flat – Page 2 – Mirthful

So near, and yet sofa

October 20, 2010October 21, 2010 Mirthful 1 Comment

‘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.

Cleverly styled with the husband's laptop open

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.

Seeking solutions

October 19, 2010October 19, 2010 Mirthful Leave a comment

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…

Pine begone!

September 14, 2010September 14, 2010 Mirthful 2 Comments

Eller død over furuhelvetet, som man kanskje ville si på en norsk interiørblogg.

And it’s so much better already:

Also, paint the rest of the room, as I only managed a first coat on half the room this evening.

And since Nicolette asked about bathrooms. Well, there’s the combined toilet/utility room:

Yeah, we thought we’d leave the washing machine in the middle of the floor. Making a statement, you know.

Kidding, obviously. We need to adjust the back left “leg” to make it stable and level and we couldn’t get at it. We’ll have to give it another try.

This room badly needs a decorator, but it’s not high on our list of priorities, because it’s at least practical. I did put a mirror up, though.

And here’s the bathroom. Well, a sliver of it:

Here’s another sliver. Including an inadvertent self portrait. Well, at least I’m dressed.

The shower curtain we picked up at a flea maket. Geeky enough for you?

And another detail, non-permanent: We’ve set up our bed in one of the smaller bedrooms, and needed a reading light. We’ll only be here until we’ve got the other room painted, so there didn’t seem to be any point in finding a permanent solution – buying a new lamp, for example. So I mounted one of our old lamps on my tripod:

Ingenious! Until I need a tripod, obviously.

Ok, so the paneling stays.

September 12, 2010September 12, 2010 Mirthful Leave a comment

At least in the bedroom.

I started trying to remove it, starting with the molding:

Then I attempted to remove the longest piece on the left wall:

See, the wall between this bedroom and the main living area was put up by the previous occupants when they had another child and therefore needed another bedroom. Prior to this the area was open off the kitchen and used as a dining room. We’re happy with the dining area as it is now, we need the extra room more, so we’re leaving the wall up. However, the wall was simply put in place on top of the existing decoration – paneling, molding and all.

It’s even more obvious from the outside:

So we’ll go for plan B, painting it all white. In the bedroom at least. On the walls in the living area, I think it can be removed without this sort of trouble, but that’s a project for later in the autumn, I want to get the bedroom sorted first.

Another argument for leaving the paneling is that we won’t have to deal with sorting out things like these:

The sockets can stay as they are, then. Goody.

Aha. Pictures!

September 2, 2010September 2, 2010 Mirthful 2 Comments

Some pictures from the new flat:

Kitchen and living room to the right, bedrooms left. Will have to paint this wall. Might cover it with bookshelves.

1st bedroom, with something that looks like a carpet on this wall. WTF? Will tear down and eventually this will be the guest/craft room.

Wardobes in what will be our bedroom. Will have to paint walls. Also, probably, tear down paneling. Or just paint it. We'll see.

Third bedroom. Will stay as is and be "junkroom" for the time being.

More wardrobes. Three of the four bedrooms have these old wardobes, and they're great, so that's good.

Fourth bedroom. The lass has decided this is her room. Doesn't need much work, as we'll keep the walls white and add colour though furniture and accesories. — Fourth bedroom. The lass has decided this is her room. Doesn't need much work, as we'll keep the walls white and add colour through furniture and accesories.

View the other way, into the little hall which will act as a sound barrier to the living room, and has lots of closet space.

Living room - not crazy about the brick but I can live with it. It'll probably be hidden behind bookcases anyway.

Now, problem areas:

That carpeted wall. What were they thinking? Down it comes. Room will be painted white. Probably.
Green walls: Will be white ASAP.
Paneling: I hate it. Will consider tearing it down. Otherwise painting it white to blend with rest of wall. Probably tearing down, though.
Window frames and mouldings: I don’t like it. You guessed it: Paint it white.
Doors: Oh, the horror. A lick of paint would help, but I want the moulding gone, really, so I might try removing it on one door to see how much work it will take to make the door presentable.
Kitchen: It’s ok, I guess. Long term we will probably want to remodel. I’m still tempted to paint it, but I might not bother if we’re going to tear it out in a few years. It’s not the first project I’ll tackle, anyway.
Oh, and yes, those windows over the doors and wall. *Shudder* Not quite sure what to do there. Need to think. I suppose we could replace them with something “cleaner”.