wouldn’t really post pictures of Little N or the lass on the blog anyway, I guess you’d noticed? (If you know us and want to see pictures, let me know, we have a “secret” blog for such things.) However, due to something or other happening just as I shot this, this is actually the only action picture I have. Sorry.

Anyway, I did manage to get a picture of the finished rattle by itself, at least:

20101128_aperangle2It’s a little uneven and lumpy, but never mind. By the time it’s been chewed on for a few months no one will be able to tell anyway.

A reminder, if you want to make your own, the pattern is by Kaptein Biff and can be found here. And if you don’t want to make your own, the real deal can be found in her Epla shop. Accept no imitations (because of course imitations exist, don’t spend good money on one, though, get the real deal).

Dilla

Norwegian lesson of the day (long time since I last did one, actually):

Dilla n. signifying the state of being hooked on something, e.g. jeg har dilla – I’m hooked.

Specifically, I’m hooked on making snowflakes from beads.

Snowflakes, and some other stuff
Snowflakes, and some other stuff

Since the lass also likes fiddling with the tiny beads, we can sit reasonably peacefully at the kitchen table and create together, which is nice. That black heart is hers, by the way. Yup, a three-going-on-four-year-old goth, obviously.

Bloggtreff!

Ok, så er jeg litt treig. Jeg er i hvert fall den siste til å skrive om lørdagens bloggtreff… For Namaste var jo i Trøndelagen, så jeg troppet opp på Ni Muser, for dette hadde jeg for meg at måtte bli trivelige greier – trivelige folk trekker jo til seg andre trivelige folk, ikke sant? Og det ble det. Trivelig altså. Foruten Namaste og undertegnede var damene fra Gult hus i svingen, Skjerstad og Kreativius tilstede og dessuten kom Barbro hesblesende når hun var ferdig på jobb. Det ble skravlet. Det ble også spist. Riktignok fikk ikke Namaste den etterlengtede rekesalaten sin, og jeg fikk heller ikke eggesalat. Det viser seg at de har endret menyen på Ni Muser siden noen av oss vanket der for over ti år siden. Hørt sånt syn.

Som god matblogger (ja, jeg bedriver jo slikt også) tok jeg bilde av maten:

Ciabatta med kylling og tzasiki
Ciabatta med kylling og tzasiki

Den smakte utmerket. Dessuten tok jeg bilde av denne kaken, som en av oss spiste, jeg skal ikke sladre om hvem ;)

20101120_treff2Men bilde av de tilstedeværende presterte jeg ikke å ta.

Kreativius hadde til og med gaver! Så jeg er nå den heldige eier av disse tre skjønne julekurvene:

20101120_gaveJeg hang dem opp i vinduet for å ta bilde og bestemte meg for at der får de henge en stund og lyse opp, fine tingene. Kreativius, du er en knupp!

Det er dere forresten alle sammen, damer. Tusen takk for et usedvanlig hyggelig treff!

Strange and unnatural carpet wall begone

Since I finally got around to buying goggles and mask, I thought I might as well get to it and tackle that horrible unnaturalness on the wall in the soon-to-be hobby room.

Midway. I forgot to do a before.
Midway. I forgot to do a before.

The goggles and mask were necessary, because the glue holding the monstrosity to the wall was very dry and brittle. Thus tearing the carpet down was a cinch, getting the glue off was somewhat trickier. That is, it turned out to be easier than expected, using this tool:

A scrape
A scrape

And some elbow grease, it took less than an hour in all, I think. It resulted in a lot of this, though:

Debris. Very, very dusty debris.
Debris. Very, very dusty debris.

Which is why I thought the goggles and mask were required accessories for the job. Because, frankly, this would not normally be how I dress up of a Sunday afternoon:

Boo!
Boo!

However, it’s gone. The strange and unnatural and mind-boggling wall covering carpet is gone.

I dare you to try to explain to me how this is not "carpet" but perfectly normal wallpaper.
I dare you to try to explain to me how this is not "carpet" but perfectly normal wallpaper.

I realise I might now offend someone out there who just looooves their wooly walls, and, well, to each his own and ours is not to judge. But first stones aside: Are you mad? I mean, fine, you’re mad, I don’t really care. Whatever makes you happy. As long as the shit’s down off our wall.

On the subject of mad: What’s with mothers? Mine thinks we should have been all moved in by now (including having emptied the storage facility). I commented that as long as we were still refurbishing it would take a while, and that the magic carpet wall was next in turn (this was before I attacked it this weekend, obviously). She then let me know that she’d thought about it and had decided we should leave it as it was (and I mean “should” not “ought to”). Apparently she thinks it might help noice reduction between the rooms. Well, I granted her the point but wondered why she thought we would be in dire need of noise reduction between the hobby room and our bedroom. Well, it might be handy whenever it was used as a guest room, she argued. Which might happen, oh, I don’t know, at least once every blue moon, I guess, but I didn’t argue, just pointed out that I’d already started pulling it down to see if I could. In which case it was ok, apparently, to continue.

Why does she care, anyway? She lives in town, she’s hardly likely to ever need to sleep over. Besides: I HATE THAT WALL. Seriously, isn’t that reason enough to tear it down? Knowing us we’ll more or less cover the wall in shelving anyway, there’s noise reduction for you.

And what’s with everyone’s haste on our behalf? I don’t care if it takes us years to be done “moving in”, it’s not as if I’m planning on moving out again. I just said hello to our downstairs neighbour for the first time yesterday and she said they’ve lived here for 39 years. THAT’s what I’m planning on. Fine, I know, I know, life doesn’t actually always work out according to plan, but does that mean we should treat this place like we’re on a short term lease? Fuck that.

Følge og følge, Fru Blom

Jeg leser i hovedsak blogger i Google Reader. Det passer meg best, det er nemlig den enkleste måten for meg å sørge for at jeg får lest de viktigste (for meg) bloggene hver dag, samtidig som jeg har et lass med inspirasjon i form av forskjellige kategorier som jeg leser litt mer av og på. Men så var det dette med følgere, da. Det er jo for eksempel sånn at de fleste som har giborter og som bruker Blogger/Blogspot har som krav at man er “fast følger” for å få ekstralodd. Og, joda, jeg kan jo gjerne være det, men Bloggerprofilen min er jo ikke akkurat så givende. Men jeg skjønner jo at det er litt morsomt for folk å følge med på hvem som leser bloggen deres, så de siste dagene har jeg tatt et lite raid og forsøkt å få lagt meg til som følger på de bloggene jeg har i Google Reader. Det blir nok fler etterhvert også. Og sånn helt forsøksvis har jeg lagt en sånn Google Kontaktnettverk-widget på egen blogg også, nede i høyre marg, så hvis noen har lyst til å følge meg, så har de nå mulighet. Ikke helt sikker på hvordan det egentlig vil funke siden bloggen min ikke er en Blogger/Blogspot-blogg, men det vil jo vise seg. Og jeg kan jo alltids ta den bort etterhvert dersom det ikke later til å ha noe for seg.

Men så vet dere nå det. Hva det nå var.

More hooks

We followed up the Oslo Whiskyfestival with a short cruise to Fredrikshavn, and with 12 hours ashore, we decided to take the bus down to Ålborg instead of hanging around Fredrikshavn. In Ålborg I had noted down a couple of shops I wanted to visit, and one of them was Tiger. They had a lot of almost interesting things, but very few interesting enough to tempt me, but I did find some more wall hooks, or coat hangers or whatever you’d call them. Blatant rip-offs, obviously, and normally I don’t hold with buying designer rip-offs, but what with the problems I’ve been having finding any hooks I like and that actually work, in that it’s possible to hang something on them and expect that it stays there, I thought I’d go for them. Also, they were only 30 DKR each. Later the same day I saw some others, also quite blatantly rip-offs, more or less identical, at 6 times that. I mean, if you’re buying rip-offs, why pay more than you have to?

Anyway, they are up now. One has replaced the very cute but completely useless (in that it would only hold two garments, and not very bulky ones) coat hanger from IKEA that we put up in the hall for the lass’ clothes:

See: More than two garments, and bulky ones at that. And still there's room for more!
See: More than two garments, and bulky ones at that. And still there's room for more!

The other one has been added to the bedroom wall, where some odds and ends have also come up:

20101114_knagg2The crooked (my fault, I haste to add) picture is a present from Tonbel, the angel from another good friend and the messy artwork is the lass’ “creation”, with rather a lot of help from the daycare staff.

Selvsagt

Jeg og snuppa var på kafé på lørdag, og mens vi satt der kom en far med to gutter – mest sannsynlig tvillinger. De satt seg på et bord i nærheten, og den ene gutten hadde veldig fin strikkelue. Snuppa var midt i en “Hvor kommer … fra?” spørsmålsrunde, noe hun driver med en del for tiden, så hun spurte selvsagt:

Og hvor kommer luan demmers fra?

Jeg: Tja, de kan komme fra fabrikk, eller kanskje de har en farmor som har strikket til dem?

Snuppa: Ikke min farmor!

Jeg: Nei, ikke din, farmor, men de guttene har kanskje en farmor de også, som har strikket til dem. Eller en mormor.

Snuppa: Eller beste.

Jeg: Ja, eller beste.

Snuppa: Eller farfar.

Det er bra å få en påminnelse når jeg glemmer meg og forfekter et gammeldags kjønnsrollemønster.