The painting in the “master bedroom” is now done.
Now to inject some colour. And play around with the layout. Mind you, once the bed is in place, there will be limited scope for playing around.
Which might be why the lass thought it best to use the room for ballet practice while it was still empty:
Mirjam Theresa of Æbleblomst posted pictures of her collection of Moomin-ware the other day and asked others to share. As it reminded me to put the dishes on the Christmas wishlist, I’m happy to oblige, though my collection is smaller and I don’t seem to have any she doesn’t. I do love them, though.
These have mostly been aquired through the simple means of donating blood, as it is customary here in Norway to get a “prize” for taking the trouble to donate and they’ve had the Moomin mugs as one of the choices for years. The last couple of times I’ve been they’ve been oddly lacking. A pity, though naturally that won’t stop me from donating.
These two are the only ones I’ve paid for (in money rather than blood…): The one on the right was a gift to the husband, so I guess that makes it his, the other is the special edition celebrating the Moomins’ 65th birthday.
What with all this Moomin focus, I suddenly remembered just what to look for at Outland today. I’d planned to stop by anyway, as they’d announced on Facebook that they were having a 3 for 2 sale on books and comics, but had no specific books in mind. And then suddenly I did. Luckily, they were not sold out, so I came home with these four:
According to the Outland webshop, there appears to be a fifth (or, rather, a fourth, as it is marked as volume four), which I guess will promptly go on the wishlist…
Well, it is, you know. At least if you chose the right design.
Since I’ve been home sick for the last couple of days, I needed to find something to keep my hands moderately busy while watching crap tv (all my brain could handle).
The only craft supplies I had any idea where were were the cross-stitch things.
Partly because I’ve had this design in mind for a while, but I haven’t had time to sit down and work out a pattern for it.
I’m not going to claim responsibility for the idea, though, more pithy phrases have been showing up in cross-stitch samplers for a few years.
And this specific phrase isn’t mine either, though I haven’t seen it in cross-stitch before.
I do, however, have it on a bumper sticker somewhere, purchased fåglarna knows where.
This was quite quick, once I got to it. Perhaps I should make a few for Christmas?
Now I need to find a frame.
‘Scuse the pun.
The inlaws came by last week to “see how far we’d gotten”. Well, I suppose the conclusion was “not far”. We’re ok with that, though, we plan on living in this flat “forever” and so we feel we have time to work out how to get it right, to find out what works and what doesn’t.
My mother-in-law would probably lose her mind in a very short time if she had to live in our flat the way it looks now, though. So would my mum, come to think of it. We’re ok with that, too. They don’t have to live there. We do, and we’re comfortable in stepping around and over boxes for days, weeks and months before figuring out where the contents go – or having the energy to put them there.
There are other things we don’t see eye to eye on, too. My mother-in-law thinks the brick walls (which we’ve discovered are actually tiles made to look like bricks) look nice. We said she could have them. My father-in-law expressed, the last time they visited, the opinion that we should try to keep the amount of bookcases in the living room to a minimum. Yeah, that’s going to happen.
At the start of the visit it became abundantly clear that the current seating arrangements in the living room, though fine when it’s just the three of us, is not really adequate for visitors. Well, I say “arrangements”, it’s more a “where the sofa and chair happened to be put down” situation. I commented on the fact that there was really no place for them to sit and that we’d have to think about a solution. My mother-in-law suggested that what we needed was a corner sofa. Or another sofa, I suggested, so we can make a corner. Well, yes, but she really thought a nice corner sofa would be best. Yes, but then what would I do with my beloved sofa, I wondered, as I want to keep it. Well, we could just shove it into one of the bedrooms, in her opinion. I explained that this was not happening, since we have plans for the bedrooms which do not involve a spare three seater.
I’m pretty sure she wasn’t convinced, but then she doesn’t have to be, I suppose.
This is my sofa. I love my sofa.
I purchased it at a flea market in Oslo for 200 kr, and paid another 300 to have it delivered. It was worth it, I lived on the fourth floor, no lift. It is incredibly comfy, the material is obviously hard-wearing, it’s just long enough to sleep on, I think the shape is cool and I adore the colour. It’s also pretty much the perfect length for the husband and I to sit at either end and play footsie in the middle.
Lately, it’s been the husband’s seat more than mine, I’ve sat in the various chairs we’ve had after we moved to more than 32 square meters. But I still love it.
So now I’m surfing for new sofas, starting with finn.no. I guess we’ll be holding our eyes open at flea markets, too. And we’ll get one the husband likes, then he can have that and I can have mine “back”.
The main problem is getting one that fits the requirements: Comfy, at the right price and not butt-ugly. At best it would go with the other one, but that might be a bit too much to hope for. But I draw the line at butt-ugly. And since I think 90% of all sofas are butt-ugly and a fair few of the ones that aren’t are quite impossible to sit comfortably on, we might be searching for a while.
Slowly, ever so slowly, we are starting to get – well, I was going to say we’re starting to get the flat in order, but perhaps that is a bit premature… At least we’re starting to get an idea of how we want things to be. One of the things we sort of discussed yesterday is whether or not to put up bookshelves along this wall (once the paneling is off and the painting done):
I was the hesitant one, would you belive it, but only because I have this wild idea that it would be possible to seat a bucketload of people around a long table if we could utilise the space along there. The husband chimed in with a very reasonable “So you want to base the whole layout of the flat on the one occasion where we might want to seat 30 people?” And I had to conceed that he is quite right, it would be madness not to use this space for bookshelves.
However, since the majority of our books are less than 20 cm wide, I suggested that, as a sort of compomise, it would be best if we could get shelves that are only 20 cm deep – as opposed to the 30 cm that seem to be standard. This, however, is easier said than done. IKEA has one model with 24 cm deep shelves, but that doesn’t come with enough shelves so you end up with wasted space in the other direction. We could go down the custom built route, but how easy (or difficult) is that going to be?
Well, the godawful paneling has to go first, so we have some time to think about it…
I know it’s only October, but since I like to plan Christmas presents some time ahead, I like giving others the opportunity to do the same. So in the proud tradition, here we go:
Dear Santa,
I realise you may be a bit miffed that we’re teaching the lass that you don’t really exist, explaining that all the Santas she sees around are just people in costume and that her presents actually come from family and friends, but I hope you’ll forgive me and se your way to fix us up with some of the following anyway:
1. Peace on earth.
2. A Kindle. Preferably, I think, a Kindle DX, as one of the reasons for wanting one is to be able to read pdfs, and according to this review, the larger screen is a pretty good idea for that sort of use. However, the Kindle 3 with just wi-fi would also rock my socks. Other major benefits that I see immediately are A. downloading books from the Gutenberg project, in Kindle format, no less, for example Iphigenia which I really need to read after seeing the show at Trøndelag Teater on Saturday and B. reading in the rain by simple expedient of a cover (you could put a cover on a “real” book, too, but turning the page becomes complicated).
3. Health and longevity for my nearest and dearest and for the following authors/artists (and any others I may have forgotten): Robin Hobb, J.K. Rowling, Stephen Fry, Jo Nesbø, Ole Paus, Bjørn Eidsvåg, Alanis Morisette, Michael Wiehe, Michael Parkinson, Håkon Gullvåg, Lillebjørn Nilsen, Neil Gaiman, Bill Bryson, India Knight, Kate Atkinson, Bob Dylan, Jasper Fforde and the Top Gear guys.
4. A ten-litre pot that works on induction stove-tops.
5. An Overlock. Like this one. Or one of the Husqvarna Huskylocks they have here.
6. Anything from Gaver med mening, Gaver som forandrer verden, Oxfam unwrapped (look, you can buy “me” schoolbooks!) and similar sites.
7. Non-stop.
8. The Sandman books.
9. A Fuji Instax mini – and film – available from Photojojo amongst others. Other thingamabobs from Photojojo that make me drool a little: SLR pinhole body cap and The white balance lens cap. And pretty much everything else they sell, to be honest.
10. Dishes with the Moomins on them. We have a collection of cups (mostly from “giving blood-rewards”), but I’d love to have the deep dishes, too, then we could really use the set for coffee and dessert.
11. A Roomba!
12. Moomin casserole and saucepan and Moomin spoons – all from Hackman.
And for the lass, who really has been good, her own list:
1. “Solveig og Kosinus-sangen” – that is, the song from the tv-show. Seems to only exist as a single so far, a whole CD would be better.
2. A Queen CD all of her own containing “We Will Rock You”.
3. Toy Story figures, especially Jesse “livesize”. Also Toy Story lego.
4. Pretend food of all kinds.
My additions:
1. Pyjamas in size 116 or 122. Fleece pants and/or tops in size 116.
2. Good books (but check with us first, we have quite a few – understatement of the year).
3. DVDs: Disney, old children’s tv shows and newer ones (check what we already have).
4. Listen and read combination things – those books with the story on CD – if they still exist?
5. Doll’s clothes (pretty much any size doll) – hand made if you do that sort of thing.
6. Jigsaw puzzles of 30 pieces and upwards (the sky’s the limit, she’ll grow into them eventually).
I am making one of these:
I know everyone else is doing it, too, but how can one help oneself? Cuuuuute!
The pattern for the monkey rattle, in both Norwegian and English, is graciously shared by Kaptein Biff.
And if you can’t crochet – or can’t find your needles because you just moved – you can purchase a rattle from her Epla shop (if there are any in stock, they seem to sell the moment they are listed – but there are other designs as well, all equally cute, I might just die from the cuteness, actually).
I got some art up on the wall in the kitchen. This wall is concrete and h*ll to make new holes in (we had to to anchor the whisky cupboards on the other side), so I just used the nails the previous owners had left. It works, though I would have rearranged the pictures (and lined up better) if I could do so easily. As it is, I suspect this is how it will remain.
The artwork is by various Trondheim-based comic book writers/artists (most by Mads Eriksen), and was purchased a few years back at an event in aid of a local comic showcase magazine. The husband had to work quite hard to convince me to stop at four, as they were (I thought) ridiculously cheap. The two in colour went for 300 kr, as far as I can remember, with the b&w ones going for less. Bargain!
The table and the one chair you can’t really see are inherited. My brother-in-law and his fiance had it before, and they painted it this dark blue colour, which is quite nice. However, especially on the table top it is quite worn by now. Also, the set (we had five more chairs, after some breaks I think we have four left) are originally teak (or at least teak-coloured), and I’ve been meaning to try paint stripper on one chair since we got them five years ago. Perhaps I’ll get around to it someday… They badly need recovering, anyway, so it would make sense to do both.
Possibly of the year.
This afternoon we thought we’d check out the flea market that was supposed to be at Stjørdal, and on the way there we stopped by Røde Kors-huset i Hommelvik where there was also a market happening. We browsed the furniture outside, but nothing really caught our fancy, then headed inside. The first thing I noticed, partly because it was right inside the door, was a loom. “Vev 350 kr” a note on it said. Well, I knew for a fact I didn’t have 350 NOK, and the husband had just remarked he didn’t have any cash, so I decided to browse the rest of the room. Nothing else caught our fancy, though, and as they had a sign up saying “bag sale from 1 pm, 50 kr a bag”, I figured they were getting to the point where they wanted to get rid of stuff. I checked my wallet and found I had a 200 kr note, so I thought i was worth a shot.
I’ll give you 200 for the loom – it’s all I have on me.
I guess by now you’ve realised that the answer was “OK”?
It’s what we’d call a “table loom”, as in you can put it on top of a table to weave. It also came with a stand, which we dismantled to get it in the car. All the essential pieces seem to be there.
Now, my mum actually has two looms (only one assembled, though), but they’re both pretty big. My mother-in-law also has a big one. So I can’t claim I needed my own to get to try weaving, exactly. However, having one’s own is obviously nice, it means I decide how to thread it. Since it’s pretty portable, too, I can take it to my mum’s to get her to help me and then take it home again to weave, if I was to “borrow” one of theirs it would mean sitting at their place to weave. Not quite the same thing.
So: Juhuu! All round.
Other than that it was mostly slim picking this weekend, though we managed 5 different flea markets. The on at Stjørdal was in an old hangar and was simply too big – or perhaps we were there too late and everything interesting had been sold? At least I couldn’t find anything worth buying. Saturday was somewhat better. Some books and some dvds, a couple of orphaned plates and a box containing 20-30 Bionicle figures (I haven’t attempted to sort though them to figure out just how many) for 50 kr, which has to be considered cheap. Oh, and a pair of Levis in the lass’ size for the humongous sum of 5 kr.
Altså. Hvis man skal blogge om interiør og design og i tillegg selge produkter innenfor denne varegruppen, kan man faktisk forventes å lære seg hva ordene man bruker betyr. Man skal aldri bruke fremmedord man ikke er adekvat* med, vettu. Derfor denne lille bloggposten i folkeopplysningens navn:
Retro = designet i gammel stil.
I motsetning til
Vintage = faktisk gammelt design.
Jeg er rimelig sikker på at ingen av disse stoffene er retro.
Dette er en noe essensiell forskjell, særlig fordi den skal fortelle leseren/kjøperen hvorvidt de kjøper noe som ble lagd i Kina for 14 dager siden eller som har vansmektet på noens loft i 30 år. Begge deler kan være kule, men det er en vesensforskjell.
Monogram = “sammenflettede forbokstaver i navn formet som et merke el. et ornament” (sitat bokmålsordboka)
Ingen av produktene i denne bloggposten er monogrammer.
Eksempel på monogram som vi muligens brukte i vårt bryllup (noe lignende var det i hvert fall, jeg føler at jeg kanskje burde huske dette…):
Fine steder å sjekke at de ordene man bruker faktisk betyr det man tror de betyr:
(I dette tilfellet vil jeg ikke anbefale Google, da det sikkert er mange nok andre som slenger i vei med ord de ikke egentlig kan til at søkeresultatene bare blir forvirrende.)
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* For ordens skyld. Adekvat betyr slett ikke det det ser ut som ut fra setingen, men “dekkende, fullgod, samsvarende med”. Setningen er såvidt jeg husker en vits fra en gammel Pusur-dagbok. En annen variant, som benytter samme fremmedord, men i rett betydning, er “Hvorfor bruke fremmedord når vi har slike adekvate uttrykk på norsk?” Så sant, så sant.