Seeking solutions

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):

20100901_leil1

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…

Progress

Kitchen table
Kitchen table

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.

Generell skjerpings etterlyses

Mens Magnhild fortsetter sin Shabby Fredag-serie, til glede for noen og sikkert forargelse for mange, leser jeg interiøratikler i avisen. I dette tilfellet Adressa, som har vært på besøk hos Ingeborg Okkenhaug på Svartlamoen. Et ganske så sjarmerende hjem, skal jeg innrømme, selv om jeg er alt for glad i bacon til å ha åpne hyller på kjøkkenet.

Men å finne på billedtekster til slike reportasjer er tydeligvis ikke helt enkelt. Man finner, for eksempel, denne perlen:

adressa_interior

Jakker på knagger? Jøss. Og hatter på hattehyllen, sier du? Det var virkelig orginalt. Og så jeg som alltid har oppbevart hattene mine i fryseren og jakkene slengt over tv’en.

Okkenhaug er designeren bak klesmerket Nordlys, som jeg såvidt har hørt om. Så da måtte jeg jo google litt. Jeg fikk litt alveoverload av nettsiden (altså, jeg synes det er ganske fint med “alveklær”, jeg, men det blit fort for mye av det gode), men denne jakken, for eksempel, den var da ganske kul?

Shabby fredag, og en kommentar om hvitt

Jeg har ledd godt av Magnhilds “Shabby fredag” serie de siste ukene (foreløbig siste innlegg her). Jeg har jo, som nevnt, lest en del interiørblogger i det siste. Og for hver jeg har lagt til i google reader har jeg sukket og lukket minst to. For det er veldig mye shabby chic der ute. Og sånn romantisk fransk, helst stavet på fransk. Og pasteller. Og hvitt. Det er MYE hvitt. Man blir nesten snøblind. Og innmellom er det veeeeeeeldig mange bilder av omtrent samme saken.

Jeg mener, jeg tar en masse bilder. Jeg kan godt ta tjue bilder av samme ting. Og så tenker jeg at DET skal jeg blogge om. Og så kommer jeg aldri så langt. Eller, hvis jeg er heldig  kommer jeg så langt, men husker ikke å finne fram bildene. Og hvis jeg er så usannsynlig heldig at jeg både husker å blogge og finner fram bildene samtidig har jeg sjelden tid til å bruke tid på å behandle bildene i særlig grad, utover å redusere oppløsningen. Og jeg har da i hvert fall ikke tid til å behandle tjue bilder av samme sak.

Hvordan gjør de det, egentlig?

Jeg, for eksempel, nøyer meg med sånt som dette:

Se, vi har fått opp whiskyskapene!
Se, vi har fått opp whiskyskapene!

Ja, hvitbalansen burde vært justert. Og jeg skulle kanskje ha flyttet unna litt rot før jeg tok bildet. Men jeg gadd altså ikke.

Jeg bruker kanskje tiden på å lese interiørblogger i stedet… Ikke vet jeg.

Og når jeg først er inne på Shabby fredag føler jeg at jeg kanskje skulle kommentert den tilsynelatende motsetningen mellom å sukke over mengden hvitt der ute og å male alt jeg klarer i egen leilighet hvitt… For det virker unektelig litt “flisen i min brors øye”-aktig. Jeg ser den.

Vel, ærede jury, her er saken:

Punkt A: Jeg er lat. Det er langt enklere å male alt hvitt, man slipper å vaske penslene (jeg bare pakker dem inn i aluminiumsfolie mellom hvert strøk/hver vegg) og vi trenger ikke kjøpe ett spann per rom/vegg. I tillegg slipper vi å stirre i timesvis på fargeprøver for å bestemme oss for om 1070-G10Y eller 1080-G30Y vil gjøre seg best, og vi kan spasere rett inn på OBS! Bygg og plukke med oss et spann eller to i stedet for å trekke kølapp og vente på at malingen ristes klar. (Det var det siste argumentet som overtalte mannen, forresten.)

Punk B: Vi har utrolig mye saker og ting. Vi har nok bøker til at de fleste veggene kommer til å dekkes med bokhyller. Og så har vi en og annen hyllemeterfull med whisky også. For ikke å snakke om et par bilder der rammen måles i m snarere enn cm som jeg gjerne skulle hengt opp. Og en del av den mindre typen også. Det kommer derfor ikke til å være så mye hvitt igjen å skue innen vi er ferdiginnflyttet.

Så det.

A propos hvitt, når jeg begynte å male dører oppdaget jeg at strien innenfor listene slett ikke var hvit, slik det så ut ved første øyekast, men lys blåbærsuppefarget.

Vakkert.
Vakkert.

Nå er dørene hvite.

Og jeg har fred i sjelen.

Painting, painting, painting

Sunday I got some help with the painting
Søndag fikk jeg hjelp med malinga

Did I say painting? Perhaps I meant spilling? Oh, well, things got white, anyway.

I think she did quite well.

Quite well.
Quite well.

But, as with most instances where a three-year-old “helps”: I think it’d been quicker without her.

And I think I’ll need at least two more coats on this wall, despite probably managing with two overall on the others.

Ah, well. She had fun.

One thing is given

Europris have recently started selling a line of storage boxes from Lego. They don’t have pictures online, but these seem to be the same:

legobokser

 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.

So, it seems we bought a flat

This is good. Really good.

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.