Showing posts with label kitchen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kitchen. Show all posts

Thursday, December 16, 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, November 27, 2010

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 :)

Saturday, October 9, 2010

SALT AND PEPPER

Now I have two more cats, white ones!

Vintage salt and pepper shakers from Little Bukowski. Every kitchen needs a little kitsch!

Thursday, August 12, 2010

IS GETTING CLOSER NOW AND LOVING IT

In certain matters I can be patient as a buddha and let things take their time.
In other matters not. I get eager as an annoying child when I can't get what I want immediately.

This pretty much only applies to matters concerning things at home; decorating and fixing things. I can't stand to have things at home half done or waiting to be done (we are not talking about dishes or a messy study-desk here, ehrm, those can take their time)... There are few things more annoying like not having enough glue to finnish something of, purchasing an itme of wrong measurements, lacking the right screwes or a packing missing a piece. Uh!

We have had to wait for an item ordered by a carpenter for ages and now we finally received an important part of the kitchen!
The shelf:


We renewed the kitchen totally during our renovation; making it according to the old kitchen, looking pretty much the same, only with new fresh and functional surfaces and equipment. I was tempted to order my kitchen from Kvänum, this one, but the price was so ridiculously high I couldn't bare to go trough with it. Instead we went with basic, timeless pieces but spiced them up with details; like using the old handles from the original kitchen. And ordering the rest from a carpenter according to our own wishes. It turns out more affordable that way, you get to support a craftsman and get things the way you like them.

I'm still waiting for the long wooden handles for the drawers though. Things will be a lot easier around the kitchen when they arrive :)

Our home is getting closer to getting ready and it feels great.

Friday, July 10, 2009

SOME SMALL NICE DETAILS AT HOME

I've been spending most of the past week inside due to crappy weather, sewing on my outfit for tomorrow's show as well as freelancing by designing home wear for children. Every now and then it feels like the walls are falling down on me but I also enjoy some small things in my home:

The fact that I've turned into one of those persons who actually can keep a bowl of candy on my shelf and just have one every now and then instead of finishing it all off at once.



My small Klaus Haapaniemi cups, who's work I love. Not really good for anything else than a mini schnaps perhaps, but just cute as they are, hanging in my kitchen.



The lace on a couple of thin vintage slips hanging by my closet.



The world as it looked when my dad was a kid. (Well, it's not like I'm enjoying the iron curtain's borders. But I find it fascinating to look at old maps.)



A spelt-flour pie with apricot curd, rhubarb and strawberries just making it's way into the oven.



And the I actually do enjoy the rain outside too. As long as I am here inside.