just a little summer project

no summer is complete without husband engaging in a more or less major building project. we had long planned to build this building to shelter off the house a bit more from the road, which is quite close. it's also the first step towards being able to tear down the middle house, which is in quite bad shape.

husband did all this framing himself, building each of the sections over near his workshop and then we brought them over on the trailer and raised them (i helped with that bit).

there will be windows up high along the walls on both sides, but since we weren't sure we'd get them in before autumn winds and rain come along, he didn't cut the holes yet.

husband found a guy who rescues old doors from various places - these from a school somewhere. i even loved the color so much, i bought a can as close to it as i could get to paint the whole thing. i had talked about red or blue, but this green is perfect. we're going to have some vinyl stickers made for the windows, for a bit more privacy and with a groovy design of some sort - i'm thinking of incorporating our name, the house number and the nordic sun symbol.

the view from sunday evening

the view is outstanding from the porch of the treehouse. the afternoon sun hits it absolutely perfectly. it's soon going to be everyone's favorite spot. the house part took shape this weekend and there's even the beginning of a roof on one side. husband decided to put a roof over the porch as well, because the reality of our weather dictates shelter from the rain. but today, tho' a bit breezy and slightly more cold than you'd like it to be, was actually pretty glorious. sunshine and bird song filling the air.

we made a wreath of evergreen bows and flowers from around the garden and held a ceremonial rejsegilde, which is a little party you have once the roof construction on a new building is complete. i was sent for sausages, since they're traditional at such a party. so we ate sausages and toasted with fizzy lemonade to what an agreeable project it was shaping up to be (that's apparently traditional as well). and we basically just took a few minutes to stand and admire the work that had been done and to look happily forward to it being finished.

i'm pretty sure it's going to be much better than the main house when it's finished and i'm pretty much set on just moving into it. sabin and i have plans for furnishing it with loads of big, comfy pillows. hmmm. i wonder if the wifi will reach out there?

but i digress (what a surprise there). what i meant to write about was how nice it was to participate in the tradition of the rejsegilde. somehow traditions are very comforting, apparently even when they're not your own. it gave me, just for a moment, a sense of being part of a continuous chain of people who built things throughout the centuries. all of the hopefulness and optimism that's actually in the act of building something. it's a belief in it being worth doing and a belief in making something that lasts. and a father making a treehouse for his daughter is such an act of love and caring. making something for her, purely for her enjoyment. using his time and strength and know-how and brawn and imagination and creativity to create a room to call her own. i think that's just beautiful. husband is such a keeper.

6 meters of books

what do six meters of books look like?  pretty much like this:

but there are still about 3 boxes of books yet to unpack. must build library building next.

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...

sunday evening catch-up

it's been awhile since i was here. it was a busy week, what with traipsing around scotland and all--all for a business meeting which was supposed to last 1 hour, but which stretched to five and a half! thank goodness part of that was lunch! while i was in glasgow anyway, i squeezed in a haircut with the most fabulous hairdresser--she's now given me the two best haircuts i've ever had in my life. i'll have to take a picture as have thus far utterly failed to do so.

so, instead of my new hair, i give you my new shoes. they're el naturalista and i adore them, tho' i have no purple clothes whatsover, so they match nothing. they were just too fab to pass up.

and here's a shot of abbot's brae, where we stayed. although it looks rather fawlty towers, the couple who ran it were far, far from basil and cybil and we didn't see a single sign of manuel or polly. although very much off the beaten path (and far, far away from glasgow, where our meeting was), i would actually go back. with my husband and daughter, of course. someday.

the best way to reach glasgow was on a ferry, where i saw this rather humorous sign. i love the phrase "monkey island." i didn't try to go there. didn't really see the officer of the watch, or i might have asked.

45 minutes waiting for the ferry was just enough time for one of these. an ice cold tennant's.

since i got home, it's been panic on poppelvej, trying to finish or have the house finished enough for the party next saturday. we moved the dining table into the dining room today and ate our dinner at the actual table! that was wonderful. books go on the shelves tomorrow and the big buffet goes in on the far end. as soon as the electrician has been here.

this sign was right next to the monkey island one on the ferry, but i thought it appropriate.

we must remember this the next time we are about to spend hundreds of dollars on legos. child + cardboard box = hours of cheap fun. ok, this wasn't that cheap, since 4 hans j. wegner chairs came in these boxes, but the concept is good.

and to take a little break from all the hard work (that downstairs bathroom is small, but it took FOREVER to clean it!) i finally finished up my cards for the gocco swap. but weren't you supposed to be finished on the 21st, you ask? why, yes, i was, but i procrastinated and only did it today, but i will be sending them tomorrow!  don't the inks look beautiful? i was mixing green and pearly blue. first time i tried that--super fun!

the used lightbulbs looked so pretty sitting on sabin's desk on top of her colorful mandalas.

since i live in denmark, i had to do a viking ship, tho' the one i modeled it on is in norway. i figured that was ok since i actually work in norway. and who knows, maybe we'll move there soon?! here's the inked screen. there's just something about that glistening ink that makes me happy!

and stacks of cards drying on the racks.

i'll be sending them off tomorrow to my swap mates. i've gotten a couple of packages of goodies from my swap group and i can't wait to see what else i'll get!  i don't really know why i procrastinated it, it was so much fun! and it's even more fun getting little packages of other people's creativity in the mail.

i'll keep you all posted on the house progress this week, as aside from an editorial for marine electronics and a quick (work) story arising from last week's trip, i'm going to be painting and putting all of our stuff into place this week.

what i've been up to this weekend

much progress has been made inside the house this weekend. we sanded and oiled the new oak floors. yes, we did this previously in the kitchen, but now that the floor is laid in the addition as well, the boys decided to sand and treat it all again.

i think the way they joined the old house and the addition is just beautiful!

a single moment to rest and photograph after the first batch of oil treatment.

the entire addition floor after being treated with oil.

we wiped it all down by hand.

that was not easy.

i hung 14 colorful tealight holders in the greenhouse.

they were magical when it got dark.

why is the greenhouse, which has been made of all the odds and ends from the rest of the project, our very favorite place to be?

i made four trips to ikea (3 on friday, 1 today)

one of the results was these new karlstad chairs in an orange & red pattern that's perfect in the kitchen.

i can scarcely believe it, but when i just looked up that link to the chairs, i found out that they are actually about $50 CHEAPER in denmark! it must be the ONLY thing in the world that's cheaper here.

although the windowsills are all still full of painting and sanding supplies,

it starts to looks like people live here!

note my fabulous skinny la minx eep towel on the stove!

ignore the box-laden hallway and the stairs that need painting.

it's starting to be a home again!!

but we have a busy couple of weeks ahead, closing in on the big party on aug. 30!

so, so, so inspiring!!!

as we close in on being finished with the big things in the house and it's almost my turn (as opposed to husband's, who has done all of the heavy lifting and power tool side of things), i have been out buying fabric and then searching for inspiration right here in the blogosphere. and find it i have done.

starting with this absolutely gorgeous piece that heather at skinnylaminx is creating:

fortunately, i have convinced her to make it a little bigger and sell it to me, so it will be hanging in the opening from the old part of our house to the new--like a beautiful, extra-large (150cm x 350cm) super contemporary, lovely, gorgeous canvas! i just can't wait to see it in person!

and then i ran onto this beauty after i ordered some luscious fabrics from designer anna maria horner. it's a collage by stephanie levy and isn't it fabulous?

also on anna maria's blog, i found out about the wonderful quilts from gee's bend: 

and i even ordered up the beautiful coffee table book from amazon. i'll admit i ordered it for the pictures, but have found that the stories of these women absolutely blow me away. what incredible lives they have led and they have been exquisitely chronicled in this fantastic book. there's a whole section where the story is told in the women's own voices, here's just a little sample:

"i used to help mama work in the garden, raising collard greens, raising chickens. i love to raise chickens now too. i used to love to ride the mule. we had a pet mule, name of ollie, used to let us get up and ride his back. i used to could plow like a man. once i was grown, i could always work my crop out good, get finished, and go help other people. always was smart, loved to be doing something and helping somebody." --annie mae young

isn't that just marvelous? this book is definitely one to savor. there is just so much inspiration out there if you know where to look. what's beautiful and inspiring in your life today?

what to do?

i've been trying to design a curtain all weekend to fit this space (i have to do it in 2 shots because i can't get the whole thing in in one (there's a bookshelf in the way):

it's the opening at the "old" end of our house, which used to be windows and which is now just a giant opening to our new room. it's a 350cm x 150 cm rectangle and i've had some pictures in my head of what i'd like to have to fill it, but haven't really been able to get those pictures out of my head and sewn into curtains. and then i saw this fabulousity on skinny laminx. so i commented, asking heather to make it 350 x 150 and sell it to me! i'm really excited that it might actually be possible, because then i can just make chair cushions and such with the fabric i've already bought for the curtain that wasn't coming out of my own head. her patchwork of her wonderful designs is exactly what i had in mind!!!

there's a shot of the view we'll be able to sit and look out at when the curtain is raised. upstairs is our bedroom and we want a curtain or a shade since below will be the dining room and we think it might be ok to have a bit of privacy once in awhile, tho' we don't want to really be able to close off like with windows. and it needs to look good from below, or from both sides, actually, because it will be a bit like a giant painting when it's down. or at least that's what i hope.

there's the dining room below. believe it or not, we expect it to be more or less finished by the end of this week! we've got workmen galore this week--they're tiling and "pudsing" and laying floors and finishing ceilings. it's the big countdown to the big party on august 30. 

i'm keeping my fingers crossed that heather can help!!!

is it wednesday already?

i guess my list is going well, since i didn't write anything at all yesterday, so i must be keeping my resolution of not spending too much time in front of the computer. the weather is absolutely glorious, so i definitely don't want to coop myself up in the house when i can be outdoors. 

i did spend some time indoors, laying out the kitchen tiles so that the tile man can put them up (whenever he decides to show up). base tile is an orangey-yellow called mandarin and i've strategically dotted it with shiny red tile (to match the refrigerator) and a few fun little rustic tiles with a petroglyph on them (that's the lighter ones you can see). they'll go on the wall that you can just barely see in this picture, right above the sink. it took me the better part of a day to get it right, but i think it came together in the end.

the decking is nearly finished out in what is fast becoming a courtyard. i just heard the truck come with the last of the boards, so it will no doubt be finished today. husband and i ran around to 4 different nurseries in search of the perfect tree to plant in the decking. in the end, we found a wonderful catalpa ("trumpet tree" in danish) that has a lot of character. a tree with character that was at least 2 meters high, that was our requirement. 

the rain barrel was delivered this week as well. it's a wonderful old french oak barrel that was definitely used for red wine in its day, as it's giving off a faint aroma of cabernet still. it also has great character.  luckily, there's no rain in sight this week, so we have time to get it set up properly and hooked to the gutters so that the rainwater is mainlined directly into it next time it does rain.

it seems that things are coming together and although our projects are far from finished, it does begin to feel a bit more like it will be done in time for my parents' visit at the end of august. i surely hope so, as we've invited 68 adults and 30 kids for a party! that seems to be a good driver for us to keep the nose to the grindstone and finish. we've been lucky to have july off from work as well.

husband has a completely amazing capacity for work. he works until well after dark every evening. i feel a little ashamed of myself for the time i spend at the computer, but since i've been doing a bit of work this month on a consulting project, i try not to feel too badly about it. much of the work that he's doing i'm not really so much help with anyway--i managed to cut myself cooking on saturday (rather badly--it wouldn't stop bleeding for an alarmingly long time) and then again on sunday when i was working with the tiles--so imagine me near a saw! not good!

* * *

on another note, i devoured a wonderful little book over the past 24 hours (that also kept me away from the computer). mohsin hamid's the reluctant fundamentalist. it's an extremely well-written and compelling exploration of how someone seemingly "integrated" (there's lots of talk of integration in the danish press) into western society can come to reject it. it's evenly and intelligently written, with virtually no reference to religion. this, for me, makes the arguments all that more powerful--the cultural forces at work on people, pulling them in opposite directions. it captured as well the zeitgeist after september 11 and how people on both sides reacted. a very powerful little book that i highly recommend.

the lego factor

since there are zoning rules in denmark about how much of your property the main house can take up (20% in our case), we weren't able to build on as much as we would have liked. however, you can use 25% of your property for buildings in general. we took this seriously. we have built a greenhouse (which doesn't count in the 25%, as it's under 10 square meters).

we have my writing playhouse and

a shed for lawn mower and firewood (on the right here).

husband's workshop

and another shot of the storage shed on the left in this picture.

still to come (behind the writing playhouse) is a sauna.

this adds up to quite a collection of buildings. there will be five plus a roof on the other side of the house for parking bicycles under when it's all finished.  this got me thinking. and i've come to the conclusion that it's all because of these....

lego, as we know, is a danish company. the name comes from the danish words lege godt--play well. my dear husband, as a good little scandinavian child (whose father was an architect to boot), grew up playing with lego, just as our daughter is doing. i didn't really grow up with lego (i had a pony, after all), tho' i knew what it was. but, i think it has a marked effect on the psyche. you build small buildings, you arrange them, often around a square green lego base, and then play.

it dawned on me as i looked out the addition yesterday that husband is assembling three small buildings around a square base (decking). he is strategically placing other small buildings around the square of the property. he's playing with lego in adult size. it seems that play in childhood really does prepare you for life. i'm just relieved he played with lego and not with matches. 

the expanse of possibility

yesterday, this space was opened up right beside my desk. it's the former end of our house, now open onto the new room (which is still in a state of extreme unfinishedness). there were four windows in this space until yesterday, when husband took them away to reuse them in his workshop that's taking shape in the garden. although there were four large windows here, the difference it makes that they and all of their framing are now gone is simply amazing.  it's so open and light and expansive now and although it's unfinished, it's amazing to be able to look at the room below and out onto the back garden.

there will be a frame around this opening so that it feels finished , but it will remain open and lovely like this--no new windows or shutters or anything will go in. 

i feel a thrill of excitement at the possibilities it opens up. we do want to be able to have a shade of sorts in this space, so that we can close it for privacy--it is, after all, our bedroom here upstairs and will be the dining room in the addition below. our desks are at each end of the room right now and although my computer and creative space will move into the writing house in the garden, there will still be a desk here on each side.

so, i'm sketching and daydreaming about making a fabric shade that looks good from both sides. so many influences are tumbling in my head and i'm trying to sketch them all out, to get an idea of which direction to go. i'm pondering a natural linen base for the shade and color palettes for each side--blues and greens for the bedroom and reds and oranges for the dining room below. although i'm currently obsessed with helleristninger (nordic petroglyphs), i'm going to try to do something else. a sort of a modern quilt-feel with perhaps shades of turkish influence. i'll share some sketches and maybe even fabric swatches soon.

and we have a floor!

husband laid the last floorboards in the kitchen today. he's such a keeper.

i think he may have left all that junk in the floor

doesn't he look happy with the big sander?

i've been painting the island.

i'm not done yet.

oak totally rocks.

it's gonna be beautiful!

and totally worth the pain and suffering.

what a difference a day makes

july 5, 2008

july 6, 2008

july 7, 2008

july 8, 2008

july 9, 2008

it won't be long before i'm writing this blog

 from inside the "writing house" above.

i can't wait!!!

but first, i have to decide what color to paint it on the inside...

ahhh, luxury problems.