kitchen : after

ok. as previously said, danish inspired : i enjoy boligliv so much !

and because i'm one crazy woman (i have like everybody else a big christmas-to-do-list) & i have read too many danish home magazines lately, i decided to re-decorate our temporary kitchen while DH was on a trip abroad as a surprise when he comes home... (and came to the conclusion maybe the pre-christmas days are not really the right time to start one more project ?!!)

this colorful + turquoise theme is gone.

with Christmas around the corner, we thought it was (far !) time to finish working on the living-room so that we could enjoy fully enjoy it during the Holidays :)

here's what the "stronger white", a white with a hint of grey,  by farrow & ball looks like on the fibrex. bad surprise : the fibrex is a paint "eater" and it required the double of a regular quantity. it was hard work.

the lamp foot was bought at a fleamarket for 10 euros, sanded & painted in "lauze" by tollens + i chose a huge 60 cm lampshade from Alinea.

and now we can really enjoy some festive time, with a real cut tree for the first time. I'm usually allergic, but it seems the Nordmann variety is a better choice as far as allergy is concerned. its dense branches are beautiful, so beautiful that i hesitated : to leave it bare or to decorate.

the little paper village was designed by twelve 22 & cut + glued by me. isn't it cute ?!

trying to make up our mind about paint...

this is the last stage of all this work in the living room. phew ! i can't believe we started all this in the summer. we thought it would take a week or so, and look two months later it's not completely done. but we'll be set by Christmas, for sure.

and lazy parents as we are we let our 10 year old DD choose the wall lamp for the living-room. she did good, though. from ikea. it looks like drops when light is on. very pretty.

this wall needs some painting, doesn't it ?!

here's an update about our living-room.
as a reminder, because i've been away from this blog for long (but hopefully i'll post more regularly this winter) you will also see the before pictures.

before :

after :

this is the corner seen far right where the sanding machine is, on the first picture. as we had just laid the wallpaper (was not even trimmed). the wall including the fireplace has a patterned wallpaper (trees) and we laid fibrex on the rest of the room. fibrex is the new stuff replacing fiber glass cloth, which is NOT safe for your health, especially if , like me, you have breathing problems. fibrex looks like paper and is invisible under some waterbased paint. but it will help you deal with uneven walls, like the ones we have in this house.

we sanded the oak floor, no color but an eco & health (i have asthma) friendly matte varnishing, 3 coats.
two parts of the walls were re-plastered & re-treated against humidity, it's an old house in a rainy area.

we got rid of the tiles around the fireplace and went for pebbles instead. because we needed more than a few of them -- it's forbidden to pick them up from our beautiful atlantic shores -- we bought some (real) pebbles tiles from lapeyre, and waterproofed (you can find specific sealers fot this purpose in your DIY store) them so that they won't be stained by the ashes nearby.

before :

after :

we have ordered a glass firescreen but still waiting for it...

the pine country style bookshelves had turned orange over the years and we felt they needed to be updated by a coat of white paint as well. they're almost ready and i can't wait to have them filled with our favorite books once again. sorry i don't have any before picture to show.

we've had a little hesitation for a while as for window treatment. blinds or curtains... DH had a weakness for curtains that, he said, would give some warmth to the room. we chose two (cotton & washable) pairs from ikea (for only some 25 euros a pair) and decided (my idea, his work) to use two (rather straight) branches of a tree of our yard we had to knock down last Spring.

a big screw was inserted in each side to keep all this together, but allows me to remove the curtains and wash them whenever i want. thanks darling, they're just perfect !

some improvement to be advised
well, the house is a huge mess at the moment, so I guess it's a (good) sign !

we finally made up our minds for a white wall lamp shaped as an oriental rose from coming b.

and chose (once again, no surprise here) the (British) Farrow & Ball paint for the top floor corridor ceiling.

a crisp white that won't fade, because the F&B pigments are some of the best ones on the market. a 5 liter "all white" container, i doubt we run out of paint ! you can check for your local stockists here

we knew it was also time to update our sitting-room and this was best done before the cold season. We want to renew our tv center (an old pine cabinet that turned a little too orange with the years) and re-varnish the oak floorboards.

we didn't expect to find out the color had also faded in some heavy traffic spots, which meant we have to re-color it as well. ee're trying to find something more greyish than yellowish (yuck) and to go for a lighter color -- which is harder than i thought : we checked several local DIY stores like Castorama & Leroy Merlin, but they don't seem to have a wide & trendy range of colors.

since we're doing the whole makeover, we want to get rid of the above tiles. pebbles would be nice, but they'd have to get some waterproof treatment esp. they're going to be around our open fire fireplace.

so... for now there are furniture, books, frames, dust... everywhere !

just a break for some vacation abroad. if you're going to San Francisco...

next in the line...
the top floor corridor

ceiling to paint (not my favorite job !) i want a crisp white.

medium grey on the walls. walls are damaged, we bought some wallpaper that looks like paint.

the ugly reddish tiles on the floor have to go/disappear. we're considering senso rustic, self-adhesive, so easy and looks like real wood (no kidding).

new wooden baseboards will be painted white like the ceiling and doors. to remove the tiled ones made me so happy, how I've always hated them !

we also need to re-wire in order to have a wall lamp above the door you see on picture #1. there hasn't been any lamp at all on this landing so far. but the wires were provided in the wall, therefore it is a matter of extending them. we're not huge fans of ceiling lamps anyway, so it makes it more simple.

the ad in the local paper.

it was a September month a decade ago when we made this decision (that has cost us so much in efforts and money since !) not really realizing where we would go, just knowing the place seemed right for us.

i guess sometimes you have to be a little unaware of what's waiting for you or you will never go any further anyway.

then you have to live with it and stop questioning what life would have been like without it. more vacation abroad. Better cars. fancy clothes. more time to relax, less dirty hands. busier social life.
whereas... we saw the seasons changing in the country. we woke up to the bird songs, and went to sleep under that starry sky that you usually forget in the the city lights. We got our membership cards from all the local DIY stores. got our feet cold in the winter and swore against that leaking roof each time it was pouring...
This was before the all digital era, and I regret we have very few pictures of where we come from and what has been done... you know the "before & after"s !

i want to write this blog as a journal of improvements to keep us motivated. because if you're in this process, you know there's always a stage when you loose your motivation and just want to let it go, and go live in a 3 room modern apartment that doesn't require any work other than to change a bulb once in a while.

these three were taken on our first visit as young & first time owners.