The others must be jealous…

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Frida is sleeping in her pram in the shade under the japanese cherry tree, and I just went to have a look at this tiny miracle.

Giant poppy 

The first poppy this year. All the others look like it’ll be a while for them yet, and this one is just standing there in the middle, flaunting it’s beauty.

Before I join it outside, I just have a short note on the house. Now that the colour is dry, it’s much easier to get the right colour impression. And you know what; I think I love it. For a while, we were discussing whether it was just slightly to dark, but the warmth and depth of it, and the way it lights up our garden is just spot on. Doesn’t this look idyllic?

The new colour 

And now if you’ll excuse me – I have to get out into my garden!  ;)

We have colour!

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Getting there  

Above you see the end wall of our house a few hours ago, just before the light disappeared, leaving the sky to the almost full moon.

Mads managed to white wash the entire end wall after work today! To us it looks wonderful – being something that we have waited for for a long time. The colour (oxide yellow) still has to dry before we can get the correct impression of it, and it was just a bit dark, when Mads finished tonight, but I simply couldn’t wait until tomorrow to take a picture of it. I love the fact that it creates such a stark contrast to the white windows, and I can’t wait to see what it’ll look like in sunshine. Mads isn’t quite done with all of the woodworks, but he has to get the tall end walls done first, since we have been lucky enough to borrow a scaffold. We can only keep it over the weekend, so first projects are woodworks and white wash on both end walls.

White washing the house - mosaic  

When we got up this morning, the rain gutters which we ordered yesterday had already arrived. I must say, we have only had good experiences with the level of service at e-vvs - and I can’t even remember how many times we ordered stuff for our house from them. Many!

Earlier today I went out into the street to take a shot of our house with the painted woodworks. Nothing spectacular about that, but being out there, I just could not help but point my camera in a different direction.

Rhododendron  

These are rhododendrons at our next-door neighbours house – it’s an amazing sight when they’re all in full bloom! And as nothing changed in my garden during the day, I’m going to share this sight with you guys. Isn’t it amazing? Someone has green fingers…

Our house so far!

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Our house is finally starting to look the way we imagined it some 4 years ago. It isn’t finished yet, but this past weekend it has definitely been taking shape. Sometimes it feels like we have been waiting way too long for this to happen, but then again… During those 4 years, we have had our 2 girls, rebuilt the entire 2nd floor, installed new windows all over the house, and quite a few things more than that. So you see, we haven’t been “waiting” – we have just been busy doing other things.

The house so far

While the girls and I have been on a nice long weekend at my Mother’s, Mads has been working hard helping and preparing for the masons. It’s amazing to see the difference it makes – and we haven’t even added colour yet. As always, the entire process of our renovating can be seen here. The pictures are sorted with the newest first, and seeing them all does require a bit of patience with all the work that has been done.

Sunday afternoon we had time to drop by some friends of ours who live just a street away. With the weather we’re having we decided to play croquet, and afterwards barbecue in their garden – I just LOVE the fact that it’s almost summer! I think Ronja does too – she ran around barefooted with her croquet mallet and had the best time!

Playing croquet in the garden at Rikke and Martin's

Our sandblasted house

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 Saturday the girls and I were banned from the property due to the house being sandblasted. The awful noise it creates is not for kids (or anyone else for that matter), so we decided to go to the ZOO with Sandra from Ronja’s mothers group and Sandra’s younger brother Benjamin who was born 1½ months later than Frida – and of course their mother. ;) We spent most of the day there, having a wonderful time on yet another day with amazing “drop-the-coat” weather! Two girls aged 3½ sure do know what they want – and finally we gave in to their very persistent wish to get their faces painted.

At the Copenhagen ZOO At the Copenhagen ZOO

When we arrived home late in the afternoon, Mads was washing the house – rinsing off all of the sand and dirt from the sandblasted bricks. It looked like – well, I don’t know what it looked like! You certainly wouldn’t imagine that there were people living in that house – it looked like a building due for demolition! Mads told us it was a good thing we had been away – he had been wearing earplugs, and he still had a ringing in his ears long after the sandblasting guys left. Our cat, Freja, wasn’t too fond of the sandblasting either.

Sandblasted house 

Mads has been working really hard washing the house and cleaning up sand for the rest of the weekend, and now everything actually looks ok. I don’t know if it’s just me, but even though it still needs the plastering and colour, I actually think it looks so much better than it has for the past years with the fake brick facing.

More pictures from the sandblasting are found here. Now we’re on to the plastering of the house next weekend.

Mending day – and next project

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I had to take a picture of this earlier – our Japanese Cherry has started to blossom! And understandably so, since the weather has been amazing the past few days. If it keeps up the pace it’ll be summer within a week!

Japanese cherry 

One of the great benefits of having – and knowing how to use – a sewing machine is that you can mend stuff that has been torn or worn – or just alter things that you’d like different. Yesterday was mending day. I had gathered a pile of stuff that needed fixing and I got to the bottom of it. Well – almost, anyway. Had a problem sewing in denim (most likely because of a wrong needle), so I’ll have to do that some other time. One of the things in my pile was some new bedding that I bought for Ronja at IKEA. Their measurements don’t fit the Danish duvets and pillows, so it needed a bit of altering, which went so easily with my new serger – love that thing!

Ottobre - 03/08  

Today I came home from my mothers group to find a big white envelope in my mailbox – the latest issue of Ottobre. I really like this issue – there are some quite beautiful summer outfits that I want to make, and this evening I traced three of the patterns. It’s a bit hard to find the time these days, since Frida isn’t all that self entertaining, but I guess if I take it a bit at the time, I’ll finish a project sooner or later.

Saturday we’re having our house sandblasted as a preparation for the plaster treatment the walls are going to have. We’re expecting quite a mess, and definitely a lot of noise, so we have prepared the neighbours in the area we’re expecting it to affect. The girls and I are leaving the house, since loud noise is typically not that big a hit with babies – and definitely not with Ronja. I can’t wait to see the house when they’re finished – though I could do without the sight of what it does to the garden. However – we’ll have to deal with it, because now that we’re finally getting the house renovated on the outside, we are both really excited about it!