A coastal inspired mirror

This isn't a new project, because we made it back when we redid our hall, but I think it merits an own post.

A couple of years ago we rented an apartment that we never moved into (because we found the house before we had moved). The former tenant left no less that three mirrored walls after asking us if we wanted them. When we never moved in, it looked bad for a while because the next tenant did not want them and it looked like we would have to take them all down and possibly pay for the damage. Luckily, in the end the new tenant was promised new wallpapers and so the landlord took down all the mirrors for us.

They are standard mirrors and put together they quickly give real flashbacks of the 80's.

I still needed mirrors for the hallway though, and that's when I came up with this idea.

I went to the lumber yard, got some meters of rough planks. I cut them into pieces that were a bit longer than the mirror.

Then I put them on top each other like this (I was originally going to do it differently, but I made a mistake when measuring and so this was the only option)

I screwed them together, painted them with a matte white paint, and attached the mirrors using nails. 

  Then I just hung them up, and I have to say they are a lot better than if they had been put up with those black plastic things that usually comes with them. They give kind of a coastal look, I think. 

It would be possible to distress them a lot more, but I still have tons of these mirrors left so I suppose I will try it next time.

(Linking up to here , here, here and here.)

PS. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a good picture of a mirror? Sorry for the bad quality on these ones, I tried all kinds of lights and it simply did not work.

I´ve got a drawer

First off, I really do not know if "drawer" is the right word for this. School and business English never thaught me the difference between a drawer, a box and a canister.

Either way... when we went shopping for the pieces to the fence-to-be-completed-some-day-when-we-have-no-more-excuses I found this one in one of the containers. (Don't worry, it was a container filled with wood stumps and left over wood, so nothing gross.) I scooped it up and asked if I could have it, which I could.

It has a little damage, and I suppose that's why they had thrown it away, but it doesn't really matter (and could be fixed quite easily). I think it's pretty and I plan to paint it and then put pots of herbes in it. The problem is that I just cant decide on the color.

I am thinking white, with some grey, French inspired, lettering... or aqua with a distressed white on top... or lavender with white lettering... or a pop color? I simply can't decide.

Any ideas?

Our beach portal

This post is a bit overdue, as you can see on the lack of green grass on the pictures, but it shouldn't matter.

From our house, there is a small footpath down to the lake. It's not very far at all, but I got the idea of building a portal there. I picture it covered in roses and I hope to paint the name of the house on it some day.

It wasn't a very difficult building project.

You will see that "the legs" are a bit thicker than the overlay, but I basically used what we already had and I paid more attention to the look of it than how much it can support, because it is not supposed to support anything heavy.

We laid it out on the ground and sawed the overlaying ones diagonally.

I think we are both kind of dislike to measure things, because there have been quite a few occasions where we've had to re-do everything because we didn't measure or think correctly. (That would definitely be even more true for projects that I'm doing on my own. I am not much for measuring, whether it's a wooden piece or a cup of flour).

I have no idea what these are called in English (ground anchor maybe?), but it has a long metal spike that we drove into the earth. (And, to be honest, then wiggled up again, put down a bit to the left, wiggled up and put it down before we were satisfied.)

This is what it looked like unpainted. As you can see, the light post is right behind it and it didn't look good, so that's why we moved it.

Moved and painted, and some roses planted on either side. I hope they will grow really quick. They are supposed to give big red, velvety roses and I can't wait to see it.

We hope to add a kind of fence to it in the future, but that project went so badly that we abandoned it half-ways. We will give it a new shot, eventually.

(Linking this up to abeachcottage as usual.)

The gray chair

Four years ago we lived in Stockholm and there was a balcony in the stairwell. On that balcony was this chair and our oldest cat Dexter loved to run down to that balcony and jump up on to the chair. 

We were the only ones using the balcony and when we moved, we took the chair with us because we thought our cat would like to have it at the new place.

Needless to say, Dexter never even looked at it again and after a month on our terrasse I put it in a corner of the garden.

I think it is beautiful in it's gray, wheathered shade. And I love looking across the lawn and see that peaceful place where I could sit down and just smell the flowers (even if I never do sit down). 

I have planted some lavender and I was hoping for some poppies, but so far only the tulips spread their beauty. My dream would be for a whole plot of blueish lavender next to one with red poppies. 

Isnt it amazing how old things sometimes is so much more beautiful than new ones? What are you favorite old thing (that you haven't painted)? 

Trying my luck at baking

There has been some personal issues, along with contant computer-related issues lately so I have neglected the blog. I am sorry for that, but sometimes one has to ignore it.

There are tons of things I want to tell you. We have added a bannister to our second entrance, the "cave" has been cleared out, I have planted more plants, changed the curtain in the kitchen and made other changes.

And I have been baking.

I am still experimenting, and this bread did not turn out so good. It looks lovely,  but I think it should have been in the oven for longer time.

It was still good though. I just need to follow a recipe instead of just throwing together whatever I feel like.

I also made myself a pizza. Very nice, but I should have skipped the tomatoes inside it.

So, that's it for now. I promise to be back soon.

Lost

I lost quite a few draft posts when Blogger went down and bad luck still seems to be around, because there were several issues with my computer yesterday, preventing me from uploading any photos. I have a great spray paint project that I really want to show you, but it will have to wait until tonight when I am home at my own PC (I am writing this from work).

So sorry for all the issues lately, I hope things will be better from now on.

And yes, I did almost finish the clean up of the "cave". I spent most part of monday there and after 8 hours of sorting, reorganizing and throwing away stuff it is possible to move around in there. There are still some things that needs to be thrown away that were too heavy for me to move, but it is definitely looking better. Will post pictures on friday, I hope.

Man and woman cave

So Blogger has behaved strangely all weekend, and I did not post because it seemed very unstable. My post from friday disappeared completely, so here it is again.

I have seen many blogs calling the garage or a similar place for the "man cave", but I have to admit that in this house we are both as bad when it comes to collecting things and storing them in a not-so-organized order. This is our "man and woman cave" - and as you can see it is quite a mess.

I wanted to post this on Friday in hopes that it would make us take care of it this weekend, but that did not really happen (maybe I can blame Blogger for this?). We did start though, and we got one full load to the dump/recycle center and yesterday also loaded the trailer with lots of things that were going to Darlings company. It is an open trailer, but the weather looked fine to we took the risk of leaving it for the night.

That was a bad idea, because at 3AM I woke up and heard the rain pour down outside. There was nothing but to head out in the rain and try to cover the poor furniture with whatever plastic we could find. Luckily they managed quite well after all, but getting up and out at that time is really terrible. Darling called it "Ryan-air-time" referring to a low cost airline that often flies on strange hours so that one have to leave for the airport in the middle of the night.

Anyways. These are the before pictures, but there are not yet any after pictures. I hope I will have some soon, but it might still take weeks. We'll see.

I hope you did funnier things this weekend!

Issues

Blogger is behaving strangely, so I seem to have lost one (or more) posts. I will try to investigate what has happened.

Garden signs

You might have spotted these little sign in my garden post. 

They were really simple to make, but makes a big difference in the patch. And it will be nice to know what is actually growing where, because previous years we have completely forgotten.

I found some left over wood and sawed it into little pieces. I would have loved to use older wood that had turned gray already, but I did not find any. I think these ones will turn grey in the end so they will have to do.

Originally I planned to add a stick to them, but when I found these really huge nails, I decided to be lazy and just use them. It worked out great.

Then came the tricky part of having to write on them. I first tried with a small stick, but had to give up and go get a proper brush. 

All finished.

The other day I spotted some radish, carrots and rocket salad, so I think things are growing according to plan.

Again, very simple to make, but they make the vegetable patch look so much nicer.

(I will be linking this to A beachcottage tomorrow)

What do do with this?

I have gotten this piece from my parents, and it's been in the family for quite some time. I have no idea what to do with it. I think it is pretty and it's been in the family, so I do not think I am allowed (or that I should) give it the usual white-paint-treatment, but I find it hard to place in the room.

And to make matters worse (although I do not like to use that word) there is another one, a similar, but much bigger one waiting to be moved to our house that I have just inherited from my grandmother. A very beautiful piece, but so hard to find a good place for.

I suppose this one  would benefit from being sanded and getting a new shiny coat, but it also looks like it could be made of veneer and that would make it a lot more difficult. 

Love the foot. But what to do with it?

Linking up to Nifty Thrifty Tuesdays, even though it is not really a thrift store find.

Blogger is down?

It seems like Blogger is currently down, or at least I do not manage to upload any pictures or write a post. This post is sent by email.

I hope it gets back up online soon because I have a lot to show you!

Shelves in the sunroom

I hope the weekend has been great! The weather here is fantastic and I have spent a lot of time in the garden, and finishing the painting of the deck.

This time of the year and hopefully for the months to come we spend a lot of our time in the sunroom.

We often eat there, and we often have a barbecue and I thought it would be convenient to have some china, glasses etc outside, so I added two shelves. They are simple ones from IKEA, the console is called Walter, and the shelves are the simple wooden ones (I do not know the name), which I painted white and had Darling to put up for me. I am good at many things, but putting up shelves is really not my thing.

I also added this fabric to cover the cables, coal and radio that is hidden behind. I actually bought the fabric last year, but never got around doing it and then the season ended and I just forgot about it. The other day I finally sewed it and hanged it. I added two metal loops and then first tried to hang it on a simple string, but that didnt work as the string would expand when I tried to knot it in place. After some very mature pulling the tread and screaming at it like a five year old (what can I say? Decoratin sometimes definitely brings out the worst in me.) and some help from Darling I instead used a thin metal wire which went a lot better. 

I know stars are almost everywhere right now, but I still like them. I think they add such a clean touch to everything. The pot is from the local thrift store and the small mugs was found at a sale some months ago. They are a little bit too small for my liking - I am a tea drinker and prefer to have a bigger mug, but they are perfect as decoration.

Linking here.

Work in progress

I am not gone, I am just busy with gardening, fence-building (which is turning out to be one of those this-will-be-simple-oops-this-might-take-a-lot-longer-than-we-thought projects).

Promise to be back soon with a full report.

Enjoy the weekend and I hope you all have as glorious weather as we do. I can't belive it was snowing only a couple of days ago!

Spring flowers

I have been home today, due to a doctors appointment, and I have been able to work in the garden. I found some bushes for only 2€ (3$) each, which is a lot less then the usual price, at Lidl (a low cost store) and planted them along with some plants my mother gave me.

I guess some people could think of nothing worse than a day working in the garden, getting dirty and tired, but I really love it. I love to be doing something physical (as opposed to my work in front of a pc) and I love to plan how to plant things (not so different from interior design) and see how it grows!

Is there anything better than the spring flowers? Every time when I get back to the house (I am often away in the weeks) I go out in the garden and look at all the buds out there. Everything is growing so fast now!

It seems like almost all flowers survived the sudden cold that we had. There are some flowers from last year that still havent shown any sign of life, and I am worried that these might not have made it through the winter. I hope they are just slow to wake up, but the winter was very long and very cold so I will not be suprised - only sad - if it turns out that they died.

I do not know the name of these white flowers in english. Someone said that they are called anemones? Is that right? They are my favorite spring flower and I just love it when the whole forest is full of them.

I remember one year when we lived in town. I had not been able to go out and get any of the flowers, and so when Darling was driving from a meeting in another city he stopped the car in the forest  and picked a bunch for me. So cute!

 I got these blue ones from my best friends mother. They are known to spread all over the garden and so I planted them quite far from the house. I think maybe even too far, because I hardly see them now, but hopefully they will indeed spread. I would love to find the garden covered in blue and white each spring!

This one I bought at IKEA two weeks ago. It is planted in one of my pots in the sun room. I will show you the whole thing in anoter post. 

A newly bought and planted Hosta. Unfortunately, the picture is a week old and today it looks a bit like frozen sallad. I am not sure it's going to make it, but I keep my fingers crossed.

I love this little corner of the garden, but Darling wants to built a garage there (it is the only possible place) so I am going to have to move the plants somewhere else.

I am intrigued by the pricing of these flowers (pensees, violets). One and half month ago, they were sold very cheap, and now they have suddenly became more expensive. I do not understand why, because it seems more logical the other way around, doesn't it? Either way, I was happy to find a deal with 24 plants for a good price and now they are planted in the garden. Hopefully they will last all through summer, adding bits of color everywhere.

Do you also like gardening? Do you agree with me that it is a bit similar to interior design?