Happy Mother's Day!

 This morning I was greeted by a cup of sweet coffee and chocolate bisquits in bed and wonderfull presents from Junior, Peanut and Hubby. I also got a beautiful potted rose, that I'm going to plant in our garden later this spring. This promises to be a simply lovely Mother's Day!

The boys and Hubby bought me Burberry Brit Rhythm. The cup is vintage 50's, bought from London a year ago.

Cup of coffee #2 in rollers and vintage 60's dressing gown

Tiny, hot pink roses

My Fabulous Pink Kitchen

A little while back I finally got around to doing something I had been planning for ages: paint the kitchen cupboards pink. And didn't it turn out fantastic! I have been thinking of having a vintage-inspired pink tea party...

The original plan was to paint the entire cupboard door pink, but that would have meant taking them of the cabinets and taking them to the garage and then painting first one side and after it had dries the other and it became an overwhelming and very daunting task. But then I thought, hey, why not just paint the middle bit. And so I did.

This is how it looked before.

The doors are made of painted MDF and therefore didn't need to be sanded or primed in any particular way. I just gave them a thorough wipe down using a rag and a surface washing liquid specifically designed for the job.

I also took the opportunity to completely get rid of the door above the stove so that the spice shelves could be used for display. I also lined the shelves with leftovers from the Pihlgren & Ritola wallpaper from the opposite wall. It's called "Kihlaruusu", BTW.

I also put up some valances I sewed from Marimekko's "Kippis"-fabric. It has a lovely mid-century feel, even though it was designed by Maria Louekari in 2008.

Marimekko has been creeping in to my decorating schemes more often now that my taste has slightly moved away from the mid-fifties and gone towards the later fifties/early sixties and mid-century modern. I find that the simpler patterns and bolder colours suit my taste better.

Walk-in Wardrobe Revamp

This is a little revamp I did last summer but only now got around to post. Remember my Tiffany Blue Bedroom post? Well, our bedroom has a walk-in wardrobe (one of the few things I insisted on when we built the house). It was dreary. I know it's not a place where I spend a lot of time but that's no reason, in my opinion, not to make it pretty.

Since the two long walls are taken up by shelves and a rail and the other short wall being basically all mirror, there is really only the far wall I can do anything to and most of it is covered by a chest of drawers.

This is the view that greeted me daily:

A plain white wall with a pine chest. Nice.

It just so happened, that I had found this short roll of gorgeous vintage wallpaper at a flea market. And it just so happened there was enough for the visible part of the wall. Hooray!

I don't know what it is, but I'm in love with this wallpaper! It kind of reminds me of the wallpaper in my maternal grandmothers house in Austria...I have a suspicion that it's by Pihlgren& Ritola, but I have yet to make sure. Will report back when I know.

Then a lick of sunny yellow paint on the pine dresser and this was the result:

Cute, no? Now every morning I'm greeted by a bit of sunshine.

Tiffany Blue Bedroom

 

I had a touch of writers block with this post so finishing it took a while. About a month ago I repainted our bedroom because I wasn't happy with the colour it was. It was a kind of grey/brown colour. I mean it was OK, I suppose. It gave the room a sort of, umh, sleepy feel. (See, writers block, told you.) But now that both boys are sleeping in their own rooms, I wanted it to become an oasis of calm in an otherwise hectic and cluttered home.

So this was what I started with: brown with a pink accent wall behind the bed. I don't know what I was thinking. I like bright colours and a turquoise blue was an ideal choice for the bedroom. I suppose it took me this long because I read somewhere that blue was the most popular colour choice for bedrooms and I didn't want to be one of the herd, so to speak.

I love my bedroom. Sorry, I mean mine and Hubby's bedroom. It is the only room in the house we are keeping a completely toy-free zone. It's a room for relaxing, for getting away from it all. No mess, no toys, no TV or computer. It is the place where I apply my make-up and get dressed.

My bookshelf with light bedtime reading...

Jewellery racks made by darling hubby.

Here's another before and after.  I really like the way the blue makes all the other colours pop.

I still have one problem, though. What to do with the wall behind the bed? I've been toying with the idea of a wallpapered accent wall, but that's gotten a bit old. A narrow shelf would be nice, you know the kind you can prop small pictures on...hmmmh, I don't know.

All The Pretty Skylarks or Downstairs Toilet Makeover

Let me start with something pretty namely the wallpaper that inspired the makeover. It's called "Ken kiuruista kaunein" (Who's the fairest skylark) in the colourway orange and it was designed for the Finnish wallpaper manufacturer Pihlgren ja Ritola Oy by Birger Kaipiainen in 1958. Pihlgren & Ritola had invited several artists and designers of that time to design wallpapers. The designs were maybe a bit showy for Finns at the time and they certainly weren't the most popular designs of that time, but they have an enduring appeal, in fact Birger Kaipiainen's "Ken kiuruista kaunein" in the colourway blue has been in production continuously since 1958 and is still going strong. I must note that I have been drooling over the orange version for years and have only now found a place to use it. I also have something planned for the wallpaper in the pink colourway, but that's another post altogether.

And now for the not so pretty: the "before" picture. We have lived in this house for six years now and the downstairs loo, or guest powderroom has not changed. When we were building the house we just wanted to move in quickly and decided to just slap some paint on the walls. The paint we chose was light gray. Neutral, non-obtrusive, functional. But also drab, dull and nondescript. A change was long overdue. I wanted colour, life, vibrancy, a bit of wow.

Dull, dull,dull

Putting wallpaper on all the walls from floor to cieling wasn't an option because of all the activities involving liquids that will be going on in that room. Not to mention the fact that these liquids will be mostly handled by two small boys. So the lower part of the room was painted with a water resistant, washable paint in the same yellow/orange as the wallpaper. We chose Luja by Tikkurila

Now a quick note to the good people of Tikkurila: Not all interior decorating is done by burly men with large and strong hands nor do all decorators have such persons at hand to help them with the paint tin. The lid of the tin has, what some might undoubtedly describe as "a new and innovative design, which enables the tin to be opened without any tools." So it doesn't have any of the metal flaps or holes you can pry open with a screwdriver that you get in a normal tin. Instead, you are expected to pull the lid open from the edge with your fingers while simultaneously pushing the lid inwards in the middle, like shown in this illustration. I HATE THOSE HANDS! So smug. So self-satisfied. "Look at us, we can push and pull at the same time! We are big and strong!".

Smug bastards

Anyway, once the tin was opened and two coats applied on the walls it was time to break out the wallpaper paste. The wallpaper is a traditional surface printed wallpaper and as such shouldn't be soaked for any longer than a minute. Putting it up was pretty straightforward and only took a few hours. The only thing I had to watch was treating the wallpaper carefully and not rubbing it since the colour does come off easily when the paper is wet.

The join between the wallpaper and the paint needed something and at first I thought a simple border would be just the ticket. But no simple borders were to be found. I then opted for the cheapo option which is a painted line. I went for the same bright periwinkle blue than in the wallpaper. Of course I wasn't going to go to the paint store and have them mix up one litre of it since I would only be needing enough for the stripe. So I mixed up my own using some leftover white paint and acrylic hobby paints.

And here's the finished stripe

Hurrah! ...now lets have a cocktail...

Dress swappin'

Hello again! I have a few other posts in the pipeline, but I just had to write about what happened last Sunday first.

Let me set the scene: About a dozen sweaty women in their underwear. Their hair is dishevelled and they're wearing expressions of intense concentration mixed with excitement. The air is filled with the sound of rustling and soft jazz, occasionally a grunt or an exclamation of delight or disappointment can be heard (It's too small!). Yup, I'm talking about a dress swap. Why? What did you think it was?

This time it was my turn to host the event and I dare say it was somewhat of a success. Everyone started arriving in the afternoon with their Ikea-bags, storage bins and suitcases. Everyone also brought something nice to eat for our coffee table. I, sadly, hadn't had the time to bake anything, but there was still plenty on offer, don't you think?

I had however spent the day clearing away clutter and making space. Good thing I did, because there was a lot of stuff!

I found three dresses, a top, a skirt, a girdle, a pair of lovely shoes, two patterns and some fabric. Got rid of some items too, which is always a bonus.

The idea behind a dress swap is very simple: swap some of your useless crap for something you use/like. This includes money. A swap is also easy to organise: just invite some friends over and ask them to bring the stuff they don't need and put out some snacks. It's so much more fun trying out clothes with a room full of friends at the ready to give you an opinion. It's also very liberating not having to undress and dress between every item. Hence everyone ends up in their underwear (slips mostly). This is why we impose a strict rule of no men over 10 years of age.

At this swap all the participants were vintage enthusiasts and had mostly vintage clothes and housewares/crafts supplies for swapping. Anyone living the "vintage lifestyle" will know, that crap accumulates. You pick stuff up from flea markets. Even stuff that doesn't fit, because, you know, you kinda have to save it. Then there are the items that have cost an arm and a leg from Etsy or eBay, but you haven't worn because they're too small/too big/wrong colour/just not you. These items are so much easier to sell to other vintage buffs, because, lets face it, to others it's just old clothes.

Decking the Halls

It's that time of year again. Yes, it's time to begin preparations for Christmas at our house. All extra clutter gets put away and out come the Christmas decorations. Both boxes. And the Christmas curtains, the Christmas pillow cases, the Christmas rug and the Christmas stockings. This is just the stuff for pre-Christmas time. By the 23rd it's full-on Christmas time and out come the Christmas towels and Christmas bedding. And on the 24th it's time for the tree and all the decorations to go on it. On Christmas eve we watch two Christmas movies: Nightmare Before Christmas and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Can you tell that I like Christmas yet?

There are a lot of things I like about Christmas: the food, the presents, the general Christmas spirit and, of course, the decorations. Once a year I can fully indulge my kitschy side. Well, not fully; The Hubby said no to having glowing reindeer in our front yard, but I'm working on it. This year is going to be even kitschier than the ones before as we have now bought a fake tree. I was strongly opposed to buying one but The Hubby finally won me over by suggesting we buy a pink one. A pink Christmas tree! How awesome is that?! We however ended up buying a white one because the pink wasn't pink enough, more a mauve and just not right.

The tree is also a bit smaller than usually because we have to put it on a small table in order to keep it away from the chubby little fingers of "Peanut", 8 months, who is now crawling/rolling around the floor. He, and his older brother "Junior", aged 3, are the reason I won't be taking out my most precious glass ornaments this year either.

I dream of having a tree full of vintage decorations, preferably glass ones but plastic would do as well. Just ordered some plastic candy canes (real ones would just get eaten). I've had my eye on some vintage Jewelbrite baubles on Etsy and I simply must have a vintage plastic nativity scene from the 60s. I already ordered a plastic Santa's sleigh with reindeer. I've collected a bunch of gorgeous things on my favorites-list but just haven't gotten round to ordering them and now it might be too late to get them by Christmas. Might order them anyway though. There's always next year!