All I Want For Christmas

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Hygge

Christmas Eve came and went. The pixies have been up since December 1st, and the girls have each counted down by opening a small present every day. In case you don’t all know, in Denmark we celebrate Christmas on the evening of the 24th, which was yesterday. In spite of the vast amounts of snow that doesn’t make crossing the country (or the continent) any easier, the whole family managed to get here - our mothers, my older brother with his family, my younger brother, and Mads’ sister. Mads had prepared the bestest Christmas dinner, and everybody ate way more than they could, which is exactly the way it should be. We lit the candles on the Christmas tree, danced around the tree singing Christmas songs, and presents were distributed generously to the great (over-)excitement of the three children. I think we had a wonderful evening.

Our Christmas tree

Today we went for a walk – not a long one because it is sooooo cold here at the moment. We have been down to minus 18 degrees Celsius which is around 0 degrees Fahrenheit, and though it’s not quite that cold now, it’s still freezing outside.

Christmas Day - out for a family walk

Now everyone left, we almost have the house back to normal, and Mads and I are enjoying a quiet evening. And I want to show you my new SEWING ROOM. At least that’s what I call it. It’s been work in progress for a little while:

So, check out my new hide out slash creative space!

Our finished bed room and my new sewing room

The entire room, which will be serving as our bedroom as well. The new cabinets are all IKEA kitchen cabinets.

Our finished bed room and my new sewing room

My table – my sewing machines are still under the table, but that is just because I haven’t used the room much yet – we only finished it a bit more than a week ago, and it’s been Christmas, you know.

Our finished bed room and my new sewing room

2.7 meters of oak table top – I got this from Homeworks.dk, and I’m actually quite happy with their service. Most of the places that sell table tops the measurements I needed, are considerably more expensive.

Our finished bed room and my new sewing room

Room for my patterns and sewing magazines.

Our finished bed room and my new sewing room

Full closet for fabric, tools and all kinds of stuff that I need for my sewing.

I really love the room, and I can tell I will be using it a lot for all kinds of stuff – Frida has already spotted the opportunity to come sort her mother’s stuff, while I’m working with something else in there. LOVE it! I couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas present.

So there it is – A Very Merry Christmas to all of you guys out there!

Our Bedroom In 3D

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In order to fit a bedroom and a nice sewing space into our bedroom, we need to be a little bit creative. I wanted to get an idea of how much space we had to work with, so on Mads’ recommendation, I downloaded Google Sketchup during the weekend. (As you may be aware, Mads draws 3D models professionally, but he left the design of this room up to me, so I took him up on the challenge.) Sunday night I made the below draft of what I want to do with the room. Google Sketchup enables anyone with a bit of patience to draw their projects up in 3D, and it works surprisingly well, although I would recommend going through at least the first 4 video tutorials if you haven’t tried drawing 3D before, which I haven’t. They helped me a lot. However, altogether it only took me a few hours (and a little swearing) to draw up the idea I had, using accurate dimensions.

Designing the new bedroom/sewing space

It won’t be huge, but this could be a really nice sewing space, I think. The wall that is not there, is the one that holds our closets, which will still be the case after the renovation. The door into the room from the hallway is to the right – it’s easier to see in the picture below.

Designing the new bedroom/sewing space

Mads painted the ceiling yesterday, and the walls had first coat tonight, so it won’t be long before I need my design to be ready to go shopping. I think it’s going to look something like this, but if you have good ideas based on what you see, don’t hold back! :)

Seamstresses – Gather ‘Round!

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As I mentioned earlier, Mads and I have worked up the last bits of renovation energy and emptied the bedroom, in order to renovate the very last of the ‘real’ rooms in the house. I won’t even show you what that does to the living room at the moment. The reason for the expression ‘real rooms’ is that we have a small section of the house which is not insulated, and which hosts the laundry room and back hallway – we will get to these eventually I believe, but they don’t have very high priority as they don’t belong to what you may refer to as the main house.

But here’s what I’m getting to: Mads said, that as long as there’s room for the bed in the bedroom, I can pretty much decide what should happen to the rest of the room. (He later gets to insulate and fix up the garage for his motorcycle, so though it’s terribly sweet of him, he does have an agenda…:) ) Are you still following? This means sewing corner! It means fabric space! It means no more dragging out all my sewing stuff to the dining table in the living room each time I want to sew, and it means I will be able to sew a little when I have the time, instead of waiting until it makes sense to spend 20 minutes getting everything out. It’s not a huge bedroom, but it isn’t tiny either, so I’ll work with what I have. I am currently trying to figure out the wall colour, but the rest is where you guys come in!

I know many of you have wonderful, functional sewing spaces or even whole rooms – and I would love to know what advice you would give me? Think of anything – think drawers, table, light, shelves, containers, etc. What did you get right in your sewing space? What do you wish you had done differently? Do you want to show me your sewing space? I will be thankful for any inspiration or advice!

I have purchased a lot of my fabric through Fabric.com, and I just received a discount code that I thought I’d share – so: Use code “CLEAR30″ at Fabric.com and get an additional 30% off the clearance section! Offer valid through 11/15/10.

Kitchen Renovation – Check!

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One really great thing we got done this Easter was to finish the kitchen renovation, and to really finish the connection with the living room. I’m not going to say much about it – just show you how it all turned out. But first – do you remember the old kitchen?

Kitchen Before Demolition

and this?

Kitchen Before Demolition

Not to mention the somewhat demanding and quite extensive process:

Want to come visit - anyone?

Yep, that's the driveway out there...

Frida is less than thrilled about our kitchen's condition

Well, it has now turned into this:

Kitchen Renovation - Check!

Kitchen Renovation - Check!

Kitchen Renovation - Check!

I don’t think I need to tell you that we’re happy!  :)   You can see all the pictures right here.

Head Above Water

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Let me see… Now where do I click in order to create a new post – ok, found it.

Hi guys – long time no see. I want to start out by saying thank you SO much for the concern in shape of comments, as well as emails and messages on Facebook and Flickr. Don’t ever think you can just wander off in the blogosphere and disappear – no siree! I’ve missed you all, but I had to take a break, due to – busy life, I guess. No blogging as you know (not even blogreading), no sewing, and the camera has been taking a bit of a vacation.

Where were we? Oh yes, the kitchen arrived and was installed. The pictures below give an impression of what it all looks like now, if you want to see more, go here.

Kitchen pix - almost there

Kitchen pix - the kitchen sink

Kitchen pix - towards the living room

We are missing a few details, but we love the kitchen, and we so enjoy using it. The finishing touches will be there when we feel like it. The pictures were taken on a sunny day in December, and they don’t even quite show the kitchen the way it looks now, because some wall cupboards are missing, but I’ll show you sooner or later.

But so many other things happened during November and December, and I’ll just leave the very short version here – wouldn’t know where to start otherwise. In November they had mass lay offs at Mads’ work, which happily he avoided. Frida’s hearing kept getting worse, followed closely by her speech, which caused her to have new ear tubes inserted in December – it’s all much better now. My father passed away late November, which kept me busy emotionally and led to lots of thoughts. We all went to funeral in December, and in spite of the occasion we had a nice day with the family. And then of course winter colds, flus and the likes to top it all off. Just before Christmas Frida had the chickenpox, followed closely by Ronja on the morning of New Years Eve.

Frida and Mom

We have had our share to deal with over the last couple of months, but during the Christmas break we have done nothing but relax. Nothing! Stayed at home, gone for walks, watched movies with the girls, had friends over for dinner, spent an afternoon at Tivoli’s Christmas Market as we do every year. It has been great, and we could’ve easily spent another month like that.

Out finding a Christmas tree

That’s pretty much it for now – but I won’t be gone long this time. Finally I just want to show you the beautiful picture of Ronja walking in a Lucia parade in the day care – even though it has been a while. :)

Serene