Light lover...

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while may have noticed that I do love surrounding myself with colour, particularly spicy, saffrony shades. However, since moving to the UK, I have felt - more than ever before - a need for light, bright, white rooms...

... sometimes mixed with nature's own wooden browns, or - as in our conservatory above - 

leafy and mossy greens to link the outside with the room inside.

Nothing new to report in here, but since this was a rare moment of tidiness in an otherwise football book-covered, paper and pens-strewn, cereal-on-the-floor-going-crunch-under-your-feet-environment, I took the opportunity to snap a few shots before things returned to normal...

I love how the ivy spills onto the floor here, 

mirroring its cousin covering the stone wall outside...

Aha, but in here there is actually something new. The very old, dark sofa that previously inhabited this space had been on "life support" for longer than what was sofa humane (or human behind humane, for that matter), and as much as I love recycling and upcycling, there comes a time when one has to realise it is time to say farewell. A trip to a certain large blue and yellow Swedish furniture store and voilá, a sofa with all the lovely oumph, fluffage and bouncy comfort one can expect from a new padded friend. 

In the mirror, you may notice the other, smaller white sofa stretching its cushions high to be seen, feeling slightly neglected since the arrival of its larger sibling and hungry for some attention...

All right then, just to humour my old trusty sofa friend, here is another 

photo of one of the most photographed corners of the house.

Both white sofas are wearing modestly autumnal costumes, but - to our delight - outside temperatures this week speak of summer! Has it finally arrived, I wonder...?

Thank you SO much for stopping by and for all the kind comments you leave for me to wrap myself in when life has its uphill moments....

All the best,

Helena

Feeling blue...

... but in a good way!

(The images in this post look better if you click on them to view them against a black background.)

Having returned from Lacock with blue & white inspiration from the Tearooms, I rummaged through my cupboards to find my blue and white second hand shop finds (50 p - £ 1 per piece), to organise my own little tea party...

But... ehm... you can't blaim a girl for being slightly distracted by newly bought pansies and stunning sunshine, can you? And so it was that no tea was ever brewed, but pretty pansies projecting their petal pride from the small coffee cups. 

These particular cups were bought second hand by some friends in Sweden, because they knew these were identical to the ones my grandparents used to sip their three o'clock coffee from. Just looking at these little  cups and saucers brings back so many memories, and I can almost hear my grandfather quietly slurp the coffee whilst holding a sugar cube between his teeth, the way he always did...

The garden table (spray-painted to look old and rusty) was brought in to 

the conservatory and decorated with some ivy from the garden...

There is something about the white and blue that oozes summer vibes, don't you think?

And if I am not mistaken, that is where we are heading, slowly but surely!

...and then one thing led to another...

... and a blue & white cushion was born!

The perceptive reader might recognize the photo on the cushion as the third one in this blog post, although a mirror image of it due to the transfer process. I used Iron-On T-Shirt Transfer paper, which can be found in most stationery shops (I made lavender sachets in the same way here.), and some white linen fabric I had in the cupboard. A couple of straight seams and voilà, a summer-inspired cushion. The images are not perfect, perhaps because of the not entirely smooth linen fabric surface, but we can perhaps call it...ahem... "rustic"...?

Wishing all you of you, new readers and old, the loveliest of weeks, 

and thank you for stopping by!

Helena

In, in, in...but somehow still a little out...

Dearest readers,

I am, as you will have noticed, a very "secret" blog friend these days, 

but I read and appreciate every word and kind comment you leave here 

- thank you so much!

And now, without further ado, I invite you into our conservatory, a k a play room for two rather play-driven young family members. On this particular day, the toys had been tidied away in the baskets, but for those of you eager to play a little "Spot the Thunderbird Top"-game, the clue is to "think red"... During the warmer months, we don't spend much time in here, at least not during sunny days when it gets VERY hot, so board games and some other toys can be found nesting in other parts of the house too. 

To give the white and rather plastic-looking left wall a little boost of life, I recently made a few eucalyptus wreaths to break up the large expanse of white. I have often thought of putting pictures up to cover some of that wall, but as everything in here tends to get very sun-bleached, I have chosen not to. 

As this is a room where armchairs serve a launch pads for -young- human rockets, and generally has to put up with a lot of roughty toughty play, all the arm rests on the chairs now expose "war wounds" and gaping foam. Nothing that a few throws and home-made arm rest covers can't hide... and the room can continue to serve its dual purpose of  Young Boys Go Wild Arena and Relax in Late Afternoon for Grown-Ups Refuge. Very often both at once...

***

...and in another part of the house, something changed earlier this year:

A splash of not so splashing colour...

Yes, a few months ago, I finally got my act together and reached for the paint brush. 

It was time for a calmer colour scheme in the bath room...

If you would like to see what the bathroom looked like before, look here.

Wishing you a lovely long weekend!

Helena

Raindrops keep falling on my head...

With dark, dark clouds making even the brighter parts of our house look gloomy and dull, it is time to flee into the room where our melatonin levels are most likely to be restored in a blink. Welcome to drink up the light with me!

Previous owners added the conservatory to the house. It is on a different level to the rest of the house, a couple of steps up from the kitchen. A sliding glass door has been added to appease Building Regulations - hence the rather odd-looking frame, and to serve the rather useful purpose of keeping the heat or cold from the conservatory from entering the rest of the house. 

On the wooden shelf to the right, you can see two Christmas presents from my very own Santa. An old, tall enamel jug and a matching - I believe it is called - corn scoop. In a house with a distinctive lack of corn, some moss and flowers seized the opportunity of a lazy Sunday in the scoop's embrace...

Behind my chequered star cushion in the armchair, rests my "Carte Postale" cushion cover, which I won in May-Liss' give-away just before Christmas. May-Liss is the lovely lady behind the Norwegian blog Malivas Verden, and yet another of so many warm and stylish blog sisters out there I have had the pleasure of getting to know through blogging. Thank you so much, May-Liss!

Ceiling fans are not on my Top Ten list of desirable objects, but this is a room that can reach some rather spectacular temperatures when basking in the summer sun, so the fans do justify their existence in this "green house"-ish room. Function before form? Well, maybe just this once...

Below is the rest of the conservatory, facing the garden, as it looked before Christmas. Think away the wreaths and the star lights and the pine cones...

Outside, the temperatures whisper of spring in the making. As for the rainfall with no end in sight, well, I'm thinking water lilies for the planting borders this year. What do you think?

All the best,

Helena

Last man standing... when I am not...

Dearest blog readers,

A warm and humble thank you for all your incredibly kind comments and sweet New Year greetings after my last entry. High on the flattery inebriation, I entered the new year full of mental energy about new projects and a desire to visit you all and say hello... and POOFFH... was the sound when those plans went up in smoke as my back seized up completely. In a loud and annoyingly squeekish voice, it announced that computer work is NOT going to be on the agenda for a few days (nor is lying, sitting or standing, for that matter, which does make life a little more ... interesting, shall we say...).

However, a quick greeting to you all before I devote my time and senses to healing. Above is the last of the embarrassingly large number of Swedish ginger biscuits baked before Christmas (is the fact that I sold jars of them at my craft sale a worthy excuse...?), next to one of the beautiful and thoughtful gifts that arrived from my lovely blog friend Lotta (with the blog Min plats i solen). I have seen similar angel wings for candles in other blogs, hoping - in vain - that I would one day find some somewhere here in the UK, so imagine my delight at this gorgeous gift! Lotta is a warm, wise and incredibly thoughtful lady, who with an eloquent pen shares her wisdom on a wide array of topics, whilst generously showering the people around her with words of encouragement. Thank you, Lotta, for that and for your lovely Christmas parcel!

More than ever, my desire to spring clean the house as well as my mind, was tugging at my skirt during the last few days of last year. The Christmas tree did look a bit surprised when it was thrown out through the window (literally!) on the second day of January, and I had to reassure it that this mildly aggressive act had got nothing to do with its performance, which had been splendidly festive and acceptably needle-shedding. All that remains now, is a lingering amaryllis and a few wreaths, and then, HELLO SPRING!

I hope the new year has offered a beautiful first week for you all and wish you all  the best,

Helena 

Goodbye yellow brick wall...

Going, going, gone...!

... is the yellow wall in the conservatory, and welcome 'Natural Hessian'! Some may find this colour a little bland and boring, and would perhaps even miss the sunny yellow that previously shouted out its loud message to the world here. I agree that the yellow was a happy and sunny colour, but it had somehow done its job for me.

Do you ever notice things in your own photos you were completely unaware of at the time of taking the photo? Like a long piece of wood on the ledge above, ready to be made into hearts, but certainly no added value to this photo...?!

And from that to something completely different...

Zinc and Norwegian loveliness

Even though I do find zinc a rather 'cold' material, like - in fact - all metals, for some time I have found myself hopelessly drawn to it. Looking around the house, I see evidence of this love story here, there and everywhere... The 'number plates' and the heart above (note the gorgeous "diamond" crown detail on the heart, half-hidden by the ribbon) increased the "love factor" in the Swenglish home massively, when they -together with a lovely mix of little decorative items - arrived yesterday in the post, all the way from Norway!

Anette, or Guttemamma as she is known, is a warm, bubbly, creative 'blog sister' with a lovely home and an equally lovely blog. The blog universe is an amazing place, and holds in its embrace so many friendly fellow bloggers and a wonderful virtual 'living room' in which friendships can grow. Thank you, dear Anette, what a wonderful surprise Christmas gift!

Wishing you all a lovely weekend! I wonder, will you be humming "Seven more sleeps to go, seven more sleeps to Santa..."? I can't seem to get it out of my head!

Conservatory

- as English as kidney pie?

First of all, Happy Mother's day to all you UK mums! For a foreigner, it is very confusing trying to keep up with these celebratory parental days, as they fall on completely different days in Sweden and the UK. But today I was celebrated in style, with flowers and hand-made cards, handed over by four proud little hands. And right on cue, I went all soft and gooey inside and attacked the card authors with so many kisses they fled across the room to their father to be rescued. Mums have to do that sometimes. Kiss their boys until they beg for mercy.



The time has come to visit our conservatory. Before moving to the UK, I had not realised what a conservatorial country this is, but soon saw how these glazed extensions stick out like shiny appendixes wherever you look, in every neighbourhood. And after my first long, wet and windy winter here, I definitely came to understand their beauty. Regardless of weather, it is the one place in the house that is always bright. It therefore quickly and quite naturally became the playroom, where to date uncountable space rockets have blasted off into space, train tracks have negotiated the green round rug and small and big people have tumbled around and been lost in mountains of cushions.

This youthful living has taken a toll on the room, whose walls are in dire need of new (and I hope different coloured - ) paint, whose armchairs have such big fabric wounds that they can barely be covered up with blankets any longer, whose toy baskets are falling apart by the minute, but whose purpose is still a well-suited canvas for imaginary play of the most inventive kind.

Space journey, anyone?