Tuesday, August 26, 2008

whoa, do people actually LIVE here?

progress was made yesterday, i emptied three boxes of books. there are still, sadly (or perhaps shockingly) ELEVEN more to empty (tho' thankfully not all of them are completely full)! which means i have to make ANOTHER run to ikea today. we'll line the whole top of the room with bookshelves, which should just about do it. it will also take some of the stark whiteness away from the room. it's a bit too swedish for me at the moment, but my husband has indulged his inner swede. he grinned and said it had taken him ten years to be allowed to let his swedish side out and paint a room white. i told him i'd do my best to see that it didn't happen again.  i will admit in this case that the room is amazing and part of the reason is that it's white.

the view from ground level:


and above:


and yes, that's a CD player on the red-topped købmandsdisk (what are those things called in english?). my mom would call it a buffet, but it's really a big chest of drawers that once stood in a shop. the one in this picture used to be in my father-in-law's house in, you guessed it, sweden. at least husband thinks it would be sacrilege to paint it white. it must remain as it was in peter's house. anyway, back to the CD player. despite our iPod intensive household, years of music love have resulted in about 1000 CDs, which we still have and still use (can you imagine how much storage space i would need to play those puppies into iTunes?), so yes, there is a CD player in the dining room. i have one of those little cords that enables you to attach an iPod, so we can still play the music we don't have on CD (and which definitely didn't come from limewire or eMule). so it's not entirely retro to have a CD player. the 90s can't really be retro yet, can they?

i hope that maybe my fabulous patchwork might arrive from south africa today so i can get started on turning it into a massive "canvas" in the space above the dining room! i'm trying not to hold my breath and be too impatient about it.

in the meantime, i have to make do with heather's vinyl protea stickers. i have one left to put up, it got a little dark on me yesterday (the electrician hasn't yet been here to fix up the lights in the kitchen), so i didn't finish. they look really cool! there will be a little shelf right below, which is why i've left so much room above the backsplash.


well, it's time to get to work on today's tasks. i must get some things done before the big trek to ikea. that list from yesterday isn't really getting any shorter (in fact, i added 5 items to it last night!)!!

and the countdown continues...

9 comments:

Janni said...

Hi Julie

It's so funny the "everything is painted white - swedish thing". A lot of our furniture is painted white, we even have a white leather sofa...But now we are thinking about painting it all again (not the sofa off course), but we can't really decide on the colours. Maby green, purpel and orange. With some nice retro accessories. Any ideas?

For your non danish readers: I think that in many danish homes, especiallly the ones where the woman is between 22 and 42 everything is painted white, walls, floors, furniture and so on. I guess we just love that romantic, french country side style.

But i have to say, it does bring a lot of light into the rooms, which we really need!

I actually don't know what i wanted to say in this comment. Other than i yet again enjoyed to se an american perspective on sweedish/danish home decorating (but i guess you are not all against the swedish style - considering all your trips to IKEA :-))

Unknown said...

So little time, so much to do. I haven't even gotten to the CD sstage yet, having just unloaded albums (do you even know what they are?) onto my shelf. My next project is transfering hundreds of hours of reel-to-reel into digital (if I can only find a tape player that actually works anymore).

Congrats on your new space, I know how much work it takes to get there!

craftyclaire said...

sideboard, is what we call them in the UK!!!

Unknown said...

I love your book shelves and the color of your kitchen backsplash. It looks great.

julochka said...

janni, you're right, during the dark winter months, we do need the light. and yes, i do like sweden (and ikea, in fact, i just came back from there) mmm, meatballs.

kip--i do know albums and we have several boxes of those and an old B&O stereo to play them on. no idea how i'd get them into iTunes. :-)

claire--is it still a sideboard when it used to stand in an old shop?

nik--thank you! it was my way of having color in with all that swedish white!

eilandkind/islandchild said...

Is that a red fridge? If so, it is FABULOUS.

julochka said...

hi eilandkind--it is indeed a red fridge. that was the one thing i would not have budged on, i simply had to have it. it's smeg.

tangobaby said...

I love your bookshelves and especially the second photo looking down on all of your bookiness.

It never dawned on me that I would lust after red appliances, but now I guess I have to do that too, in addition to whining about how I've never been to Luxor and why my camera isn't good enough.

What has gotten into me today? I am going to go back and admire all of your hard work now.

Oh, and I did give you an award today (on my blog), but the nice thing about it is that it's virtual so it won't take up any room on your bookshelves.

;-)

Elizabeth Brinton said...

O.K. I found you through Tangobaby, and saw your comment today. I admit it, I have shallow values, and I visited your blog to see the fab red fridge. I look forward to exploring some more.
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