Showing posts with label countryside. Show all posts
Showing posts with label countryside. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

SOME LIGHT KITCHEN PIMPIN' IN THE COUNTRYSIDE

Those of you who read this blog know that Eddi has a house out in the countryside; at their family farm he and his brother run besides their normal jobs now that their father has retired.

At only fifitly minutes from the Helsinki city centre (and forty from where we live) it is still way out in the country side, where the snow stays white in winter, the roads are dark whitout any street lighting and people leave their doors unlocked at night (crazy people! Haven't they ever seen any horror movies?).

The wooden house is big, built in the late twenties and will be great once it is renovated - right now it has nice features but contains the worst of the seventies, eighties and nineties. It seems most of his relatives have been living there at some point, the interior isn't really in any style, but items have been bought and left there sporadically over the years.

The plan is to at some point bring out the old ceilings and dig up the old wooden floors and fix each room, but as we just fixed our flat here in the city there is nor the time, money or spirit for it for a few years to come. Or, shouldn't be. But the itch is there -so, we decided to do a little quick freshing up in the room one spends the most time in; the kitchen. A small make over, some light pimping so to say; but you can do magic with some paint and new details during one weekend.

The kitchen before:

The walls were in what I called baby poop brown, the cupboards old and worn from the eighties.

The room was full of extra stuff that had no practical or aesthetically purpose whatsoever, like an extra sink out of use. Eddi had removed most of it though, including the fugly curtains that were hanging there before I managed to get pictures...

We removed some of the cupboards on the wall to lighten the room up, reveiling a mint green colour that had been on there earlier. Not that far from the colour we had in the cans, waiting to get up on the walls!

Afterwards! A huge change.

We re-painted the ceiling white, painted all the walls robin's egg blue and changed the door knobs and handels.

And put up some shelves instead of the old cupboard.

I made us some new curtains.

At some point I intend to find us a big nice old cabinet for the china, but for now a trip to IKEA was enough. The cabinet can be used for other purposes once the perfect vintage piece comes along; I am not one of those to keep the plates and cups in a plastic bag to wait for that perfect piece to show up, I go for compromises until that.

We still intend to paint the door- and window frames, as the tree colour does not really match the pale blue walls - I am tempted to paint them in a dark red shiny colour but we will most likely go for white though. We also intend to paint the table and the chairs and get ourselves a new lamp. And a new fridge also. Perhaps another Smeg, but in another colour. Cream, or red.

(Please ignore the microwave there on the table waiting to be hidden). It feels a lot more nice to spend time in the kitchen now. This little project took us one weekend.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

TWO MONTHS AGO EXACTLY

It's wet, rough and cold outside, the kind of autumn weather that demands sitting inside drinking tea. Which I've done all day since our outdoor-shoot was cancelled. It's strange how the seasons sometimes changes so fast, a mere month ago we were still sweating and cursing the heat.
Two months ago, exactly, looked like this:

I came out to my family's summer place, Mölandet, the night before and my parents and I went to pick up Eddi by boat in the morning.

One drives across Helsinki going from our summer place to where we live.

Our home behind the trees, we picked him up here.

Arriving back at Mölandet.

Had some bubbly under the parasol.

The cats were enjoying themselves outside.



My sister and her dog.





Eating out, literally. We eat outside everyday as long as it's not raining.


Night falls.

The biggest harbor in Finland is just around the corner; around the bend of our house. Hello work! (well not really, I don't have to go there myself anymore but to another harbour but anyway, hello our ships.) It was built for years and finished a couple of years ago, after a decade of protests from environmental organizations and everyone nearby. They even had to take away one island in order to place it there.

But the lights are kind of pretty though if you think of it. And from our place you only see it from one side. The archipelago is still intact in the other direction.

Two months can go so fast but feel like a whole year!

Mölandet is so close but I still only made it out there for a couple of days this summer, just like last year. Sad. But next year perhaps...

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

TO THE LIL' LAKE AND BACK












(This dress, these bikinis. The bikinis were actually sold out when I went to get them but Tyra cut onw of the swimsuits into a bikini for me :)

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

MIDSUMMER'S DAY'S NIGHT

On the night of midsummers day I drove out to Eddi's house in the countryside after work. Eddi and his bother have taken over their family farm and run it besides their normal work. It's about a 50 min drive out of town - not that much maybe, but enough for me and oh-so-out in the country.

Muuh, see?

Quiet.

Wherever you go outside of town there are always something growing to put on your sandwich, or salad. Chive at least.

(Obvious problems keeping the sandwich together.)

One o clock in the night.

The next morning I drove back to the harbour. See how my magnificent car sparkles in the morning sun :)