our kitchen

The March challenge over at NIB (Norwegian interior blogs) is kitchen.


Our kitchen is not our dream kitchen, but it is functional (except for the exhaust fan that does not do much else than make a lot of noise). I am not yet sure how my - or our - dream kitchen would look like, but I think it would involve white cabinet doors, wooden worktops and subway tiles, or maybe Moroccan tiles. That is a whole other story. This is our kitchen, for now.




We only did a few things when we moved in five years ago; tore down the wall between the kitchen and the livingroom, built a bar in the opening and painted the walls. Only recently I changed the knobs and the blinds (before). Yes, the fridge is a perfect place for photos.




An old post about the grinders and all the other stuff in the photo. Brigg's post about the old olive oil can on top of the fridge. When we have the cold or flu and use a lot of Kleenex, we use the can as a portable trash can in the livingroom.




The photo with the blue cup is by Jen Causey. The basket is a souvenir from South Africa. I use it for bread.




One of the best things about our kitchen is the amazing light and sunsets we get during late spring and summer. I absolutely love it. The two photos above where obviously not taken today ;-)

More photos from our kitchen can be seen here.

lounge area

The November challenge over at NIB (Norwegian interior blogs) is livingroom; show your lounge area.


We have a couple of lounging areas in our livingroom; the two chairs by the fire place, where we always sit when we have guests, and the sofa in front of the TV and home cinema system. This is were we hang out in the evenings after work. Especially now when it's pitch dark by 5 pm.



I have already told you about my sofa mission, the hi-fi storage mission and my last rearrangement. We have also made some changes to the photo wall since last year. In general I'm trying to declutter our home. The CDs are my next project...



The home cinema system is not pretty, but oh boy! it's fun. We both love watching movies and dvd box sets, so I'm happy we did this investment. (Here is another shot, with moving pictures on the screen.) Talking about movies; have you seen Kick-Ass yet? So funny!



And finally, a few details from the sofa end of the livingroom - just because ;-) I think I'll do a post later on the images on our walls. As I mentioned here, we bought some new art in New York. I'll show you when we've had them framed.

By the way, for you NIB girls (and boys??) and other decorating happy people, I made a shortcut to the post about our homemade dining table. It's in the sidebar to the right, below the labels cloud.

treasures

The October challenge over at NIB (Norwegian interior blogs) is to show of thrift store/flea market finds. Reuse is the key word.

This challenge made me realize how much stuff we actually have that either was bought at Fretex (the Salvation Army's thrift store) or inherited from family members; all the different dining chairs, all the small coffee tables (one seen above) and the two stools (one seen above) we use as both foot rests and coffee tables, the green nightstand in the hallway, the mason jars in the kitchen, most of the silverware we got for our wedding, most of our other cutlery, so much of our plates and bowls (I should blog about them!), the cake stand we got for our wedding, the brass candle holders, the green wingback chair (that were my grandparents' first furniture bought together as a married couple), and last but not least; the orange sofa that I bought at Fretex for 450 kr (ca £56/$77). We did not at all need another sofa, but it was love at first sight so I could not not buy it.

The light has been so crappy for photos lately, so I give you an old - highly unstyled - shot from 2007, the year I bought the sofa. The sofa has been moved about a lot; the current position is here. More images of the orange sofa here.

our bedroom

The September challenge over at NIB (Norwegian interior blogs) is bedroom for grown ups.




Our bedroom is small and very simply decorated. (Since we don't have an indoor storeroom, we chose to use the biggest bedroom in our apartment for storage and guestroom.) We didn't do anything to this room when we moved in five years ago; no painting or rebuilding or anything. It's not perfect, but I'm not in a rush to change anything. We just put our furniture in; bed, a wardrobe from IKEA with sliding doors (because there is no room for normal doors), a stool, a lamp and some clothes hooks + a drying rack and a clothes rail that fits perfectly next to the wardrobe. There's no problem drying clothes in the bedroom; it gets plenty of fresh air because we always sleep with the window open. We use the window sill as bedside table. I always prefer white or very light colored bed linens. The white one in the photos above are from Illums Bolighus - a wedding gift from my maid of honor and her husband. During winter we often use a darker colored blanket to add a bit of warm coziness to the room. The rug used to be my great grandfather's, and the blinds were installed by the previous owners. And yes, we share one normal sized (140*200 cm) duvet.

still life

The June challenge over at NIB (Norwegian interior blogs) is still life. Here is my contribution:


The round lamp is from IKEA, the vintage glass cake stand (is that the proper English name for that thing?) was a wedding gift, I brought the two big cones home from Italy, the golden gnome was a gift (I think it's from Åhléns) from friends for Sølve's 30th birthday, the binoculars used to belong to one of Sølve's old relatives and the framed poster is from The Bergen Museum of Art. The shelves are Billy from IKEA and the square framed image to the left is a polaroid by my sister Mari.

our garden space

NIB's (short for Norwegian interior bloggers) May challenge is show us your outdoor space. Here are some glimpses of our garden, shot in the beginning of June last year.






I'm really looking forward to warmer days spent in the garden. I love that place!

You can see more photos from our garden here.

Btw, Sølve built the table, the benches and the box for the roses. The smallest bench has a heart carved in it, and it's where he proposed to me on May 31 2008 - while I sat on the bench in the garden. Sigh!

our dining area

NIB (short for Norwegian interior bloggers) has posted a challenge; show us your dining area. I'm up for a challenge, so here is my contribution:

Our dining area is in the livingroom, next to the open kitchen. Sølve and I built the dining table - you can read all about it here.

Our chairs are a mix of simple painted wooden chairs. Some of them are thrift store finds, others are inherited. The paint colors are different, as seen here.

The lamps above the table are Moser, designed by Swedish ceramist Anu Moser for Danish Louis Poulsen. The cupboards for our tableware are kitchen units from IKEA with white high gloss Abstrakt fronts.