Chez Larsson

Treasure!

OMG, Wille and I are so excited! We found a treasure in our attic! It’s not going to make us rich but a treasure nevertheless!

 

The treasure hunt started when I went over to reader Jenny’s house on Saturday for “fika” (= coffee and cake). Jenny lives just down the street (how amazing is it that two of my readers live on my street?!) and is the one who took the mid century desk off my hands the other day. Anyway she gave me the house tour which was really fun since her house is the same as mine with only minor differences and she showed me her WC where she had wallpapered one wall with original wallpaper that she found in her attic (clue!). She told me that she had found it along with some other wallpaper scraps up there when they moved in nine years ago.

The thing is that we moved in five months ago and still until yesterday hadn’t gone up into the attic. I’ve been meaning to but since my to-do list is never ending I just haven’t had the time and it’s not super easy access since you need to get a ladder onto the balcony and get in through the ceiling there.

After hearing about Jenny’s finds I told Wille that we had to explore our attic and so we did.

 

Wall paper galore is what we found! Some less exciting ones like the one we just painted over in Wille’s bedroom (a little too floral for a seventeen year old boy…) but wait until you see this:

 

Whoa! Isn’t that amazing? Our house had had just one owner before we bought it and they must have been pretty cool back in the days!

 

And check this out, this is actually the very same design that Jenny has in her WC! It’s so cool and the condition of these rolls is pretty good but as Jenny told me they are tricky to put up. I guess aside from these rolls being over 50 years old wallpaper probably has come a long way in terms of DIY-friendliness too.

 

These hour glass designs are Wille’s favorites and I agree they’re awesome! I’m going to have to measure to see how much there is and if I can find a use for them in his room somehow.

 

I think this one’s my favorite. There’s not a whole lot of it but Wille suggested we frame the coolest designs and I love that idea. I can also see myself covering some boxes perhaps.

 

One of the best bits is that apart from recognizing some of the designs because they were actually still up when we moved in (Wille’s bedroom and my bedroom nook) a couple of the rolls are marked. The top design was used in the entry hall (imagine walking in through the door being greeted by that back in the 50’s!) and the dark hour glass design was used in the upper hall which is now part of the den upstairs.

Wow! I’m so stoked having found all this (and more!) and I can’t wait to put some of it to use in at least a few places around the house.

Hallelujah!

Hallelujah, I have a dish washer door!

When I ordered my kitchen from IKEA the dish washer door was out of stock and they couldn’t tell for sure when it would be available again. Turned out I had to wait 6 weeks and after I got it I couldn’t install it right away because it was stainless steel and I wanted it white.

I tried covering it with white sticky back plastic first but that didn’t go well so my other option was to spray paint it. That took almost a week! Why?  First I used a spray primer. Then I bought “appliance” spray paint and it turns out that you need to either put additional coats on within four hours or wait 36 hours. I missed my four hour slots a couple of times because of other ongoing projects so the process dragged out endlessly it seemed. Also it turned out that the appliance paint sucks, the coverage is really bad. When I ran out and went to my nearest DIY store they recommended regular glossy spray paint instead and after a coat of that I was finally done.

Then I just had to attach the dang thing. Sometimes I hate IKEA. The dish washer manual included instructions on how to attach the door by using certain holes at the back of the door. Well, my door doesn’t have a single hole at the back so it was down to measuring it all out myself. Not an easy feat trying to balance the HEAVY door on my foot while trying to hold it straight AND marking it at the same time.

It’s up though and I love that it’s white. The shade of white isn’t perfectly matched to the cabinet doors but then again so isn’t the oven so I don’t really mind. 

I can not believe that my kitchen is finally finished and actually exactly two months after moving in. Oh, forgot I still need to paint the window. Ah well, ALMOST finished.

Access to the House!

Yay!

Today I’m signing the last of the documents and the house will finally all ours! The long Easter weekend will be spent demo-ing, tearing up the old floors upstairs, dismantling the kitchen and hopefully get some painting done too (with a new venue egg hunt somewhere in between IF the Easter bunny can find us…).

 

I’ve bought Wille and myself a nice black crow bar each to celebrate! Double yay!

Hallelujah!

I love Fiskars scissors. They are undoubtedly the best scissors around but so far they've almost exclusively been available in their signature orange. Nothing wrong with orange but I've always wished they came in white.

A couple of years or so ago I read somewhere online that they were indeed going to be made in white and they've since been on my wish list. Problem though that the white version was nowhere to be found. I searched high and low, on line and in store but nothing. In the end I honestly thought I'd dreamed up the idea of the white Fiskars!

 

 

Then last week I went to the hardware store to pick up something else entirely and there they were! Hallelujah! You will not believe the excitement I felt when seeing MY scissors!!! It's ridiculous, but I was honestly thinking I'd gone a bit mad imagining the white Fiskars...

 

 

So my white Fiskars made it home and have since made friends with its orange relatives. And THEY WILL live happily together ever after!

 

This was based on a true story and was in no way sponsored by the best scissors in the whole wide world.

Ps. Yes, please do send me a (big) box of (white) samples, Fiskars!

Sold!

 

As most of you probably guessed last week we sold our house! I wanted to wait until the deposit was paid before I did my happy dance here on the blog which is why I didn’t post about it immediately.

The 10% deposit has now been paid and the selling price was 5 million SEK / USD ~715 000, just over the asking price at 4.9 million. I’m really pleased because it’s what I expected to get and a fair price.

The new family moving in is super nice. They have a seven month baby boy and are looking forward to living in a house for the first time.

I on the other hand am now looking forward to tackling all those things on my to-do list which have been on hold until the deposit was paid. Lots of things to arrange and lots to order!