No Place Like…

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Home

We’re back home! Moved back Sunday after two weeks in the Bed & Breakfast, and let me tell you: Two weeks of four people living in a one-room B&B can work if it needs to, but it’s not something I would do for fun. Even though we have nothing but a raw concrete floor in the kitchen area of our house at the moment, I just love being back home!

So what did you miss? Let me see – oh yes, Ronja had a wonderful birthday, and thank you so much for all your sweet birthday wishes!

5 years

We celebrated her birthday morning as usual, waking her up with a birthday song, presents, and breakfast. After breakfast we had to hurry outside, because Ronja got roller skates as well as a big trampoline (together with Frida who will be 2 in a month) – it all had to be tried, of course. Mads had set up the trampoline in our garden the day before, and even though it was still wet from dew, it was a huge hit with both Ronja and Frida. She caught on to the roller skating easier than what I would have thought, but it was still a bigger challenge than what it appears below…

Roller skating is fun

Back in our house, Mads has been working hard. We now have a concrete floor in the kitchen, and yesterday after work we went to choose some tiles for the floor. We’re already pretty much decided on what kitchen we want, and finding the domestic appliances is coming along slowly – we don’t want the kitchen to get too expensive, so we’re trying to get us some good bargains, as we would rather not compromise too much on quality or design. For those of you who are dealing with similar projects, there are so many people out there who bought something for their house, and then realized they made a mistake for some reason. That way, you can get new stuff relatively cheap (25-50 % off compared to the price in the shops) at places like eBay or the like – in Denmark we have DBA.dk. Mads and I use that a lot.

I have added a few pictures from the process below, but if you’d like to see more – go here. It seems that you guys have as much faith in Mads as I do, so let’s see how quickly our kitchen will take shape. :)

Pipes

A layer of leca stone topped with insulation

Pex tubing for the floor heat

The finished concrete floor

Lend Me Your Voice – What’s In the Future?

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Kitchen demolition - mosaic

This is where it becomes a bit nerve-wracking. There’s this big hole in our house, and at times it can be a bit hard to believe, that the hole will turn into a kitchen any time soon. Thumbs up to Mads, though – he’s really good at wrecking stuff and digging big holes – even dug a few in the yard as well to prove it…  :) The pictures were taken a few days ago – it’s worse now…

What do you think, guys? Do you believe in our project? Or do you just think we’re a couple of crazy Danes who have taken on an impossible project that won’t be finished without serious help from professionals? Let’s see what kind of expectations we’re trying to live up to here – will we have to prove you wrong, or will we struggle to meet your sky-high expectations?

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Will this hole in the ground be a kitchen again anytime this year?

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Bed & Breakfast

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Here I am – in the Bed & Breakfast 100 m from our house. We moved in one day early, because it would be much easier for us to move today, on a Sunday, than it would be tomorrow when I’m going to work. Now we’re all going to be living in this one, reasonably sized, though not at all big room for 2 weeks. Ronja fell asleep almost instantly – Frida was singing and moving around until about 9 pm when she finally surrendered.

The camera has been left back in our little yellow house – which is just as well, I guess, since the pictures in it portray a “once-was-a-kitchen” in serious decay. Mads is tearing down the kitchen ceiling this evening, which is not a funny task – he finished removing the many layers of old wall paper earlier, so he’s moving towards the more interesting challenges, like getting rid of the floor. The picture below shows one of the wallpapers that popped out of the walls during the process – isn’t it just gorgeous? Not sure we’ll keep it though… ;)

Old wallpaper in the kitchen

Ronja is making grunting noises and turning over in bed, and I’m thinking of making myself a cup of tea. I’m not even going to explain to you why there’s no sewing going on here – I’ll just let you know, that I had this wild idea about how I could bring my sewing machine and sew when the children were asleep. Well – I just don’t think it’s going to happen, so sorry about that sewing-blog readers. :) Hope you’ll hang in there.

Last weekend we all went to the beach. It was really windy, and frankly not very warm, so the girls were wrapped up in towels most of the time. I went for a wonderful swim in the waves, though – and when Mads brought out a kite, Ronja couldn’t resist unwrapping herself a bit as well. Just thought I would share, now that I don’t have many new pictures to show you.

All cuddled up

Kite flying on the beach

Kite flying on the beach

On to the Kitchen

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IMG_8758

We have now been living in this old house for a little more than 5 years. When we first moved in I was 5 months pregnant with Ronja, and our primary focus back then was to get the house in a nice shape without doing anything too drastic. This task alone was big enough at the time.

Later, when Ronja had been born, and we were getting used to our new life as a family, Mads spent some time fixing the roof, doing wood work on the outside of the house, and changing most of the windows downstairs. I have just been tracking down old pictures of the house, but you get this one to the left to begin with – Ronja was about 2 months old, and Mads was putting up new barge boards on the house.

After that the 2nd floor in the house had first priority. The 2nd floor was a huge task, that involved demolishing everything and building it back up from scratch – installing roof windows, making new rooms for the children, and building a new bathroom among other stuff. That all took nearly a year, and Mads pretty much did all the work himself – we are SO happy with it.

Last year we moved on to work on the facade, and the house was sand blasted, plastered, and white washed yellow. It came to look just the way we had imagined, back when we bought the place.

The kitchen - when we first bought the house The kitchen - when we first bought the house

The pictures above show the kichen the way it looked 5½ years ago – when we had just bought the place and started fixing it up. The pictures below show the kitchen and the adjacent rooms the way they all looked a few days ago – these are to be regarded as pictures from the before-category as well.

The kitchen and adjacent areas - before demolition

Yesterday we packed the last stuff from the kitchen into moving boxes, and today Mads has been tearing everything apart. Our renovating process has reached the kitchen.  Mads spent the day at home today to get started, and when I came home from work the view was already quite different.

Tearing down the old kitchen

Phew – here we go. It’s going to be another big project – from Monday we’re all moving to a Bed&Breakfast 100 m from our house, because we’re going to have a big hole in the ground until the new floor has been established. The water will be shut off to establish new pipes, and the power is going to be shut down as well.

What a Girl Wants

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One happy Floral Fantasma girl 

Ronja picked it out. I’m not too good at letting her choose the fabric (it’ll all end up pink), but this time she got to. I gave her the opportunity to pick the fairy fabric, and she did at first, but dropped it when she realized there wasn’t enough for this blouse as well as a summer dress in a few months. Good thing I had the “Floral Fantasma” from Alexander Henry as well. She went with some red dots from Moda for the neck line casing and sleeve edges. It’s girly, that’s for sure – and she loves it!

Floral Fantasma Blouse 

Today I made a blouse from the same pattern (Onion 20022) for Frida. It’s finished but I haven’t got pictures yet, so you’ll have to wait a bit for that one.

Reading 

In the meantime, we had a wonderful weekend. Nice and slow – we’re not getting out much at the moment, because we really, really don’t want Frida to catch a cold or something before her surgery next week. Her odds health-wise are pretty bad at the moment too – Mads has been having a severe cold this past week, and Ronja has just had a fever for a few days. Frida is still in the clear, and I am as well, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed. Of course, if she’s sick in any way when it’s time for the operation, they won’t operate, and they may push it a few months. Anyway, there’s no way we can keep the girls away from each other – above you see Ronja reading to Frida.

Mads finished building the small fence out front today – all it needs now is some paint.

Finished - all it needs now is paint

Hibernation

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Our garden is white at the moment.

Winter in the garden 

Ronja gave me this little bird feeder Christmas before last, and it has been hanging there in the Japanese Cherry Tree ever since. I love the colours on it, and when the rest of the world is white it really comes into its own! I think I’ll go put a new fat ball on there a bit later - now that there’s snow all over the place.

Ronja’s swing set has hibernated for the day.

Winter in the garden 

And I wonder if this will ever start again?

Winter in the garden 

Maybe we will have time for a sled ride with the girls this afternoon, when I’m off from work? Let’s see…

Winter in the garden

Out for a drive

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Yesterday, Mads and I went for a drive with the girls.

In a field 

We used to do that quite a bit 5 years ago, when we were looking to buy a house, trying to get a feel of the different areas around Copenhagen. And of course, each time we have been searching for inspiration for something to do on the house – like constructional techniques, colours, roofing solutions, windows, etc. This particular weekend, we would have preferred to go for a walk, but Frida has a terrible cold again, so we went for a drive instead – just to get “outside” for a bit.

Alley 

The landscape that surrounds our town is quite beautiful, especially if you go to the south. It had been snowing a little, and Ronja was going on all day about going out for a sled ride. I think she was a bit disappointed, that there wasn’t anywhere near enough snow for that. We haven’t had much snow this winter – way back in November, we had some, but I think that about sums it up…

Trees 

I have been working on Ronja’s angel costume this weekend, and I’m rather enthusiastic about the way it’s coming together. I haven’t finished, though – still need the last bit of the underdress, and some detail work. I’m using this Ottobre pattern, which is meant for a regular dress (a bit to the dressy side), but I think it’s perfect for this purpose. Once again I have been getting some fabulous advice from the Ottobre English Sewing Group, which I cannot commend highly enough. I’m learning so much from being part of the group – it’s just brilliant for receiving help and inspiration, if you’re sewing Ottobre.

And then I received something this weekend. Ronja was certain it was for her, because of the sweet stamps on the envelope – including Curious George (called Peter Pedal in Danish). And the truth is, it will be for her as well.

From a friend 

Guys, take a look at this beautiful dress! It’s so wonderful – the shape, the sleeves, and that fabric too… Well, Sarah mailed me the traced pattern for it – isn’t she great? Thank you SO much, Sarah – it looks like it’s just the right size for Ronja, and I’m going to be making it among my first projects to come right after the angel costume.

And for you guys – if you aren’t reading it already, you should go have a look at Sarah’s blog – she does some beautiful sewing!

Pick a number

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 I think the mailwomen around here have been kind of confused for a while. And people we know (who know where we live) have passed our house, when coming to see us, because it doesn’t look like it used to – and there has been no number.

The new house number 

There is now! We were lucky enough to find it second-hand at frou-frou.dk - it’s kind of expensive to buy new, and now we get a number with a past, allowing us to guess where it has spent its previous life… I’m going to see if I can make a name plate for the mailbox in photoshop to match the design of the housenumber. Again, it would be nice to buy a real one, but that’ll have to wait, because the name plates like that cost a small fortune!

Mads installed our new front door yesterday and fixed the finish around the door this evening. The door actually isn’t all that new, since we bought it along with the new windows way back in August 2006. It has been living in the garage ever since. It has windows in it, and yesterday I was going for the door several times, thinking someone forgot to close it. C’mon, girl – that’s just your new light in the hallway… :) I do love the way it lets lots and lots of light into our hallway, but we still need to get used to the fact that you can actually see through the front door – amazingly, it works both ways, so you have to consider how you look before people come up to the door, and not just after they ring the doorbell! That’s right, we also put up the doorbell, which has been down since the house was sandblasted late April. Once we get the lamp back up as well, I promise I’ll post a picture of how it all looks. In the meantime you’ll have to do with my anemone japonica.

Mother and child 

I want to say thank you for all the wonderful feedback I’m getting on my blog. I love reading it and visiting your blogs, finding out who you are and why you stopped by. I always answer questions in the comments, so remember to check back, if you posed a question. Should you have any suggestions for me on how to improve my blog or make it more welcoming for you as a reader, please send me an email or leave me a comment on it. Speaking of which, if you would like to know when I update my blog, but you don’t use any kind of reader, I added the possibility to subscribe to my posts by email. However, please do continue to come to my blog and let me know you’re here! :)