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.

One Step Behind

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Autumn Sky

Every time I take pictures of Project Kitchen and get ready to upload them in the evening, by the time it’s done, Mads is several processes ahead of me. It’s no different today – and hats off to Mads, because he is working so hard to transform the room into a kitchen at the moment. We really are getting there too – just take a look below. Remember what it looked like a few months ago? Note to self: Tell Mads he is doing a helluva job!

Kitchen Progress - walls and ceiling have been primed

Kitchen Progress - walls and ceiling have been primed

Kitchen Progress - walls and ceiling have been primed

IKEATwo days ago, we took an important step by ordering the kitchen – isn’t it just totally exciting? We’re going with an IKEA kitchen – it’s quite simple but we’re aiming for a room that will be nice and welcoming to walk into, and something that’ll last for a good many years. Oh, I can’t wait! Just imagine what it’s like to have a dish washer again? We have been shopping for domestic appliances like oven, cook top, refrigerator, etc. the last couple of months – finding everything new – or nearly new – at great prices. That’s just something we do – we don’t mind doing our research thoroughly to save money, and it works really well for us!

Carving the pumpkin

Today, I have been working from home, because Ronja’s day care was closed for the day, so I needed to have her home with me. Not having my usual long transport at the end of my workday, made it possible for us to have fun in the late afternoon – so we made a carved pumpkin. I only had a really big knife (our kitchen is packed in moving boxes, as you know), so there’s not much detail to it, and the girls lost interest quite quickly. Anyhow, now he’s here – greeting passers by outside our house with style.

Our Pumpkin Patch

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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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.