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 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.

Kitchen

Kitchen

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”.

But I like it, the song’s great, the typography spot on.

F*** you, by Cee-Lo:

What if we combine that last one with this:

Picture from the Cath Kidston shop in York by Attic 24

Nice.

(via Attic24)

Styled by Lotta Agaton

Trippel, in turn found it at Emmas designblogg, who used it to illustrate how excellent work of Lotta Agaton is. I am not going to quarrel with the styling, which I find impeccable, but my main interest in the picture is how a very striking set of shelves is constructed from a pile of crates. The husband keeps bringing home these lovely crates from work which have been used to ship wine bottles, and we have actually used them for shelving before, but in a much more straightforward, boring way. This idea needs to be mulled over.

Other blogs recently added to the “interior design” folder:

• Den gode feen
• Fargesirkelen
• Fjeldborg
• Kvirrevitt
• Lullaby og la la
• Nästet – ett hem att trivas i
• RareRina
• Tusindfryd
• Huset ved bekken
• Bare wunderbar
• The vintage hausfrau
• Karen Marie Dehn

Most in Scandinavian (that is, Norwegian, Swedish or Danish), I’m afraid. Have a wee browse even if you don’t read those languages, they are all brimming with gorgeousness in the form of pictures – which, after all, is much of the point in seeking interior design inspiration.

 They are even stackable. If you had enough of them you could build a life-size lego fort. Now there’s an idea…

Ok, maybe not, but I will certainly be stocking up on a few in order to store the increasing Lego collection.

I notice we are not the only ones, Den gode feen has also discovered them, and already purchased some. I think we’ll wait until we have actually moved.

See, we sold our current flat, thinking it would be useful to know how much we’d get for it before buying a new one. Despite the fact that we’re really looking to move somewhere now where we can stay, like in “forever”. Or at least for a very long time. Which means it ought to be kind of ideal, not just the first reasonably ok place we find. But even so, we sold our current flat. And the guy who bought it expects to be able to move in 20 September. Ooops.

So we were suddenly facing homelessness, in as much as even if we could crash at my parents’ place where would we put all our stuff?

And then we won a slight bidding war one and a half week ago. And then we had to waaaaaait until the “forkjøpsrett” – the right of first refusal – in the borettslag was cleared. Which is was this morning.

So, it seems we bought a flat.

Yay!

We’ve been celebrating with a bottle of champagne and have only just started planning. How to move, for example. Getting a new daycare place  for the lass, since the new place is basically on the other side of town. Trying to figure out how to best utilise the space. Realising that we need to buy some furniture. Like wardrobes. There are none in the new flat and the ones in this are built in, so they stay here.

IKEA here we come.

By chance, Petchy (on of my regular reads) has also just recently become the owner of a new flat. She’s doing a lot more interior design than we’re planning, but I’m going to be picking up some inspiration in any case. Some decoration will be neccessary, after all.

Noen dager tenker man: “Jøss, har ikke han vært død lenge?”

Og noen dager blir man nesten på gråten.

I dag er en dag av den siste typen. Gustav Lorentzen er død. Jeg er fortsatt ikke helt sikker på at jeg tror på det. For å sitere Mikkel Grüner på Twitter:

Lorentzen? DØD?? Jeg var ellers ganske sikker på at han hadde fått bevilget fritak.

Det er selvsagt delvis fordi Gustav Lorentzen ER Ludvigsen, og Ludvigsen er jo en snål liten fyr som bor i en tunnel. Og små snåle fyrer som bor i tunneler dør jo ikke bare sånn uten videre. I hvert fall ikke av hjertestans under et o-løp.

Og hva skal stakkars Knutsen gjøre nå? Tør han å bli boende i tunnelen helt alene? Hvor skal han ellers bo?

Knutsen og Ludvigsen har vært en del av min bevissthet så lenge jeg kan huske. Vi hadde de første historiene på en gul kassett – tatt opp fra radio, tror jeg. Den hørte jeg på i bilen når jeg fortsatt måtte sitte på pute (og vi sluttet jo med slikt mye tidligere den gangen). Og alle platene, selvsagt. På LP eller kassett. Og etterpå har jeg kjøpt dem på CD. Og så rippet dem til MP3 for å kunne ha dem som del av standardspillelisten på MP3-spilleren.

Verden er blitt et fattigere sted. Heldigvis har vi fortsatt platene.

Hvil i fred, Gustav Lorentzen. Jeg regner med du finner både gyngehest, skinke og syltetøy der du er nå, det vil kle deg bedre enn harpe.

(Og jeg som aldri kom meg på Knutsen og Ludvigsen konsert. Pokker.)

Once I got myself by the scruff of the neck back to the sewing machine I made a replacement bag for Renata of Zigzago:

This one made it to Italy, I’m glad to say.

I received my package in the stitcher’s angels swap at around the time one would expect if the sender stuck to the deadline, that is, in November. I loved the package, but didn’t have the heart to blog about it until I’d sent my own, and the longer it took the harder it was. Anyway, my package was put together by Lene of Denmark, and just look at this overabundance of loveliness:

For more pictures, just click through to Flickr.

And I finally got my own package in the post, then waited with bated breath until Joy could report its safe arrival. Wouldn’t it just have been sod’s law if it got lost after all that? But they did arrive, and I could breathe again.

Anyway, this summer we’re going back to Islay. Our last trip there did not go quite according to plan, so I’m hoping for some better luck this time. And I have no intention of being pregnant on Islay again, either.

This time round we’re actually organising a trip for some of the members of NMWL Trondheim, so we’ll be a group of about ten people for the first week. Then a few of us, not including the husband and the lass, are going via Campbelltown and Arran before hitting the mainland. After that, well, our little family still has about two weeks to fill, how much whisky is involved will depend on whether we have a tail of NMWL-members or not. Odds as it looks right now is not.

Anyway, plans for the week on Islay include vip-tours where possible and in any case a visit to every distillery. Personally I’m most looking forward to Ardbeg, since the day we were supposed to take a tour of Ardbeg in 2006 was the day I spent in hospital trying not to bleed. We will stop to see the Kildalton Cross, again, of course, and we’ll be sure to have lunch in the Old Kiln Cafe.

Kildalton cross

We’re also hoping for a proper tour of Kilchoman, last time they didn’t even have real whisky yet, and we only had time to see the shop. We’re also trying to wrangle some extra special tours or tastings out of some of our contacts, but I’m not going to reveal just what…

In 2006 our best tours were at Bowmore and at Caol Ila. At Bowmore we’d booked a VIP tour and when we arrived were told the destillery manager was regrettably not there, but the head brewer would show us round instead, and did we mind much? Did we mind? You’re kidding, right? Someone who’s most likely worked there for years and who is directly involved in production? Yeah, we’ll take it. It’s the most thorough tour I’ve ever had – we spent more time in the maltings and kiln than the Japanese bussload who arrived at the same time as us spent on their whole tour and tasting. It was also the tour where I regretted not being able to drink the most, as there were a fair few cask samples pulled in the warehouse, all of them quite stunning. Ah, well.

Bowmore, seen from the pier

At Caol Ila we actually did the standard tour, but our guide was one of the men who’d been involved in rebuilding the distillery in 1973/4. He knew the place like the back of his hand and gave a marvelously engaged tour.

Caol Ila

No doubt we’re in for some grand tours this summer, too. I’m salivating at the thought, and my notebook’s at the ready. The husband and I will have to take turns sitting the tours out, though, as the lass is coming along. Luckily throwing stones off a pier is one of her favourite activities (as it seems to be for most kids), so she’s unlikely to be bored. We may have to sneak in some nature spotting as well. On the 2006 trip I found the most impressive beetles in London, but Scotland has plenty of creepy-crawlies of its own, and a fair few bigger animals, too. Like sheep. When you’re three, sheep are exiting enough.

Big beetle, somewhere in London

Once we’re back on the mainland, as mentioned, it’ll probably turn into more of a family vacation than a peat-freak’s dream. We’re planning on visiting Bladnoch, but also to spend some time in Wigtown’s bookshops (yeah, I know. Me? Bookshops? You’re shocked, right?), which the lass should enjoy (her mother seems to have a fairly limitless budget when it comes to children’s books. Can’t imagine why. We’re then heading north towards Talisker, Skye and Balmacara, where we have friends we’re hoping to spend a few days with and then on to Aberdeen, lovely Aberdeen, for possibly a day or two of shopping before flying home.

Along the way we’re looking for interesting activities that all three of us might enjoy. Any tips would be welcome. So far we’re considering the Jacobite railway (the lass and me, the husband to drive the hire car the same stretch), seal tours in Oban or from Skye and the Satrosphere Science Centre in Aberdeen, where I was once supposed to go with Linda, but our plans were sabotaged by a terrific lunch with a few pints of cider at The Tilted Wig and never made it in time. Ahem.

Well, back to the planned trip: I can hardly wait.

More pictures from the 2006 trip can be found on Flickr.