Dream kitchen (or kitchen dreams)

Don't you just see the perfect 50's kitchen with yellow-black retro wallpaper and candy colour furniture? You don't? Well, I do (and am hoping the husband will keep up with the good work..)

Note to self

We visited Runeberg's museum in Porvoo today. There was a dark separate room for dishes that had a window to the room next to it. A great idea, we have a little room under the stairs and a window from there to kitchen would look nice and give some light to the storage room.

An apple a day

An apple pie in the autumn, just what the doctor ordered!

First things first

Of course I bought wallpaper for the kitchen before even signing the papers of the house, wouldn't anyone? I just had to as I fell for this Stig Lindberg design at first sight and it just happened that Värisilmä had a campaign lasting the day I saw these the first time. 20 % discount and only for the day, what else there was to do but buy the damn things!

I want a circus for Christmas!

What I want, I usually get. We bought Alessi's circus tin set for ourselves for Christmas. At the moment it is in the kitchen but I have to move it somewhere else after winter. The light in the kitchen is really strong in spring and any colours would fade in there.

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.

On top shelves

Top shelves in the kitchen are not for gathering dust. They are a great place for a tin collection! No use to store anything useful there as the shelves are too high to reach without a chair and you'd just risk your health by reaching for everyday items.

I love pink!

We got two pretty little pink (or violet) 60's glasses from my mother-in-law. Lovely!

Just in time

In this year I managed to use all the berries in the fridge before the new crop arrives. I don't much care for baking anymore so more often than not I still have some blueberries lurking in the fridge in the end of the summer.

More and more

I guess you are already bored with my tins but here are a few more. I just love orange and it seems that people loved it in the fiftie´s and sixtie´s, too.

Have a nice Sunday!

It is not very colourful outside so once again the carnations save the day.

Side effects

We oiled the kitchen worktops last weekend and it seemed a good time to rearrange the stuff I have in the kitchen. The plate rack got a new spring look with pastel colours. And as we have a new glass cabinet in the living room I moved all the glasses from the rack to the cabinet and got room for my star copper pot collection.

No room for ugly stuff

I love beautiful things. A good thing about them is that they look great even when everything is a mess. We decided to oil the worktops in the kitchen and had to move everything away while the tops were oiled (by my husband) and while the tops were drying (at least six hours). As I said, even messed up our kitchen stuff looks rather good.

Short fuse

I am no good at collecting. I need to have everything right away. Case in point: Klaus Haapaniemi designed Tanssi wall decorations for Arabia and I kind of wanted to buy all four at once. They were a bit too expensive and I decided to wait for awhile. Then, just after Christmas, Sokos in Helsinki sold these with 40 % off the price. I bought one (my husband thought they were still too expensive). Then, a week later, Sokos made an offer of 30 % off from the reduced price. This I just couldn't resist and bought the three I didn't yet have. So...it took me all of an week to create the collection. It is a good thing I don't collect diamonds..

I am starting to hate shopping

I don't understand why everything is always so difficult. We decided we'll need new carpets for Vårkulla's kitchen: red-white or mint-white with a Swedish style traditional weave. Should have been easy but wasn't. We visited all interior decorating shops and furniture stores before landing these three (all from different shops). We almost lost hope before finally finding the biggest red carpet under the table (this one is from Sotka, the smaller red-white from Hemtex and the mint one from Anttila).

Under or over

These porcelain coasters make nice Christmas decorations. And as we have a wooden kitchen top they are useful, too - put a glass or fruit jar on the top of coaster to make sure there will be no marks. Behind the coasters is the perfect oil bottle holder, an old potato measure. The oils don't get too much light and the table top stays pristine. And that the measure is beautiful is a bonus.

Burn it up, baby

A German glass cake mold from the 60's will be the perfect stand for my Christmas decorations. I will fill it with colourful bubbles that will look amazing when light shines through the glass. After Christmas I might use the mold in it is original use for baking cakes, or not - I don't much like hand washing the dishes and I wouldn't dare to put the mold in the dishwasher.

The devil is in the detail

Our kitchen lamp had a cheep plastic cord and the ceiling cup was also plastic. A definite no for an old house! My husband changed both the cord and the cup. The fabric cord and the ceramic (rosette) cup are much more suitable for our kitchen.

I found the ceiling cup in a new store Domus Classica  (link herje) that opened in Helsinki last Monday. I strongly recommend your visiting there if you have any interest in renovating old houses!

Sweet things

I seldom bake but yesterday I made a carrot-ginger cake with orange-cheese topping. I put the topping in a separate bowl as there is no way we two (my husband and I) could eat the whole cake during the weekend. This way I can freeze the rest of the cake and make a new topping for next weekend.

On top shelf

I have been collecting coffee (and other) tins for some time now. All the top shelves in our kitchen were already full so there was a problem to find place for new ones. Then I realized that there is a lot of room on top of our (unused) ovens. And voilà, problem solved.