BIRDS IN THE BATHROOM

While I think it's ok to put a little kitsch or some extra cuteness in the kitchen, and a lot of flair in decorating the bedroom, I like to keep the rest rather simple. But when it comes to the bathroom I think you can go as kitsch or crazy as you like.

Without ever really choosing a theme it became birds for ours, they just started to gather. And why not - I like small birds (and feed them secretly from the window although our building has banned it).

So let's step in and check out the birdies!


The door is covered in this wallpaper, from Pip Studio. I love it.


I have a bird poster from Papaya! on the wall. And a little tweeter on the paper holder too.


And birdie hand towels, also from Pip Studio.


I've attached bird cage mirrors on the otherwise rather dull shower cabinet. The doors slide so sometimes the bird cages are in front of each other too. Which looks nice. The adhesive mirrors are from Modcloth.

IN THE KITCHEN / ICING THE CAKE

I made a cake for my father's birthday (date- banana with apple yoghurt frosting) which we celebrated at our place. My sisters and their boyfriend also came over, it was very nice. The cake turned out real good but I only got a shot of the last piece afterwards.

(And yes, I know Sir Pekka is performing his evening 'grooming' procedure in the later pictures but hey, that's natural; what cats do, so no need to photoshop him out in the name of prudence or so :)

CURTAINS

Slowly and certainly the flat is becoming closer to getting ready. Some things get done easily, but others take time and a few remain eternal projects that will never be finished...

I had a hard time choosing curtains for our living room as I had no idea what to search for nor could I really find any good enough inspiration online or in magazines. in such cases is only one thing left to do - wait, and let whatever it is you are looking for find you instead. And then one day indeed I stumbled upon a fabric was just right.



I sports the same kind of patterns as our living room wallpaper. Not indentical, and in stronger colours, but with the same kid of theme.


The wallpaper is called Bownet, designed by Jukka Pellinen in the 1950's and is now in production again. It comes in four colour variations and is sold at Tapettitalo. Our bedroom wallpaper, designed by Birger Kapiainen in the 50's, is also from there. I know you can call and order in Finland, so perhaps it is possible also from abroad...


I made cushion covers form what was left of the fabric.
'Now if I wuld just manage to tidy up it would look really really nice here at home...

FLAT-TO-BE phase 4; DETAILS

I've been running around on meetings and doing errands and renovating. In other words, I've been way from the internet most of the time and that makes me feel terribly isolated.
(Such a 21- century problem, getting all anxious after couple of days away from the internet!)

But with the flat; we're getting there. (There's not too much else to blog about this week I'm afraid :)
The living room is getting it's wall paper and I've put the old, cleaned light switches back on.


A lot of thing s will be in my favorite color combination, pearl grey and white (as seen in my header among other things). The door frames for example.


My mom was cleaning out one of the closets and saved this tin jar for me. Fazer is the biggest company (and also and one of the oldest) of bred, biscuits and most of all sweets, in Finland.


We are also keeping the original wardrobe closet. I planned to paint the closets sky blue but there was a lot of pink over from the kitchen. Alas, closet is now pink.


And the kitchen is coming up. We're making it pretty much the same as the original kitchen, only with some modern benefits. Some parts were bought ready but we have also ordered some items handmade from a carpenter. We've kept the original door handles from the old kitchen.


Eddi put up the tiles yesterday. Kitchen will be ready today and I'm off now to pick up some more wall paper we've ordered!

FLAT-TO-BE, phase 2 1/2 & 3

Mostly phase three, as I forgot to take pictures there in between... pretty much how things are now:

This is the room with all the stuff in it you could see in the previous post. The study. Btw you'd never believe on of the most heavily trafficked roads in Finland runs just behind those trees.

Bedroom floor done. We'll most likely paint it, but struggle between two colors; pearl grey and black. A shiny black wooden floor looks great, but it might be too dark for this room though.

New shiny kitchen floor and strawberry milkshake-coloured walls! There's not much else in the kitchen for the moment though, except electrical stuff (as you can see).

My grandparents lived in Canada and the US, California mostly in the 1950's and 60's and later in Tanzania. There are some items of that time "left over". I found this wooden box in the basement. I think I'll keep flowers in it, on the balcony. (I'm also keeping the small table the box is on as my grandmother had no use for it in their new home.)

The wooden fruit box was lined with old, early 60's newspaper ads.

Soon it will be kitchen time!

FLAT-TO-BE, phase 1.

Or, what I've been up to lately.


Here are some pictures I took just before we started the renovation, which have now been going on for two weeks. I feel I've done nothing but renovate lately.
I hate renovations.
But I love the result.
I aimed to do as little as possible and hire as many professionals as possible, but still, in some strange ways, we see ourselves doing a lot of work all the time. Well, I guess that's the way it goes.

The flat we are moving to is my grandparent's. They moved out this winter when the whole building was having the plumming changed, into a more suitable building for those 90+. (With like, well, you know, elevators and such. Ovens that are not electrically damaged and dangerous and so on).

I spent a lot of time in this flat as a kid, and grew up just behind the corner myself. So its kind fo like going back to my roots then I guess :) Which is not a long way, only across town; barely 10 km from where I am now. But since it's at the other side of the highway bridge into -or, out of- town, making it another city, it is considered far away.
And sometimes feels like that too.
Sometimes just like home.

It looks so different now already!

We'd love to have kept the old stove, but like said; it has become kind of life threatening.

There was a lot of my granparents' stuff around. And still is, only hid in the closets for now. Tons, really, tons of books.

There hasn't really happened much in the past 40 years since they moved there - or 50 since it was built either, so there's quite a lot to do. Like taking out ugly carpets. Which I'm not doing in this picture though. I'm just pretending.

But I did break a lot of stuff! Stuff that had to be broken to get out. I felt very strong afterwards. Me and my crowbar were like this: X

The view is nice -

-you can catch a glimpse of sea from behind the trees.

More phases coming up.