Cheaper than Ikea

We have been trying to find night stands for the bedroom at home for ages. Our previous ones were over 15 year old covered baskets that were starting to look a bit sad. About a week ago we found perfect tables and they cost only18 euros each. Quite a find!

Pink dreams

An old hairdryer found a new life as a floor lamp. When we bought the thing it was already remade as a lamp. My husband changed the light source to a prettier one and we (read my husband) are going to change the cord to an old style canvas cord. But I just love the "lamp". Of course I do, it's pink and from around 50's.

Line up

I have a small collection of Russian dolls. When cleaning up yesterday I put them all on the cabinet in the living room. More is more, I say.

It was cheap!

The old tv/radio stand was in a rather bad condition when we bought it. I changed the top to a tray till we decide how to repair the original top. The legs will get a new coat of paint (someday). For now I am happy enough to have the thing in the kitchen.

As if

We have spent a lot of time at flea markets in the last two weeks. And of course we have found a lot of wonderful stuff to buy. As if we don't have enough stuff already, we found a chair in our waste room here in the city. A prefect example of industrial chic, a bit of wear and tear and the chair even folds, a great addition to our home in a factory.

I love shopping (in flea markets)

This was a great summer vacation day! We visited Hämeenlinna and bought a lot of stuff for the shop museum. Here are some of the items: hair water, leather paints, coffee tins etc. I love the 50's chair as I need one when I keep the shop and museum open - I don't want to stand the whole day and it is nicer to sit in a chair from the right era :)

In addition to the finds above, we are especially glad that we found an old shop coffee grinder from the 50's/early 60's (photo follows on a later day). I found it when I browsed tori.fi in the car when driving to Hämeenlinna.

In addition to visiting several flea markets, we also visited an adorable shop museum in Janakkala; the Hyvikkälän kauppamuseo. We strongly recommend for you to visit there too! Here is the link to their Facebook page, link.

Waiting for a picnic

As we now have a 60's car, we of course needed a picnic table to go with it. Thanks once again to tori.fi, we found a 60's folding table. So Ruukki picnic (link), here we come! By the way, when you have an old car you really should have a picnic lunch with you where ever you go as the trip might not go quite as planned. And then it is nice to have a table and chairs, too - I am not willing to sit in a car without air-conditioning (waiting for help if the car doesn't work).

Like magic

The people in olden days were rather clever. Case in point: a chair that turns to a ladder in a blink of an eye. A bit of sanding and a lick of paint and we'll have a perfect furniture for the new glass gazebo (which doesn't exist yet so there is no hurry to pick up the paintbrush).

Grey matter

I found a small table from the flea market. My husband wasn't so keen on it as it was painted gold. I told him not to worry, the table would look great after I paint it. I chose a matt grey-brown colour and think the result is good enough (I used Jeanne d'Arc Living's mat grey and brown paint - mixed a bit of brown with the grey). I might still wax it to get a bit of a shine but I am not quite sure yet.

Higher and higher

I wanted to have a cabinet for glasses but there just wasn't room for one. I started to search for a smaller glass cabinet that could be put on the top of the already existing one. On Friday I happened to find (=searched and searched for weeks) a good candidate in tori.fi. My husband took out the legs and voilá, we have a perfect high cabinet and lots of room for our glasses.

There is still a slight problem with the stuff that was on top of the old cabinet. Some I'll put on the top of the new one but as the top area is smaller than before, I am bound to have some leftovers. Let's see what I'll come up with (maybe I'll have to store some stuff in the cupboard for the time being).

Working girl

We bought a small sofa for watching TV.  First we put the sofa in front of the TV - no good, the whole room looked small and stuffed. Then I realized that we have to get rid of my desk and put the sofa beside the window. Now all is well except I don't have a desk anymore...

The sofa looked a bit boring so I added a white woolen blanket my mother has knitted...it wasn't quite   what was needed so I added a colorful fringe and a couple of pillows to make the sofa more inviting. Our laundry basket with an old tablecloth makes do as a side table. The room needs a bit of tuning still but it looks good enough for a while.

Never ending story

We have tried (and tried) to find suitable stands for the loudspeakers and have tried everything from stack of books to garden stools. The newest finds are these two cute cabinets with marble tops. My husband thinks they are too low, I think they are perfect. Well, if not for loudspeaker stands, then for something else.

What's up?

The chest my granpa left to my brother has found a new place in our living room in Vårkulla. The chest is scratched, its locks don't work (and one is missing altogether), its legs are wobbling and a dog (?) has eaten one corner so the plain wood shows but the chest still looks rather handsome. At least after I loaded all the stuff on the scratched top.

It's gonna look great

I am still waiting for the bathroom to be finished. While waiting, we bought this cabinet from Kotka:

We wanted an old looking mirrow but on the other hand we knew we'll need some place to put toothbrushes etc. This new French cabinet will be perfect!

Heavy duty

We bought this hall cabinet last weekend. It weighed a ton! Not everything from Ikea is made of cardboard...

Just the right red

This red chair was found from our attic - as I already told you, the attic really is a treasure trowe! The chair is covered with paint stains but the pillow covers the worst of it and the red colour is perfect for Christmas.

You can't have too many chairs

We counted our chairs - if we include chairs from home, cottage and Vårkulla, we easily have seating for about 50 people. Here are some of the chairs from cottage - this "auditorium" is from spring when my husband cleaned all the outdoor furniture and let them dry in the sunshine.

I found it!

I have tried to find a small cabinet for my books for ages. Yesterday I once again went through the ads at tori.fi and found the one I wanted. Here it is:

It fits under the old cabinet well, doesn't it?

Sleeping beauty

This living room table has been waiting in store for a couple years. Hopefully we get it in for Christmas. My red and glass decorations would look great on it.

Something new for a change

We just had to buy these six Pentik stools as they were too cheap to leave at the store. For once, white seemed too lame so we bought these colourful ones. The stools are meant for the garden but maybe not for the store front, this installation is just for the picture.