Lazy day

I didn't have much energy to do anything today. I raked wet leaves for an hour and half and after that read interior design magazines. Luckily I have an energetic husband, he went to Rauhala and got rid of the plastic carpets in the hall and living room. The wooden floorboards were in a rather good condition so some sanding and painting is required, but no need to change the boards.

And the living is easy

Today was a bit hot to clean the windows/rearrange the garden furniture etc but who cares, it is summer! This year I managed to change the hall door curtains for summer. The thick curtain is great in winter as it keeps the cold out and the thin curtain even greater in summer as it keeps the flies out.

Now I know how Edison felt

We finally have an electric lamp in our hall! It is already spring and not so dark anymore but I still remember how dark it was (and will be) in the winter and autumn so the light is much appreciated.

Curtains down

I hate sewing (and cutting and ironing) so last weekend was rather stressful. Luckily my husband helped me with the sewing so we finally got our hall curtains in place. Now somebody (=my husband) needs to paint the window frames and the hall would look rather nice. Oh, and we still need to change the curtain rods from white to dark ones, the white ones don't look too hot. The curtain on the door was bought at the same time as the fabric for window so they go well together. The tassels were bought separately but match well, too. I am rather proud to say that I have a really good colour memory and usually manage to buy an exact fit without samples. Don't try this at home as a good colour memory is rather rare...

Scary thought

I have a curtain pole in place, tassels to tie the curtains and a fabric bought from London years ago. Now I should start sewing - my least favourite task ever! My sewing projects usually start to go wrong at the moment I touch the scissors. Help, please...

Hello?

Do you remember the time when there was a phone in every hall? As we have an old house we thought we might as well have a phone table with a real phone in our hall.

Just hanging there

I love floral prints and the good smell of lavender was a bonus, so of course I bought this small bag to hang on the door in our hall.

Straight talk

It is incredibly hard to put wallpapers on walls that are not straight. Especially when the wallpaper has 53 cm pattern hight (and if you in addition have a wife who isn't much help). Well, my husband did it, our hall now has new wallpapers and I just love them! There is still a lot to do before the room is finished, but I am happy for now. Our living room is of course a mess, as the stuff from the hall had to be moved somewhere and it is no use putting things back to their places as they would be in the way when finishing the room.

By the way, the small weights are very useful when spreading the adhesive behind the papers! Nice to have some use for things you just bought for decoration.

Home (cottage) shopping

I wanted a table for the hall and bought a too big one from an internet flea market. Never mind, we moved the big table to the cottage and brought a smaller one to Vårkulla's hall.

Don't look up

I had a terrible flu when choosing the paint for the hall panels. I managed to remember wanting them to be a greenish gray and we chose a bit cowardly light green. After buying the paint I told my husband we have to choose the paint for the floor more carefully. And he told me that we had already bought the paint for the floor. I just hope it isn't the same colour as the walls as then we would need to paint the panels once again in a different colour..

The next step is to put up the wall paper - until then either don't look up or try to enjoy the paintings we hung for the while.

Art from Ikea

We found this bird postcard from Ikea (the frame is from Ikea, too). The colours match our still-not-repainted attic door perfectly. I bought the frame for its yellow accent as this would suit the planned greenish colours of the hall, but it seems to work before the renovation, too.

Only the car is missing

We have a couple of pairs of old registration plates that just hang on the wall. Maybe we should get cars to hang them on...

A place for your hearts

I bought these metal hearts in sale to decorate the garden next Christmas. As I didn't have the energy to pack them with other Christmas decorations I put them in an old tin pitcher that happened to be in the hall as I hadn't yet found it a place in the garden....one things leads to another and then you have a whole new decoration solution.

Speed it up!

This old photo is from Portobello road, London. There was this about 80 years old man who had hundreds and hundreds of photos that he himself had taken through the years and he sold them for 50 pences each. He told me that he only managed to stay at his booth for a couple of hours a day and then had to go and rest. I bought a couple of photos for my husband and we finally found a frame for one of them. This one is from 1954 and shows Fangio in his car.

The final curtain

We bought the curtain from London about a year ago. It was all the time meant for this door but we just did not get around to hang it. Well, finally it is in its right place. And the new door mat from Prisma looks better now, too. Both the curtain and the mat will look even better when we paper the walls...

The Brittish use a lot of these door curtains - they are really useful if you only have one door in the hall as we do. I haven't seen these in Finnish shops, I wonder why as it is even colder here than in England.

Heavy duty

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

New year, new calendar

I don't usually buy wall calendars but this one cought my eye. At the moment it is at home but I might take it to Vårkulla.

Wall art

While waiting for wall paper the wall has other decorations on it.

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.

Trouble with hares?

This has been used when hunting hares. The thing makes a loud rattling sound to scare the hares from their hiding places. A bit sinister  - well kids also used these in sport events to cheer on the competitors.