On crossing body parts

Well, we got the place and have moved in almost three weeks ago.

The Silence!

At least compared to previous apartment. There are some "structural noises", but at least now we can't hear talking (or yelling) and occasional walking sounds are tolerable.

The Space!

96 square meters (~1033ft²). 22 more than in our old place, same amount of rooms (HUGE kitchen). 1950s apartment block with a fireplace and nice balcony. Next to the woods.
And I don't know what to do with all the space!
Actually I have a problem with my craft stuff, but I think eventually I will figure something out.

Of course it's bit more expensive to live here, but oh my, I this place.

Packing, packing, packing, laundry, laundry, laundry... in addition to running around Metropolitan area last two weeks equals one very tired /me and no stitching.

But... we are moving!

I was offered a bigger apartment in the city where I have lived most of my life so I went to check it, I accepted it, provided all needed paperwork (that only took two days) and signed the lease last week.
It's a two bedroom apartment in a relatively new apartment block in area where there seems to be a lot of young children, which means possible playmates for Tiny. And the place is nice and spacious, our bedrooms are about the size of our current living room... (bedrooms are not as big as it sounds, but our living room is small.)

Even better the company has ordered some renovations in there before we move in and we get paint for free to paint the walls.

Admittedly I am not excited about the move itself (I hate moving), but I am excited to get a new apartment with some actual space - and an elevator!

Soon this will be my stitching scenery.

If nothing goes wrong, that is.

I was cleaning the living room earlier today and I finally piled up all the designs I bought from eBay during December... the pile was about 30 centimeters high (and as it consists of booklets and leaflets you can imagine how many patterns there are...) and it doesn't include those Wentzler's I bought for Linda and few frog booklets I sent to US.

I need to list them, which doesn't sound like a very enjoyable task, and then I need to find a place for them from my craft shelf... which will be yet another achievement, but the main thing is: loads of beautiful stash and it is all mine!

Never say "never"

I have proved this true once again: you remember how much I hate vacuum cleaners?

You do? Great.

What if I tell you that I have one nowadays?

While I was still looking for a job I was watching Home Shopping Network one day and saw one product which raised my interest for three reasons: it doesn't have dust bag (if that is the word) so no need to run in stores to look for replacements (you know how much fun that is...), it has a HEPA filter and it filters the "sucktion product" through water which should catch most dust particles on their way (in a regular hoover smallest parts go through the whole system and it's bad for an asthmatic person).
Well, after thinking of it for few days I got it.

As surprised as I am it actually is a pleasant product to use (no dust smell when hoovering and no coughing), it works like a charm and it reveals amazing things about the lifeform called "cat hair".
You can sweep the floor twice and still you have two egg-sized furballs in the water container when you have hoovered living room floor.

I am afraid that this thing may make me clean more often (well, Mr. Wonderful has that affect too: he is NEAT)...

The Craft Room - still a bit WIP

My latest happy dance: the craft room! (Admittedly it is a bit in progress still. )

...and some floor decorations...

If you ask from me my former bedroom has found its real self now.

There is also an interesting tidbit: I realised that I haven't bought any of the furniture in my craft room. They are all either saved from trash or got from family or acquintances (when they haven't needed them anymore).

Plans

I have played with one thought regarding my home for few days.
As I seem to spend most of my time in one room, and seem to prefer to sleep in that same room (I have lately slept on the living room floor (I like hard surfaces, I may have mentioned)), and it's not good for an asthmatic to have bookshelves in their sleeping quarters (because books gather dust (I haven't noticed such a thing, only the shelves themselves gather dust in this house)).

Now, the plan is that I move out from the bedroom and make it my library/ craft room/ office which would mean that I move the big bookshelf, my sewing table and my bureau to the bedroom and my futon to living room.
The benefits of this setting would be more room, less dust and easier cleaning in living quarters. In addition to that I am able to sleep longer than 5 am during summer months - the living room windows are facing west, unlike the bedroom window which heads to east, which means that my bedroom is hot as hell during summer months.

I still need to figure out what I do with the desktop or do I simply leave it in the living room even it's fans are not that silent - though its humming is just background noise.

The New Dawn: 1493.

One thing is for certain: I can't sleep well if I am going somewhere in the morning... Anyway, this is what I see from my balcony just now (I admit, the colours are a bit modified...):

Paint the town red!

Not really...

Sneaky as I am I got my mother to accompany me in my paint shopping trip to Ikea (it's silly that it takes about the same time and effort to go (by public transport) to my local Ikea than my mother's local Ikea, noticing that we live in neighbouring cities and my local Ikea is in between me and my mother's local Ikea - how's that for odd?) and popped at her place after it (i.e. she fed me and I got some new plants to bring home to (have I mentioned that my chilis died during last winter? *sob*)).
Anyway, based on my purchases you could almost think that I like red: red bedspread to be remodeled to be futon matresses cover, red bedsheets, plates with red motifs... And I think I still need to go back (actually I forgot to buy a laundry bag, which I intended to buy so I have an excuse here) and buy this wonderful linen which just screams my name and make some sofa cushion covers from it - and then I need to find piece of some gorgeous fabric and buy one of those HUGE frames they sell at Ikea and make some unique piece of art.

I think I am having a bad case of nesting... well, it's my office/ bedroom anyway and I spend quite much time in here, so why not make it cozy?

By the way, I foresee some stash pictures tomorrow so stay tuned!

All animals are equal...

... but some animals are more equal than others.
In this case cats are more equal than humans. Their bed vs. my bed...

 

My futon is kind of a WIP at the moment, but cats' futon (that storage stool) was the second thing I assembled (first was a lamp) when I got my things today... At the moment they are test sleeping it.

I love the smell of burning money in the afternoon, it smells like...

... new furniture.

First of all, I am wasted. I have extremely good reason to be wasted: imagine yourself walking four kilometres in 25 C° (spiced up with nice sunshine) with 20 kilos of futon frame following you on a tiny carriage (you know those things old ladies drag behind them, something like that)... My biceps hurt. A lot.

Anyway, I stayed in budget and got more stuff than I thought I will get (though my mother will pick one or two things tomorrow from Ikea for me (we just couldn't manage to carry everything we wanted). Go me!

In the end I ended up with Grankulla Massum, Grankulla storage stool (I need something to store my pillows, blanket etc. during the day - and that is nice to sit on too), new coffee mug (they say it's a tea mug, but what do they know? *g*) - I may have mentioned that I am addicted to coffee mugs, Tripp (I love tin storage cans, I am innocent!), magazine racks, storage boxes, couple of new handtowels...
And of course, black paint-of-a-kind for my futon's frame and the stool. My intention is to make crimson covers for both.

Which reminds me that once upon a time there was a beautiful princess our textile designing teacher gave us a project to design bedroom interior (the textiles mostly, but we had to add some interior designing there - even we never had any lessons on that!)... guess what colours I used?
Exactly: black and crimson/ burgundy. The product I actualized from all the interior textiles from my sketch was huge woven velvet bedspread, consisting from three parts: two black ones and crimson one (its "thing" was the weave I designed and used, it made the product).

By the way, I enabled my mother and she will be buying futon sofa for herself too (99€ is a bargain and it is really nice to sit/lay on). Oops.

This day seems to be filled with entries, eh?

As Her Highness has got a bad habit to sleep on my laptop (it's warm and feels nice against her tummy, I presume) I had to reorganize my life a bit: Periphaeria is in my bedroom and my personal stash is more or less in the living room.

I have been playing around with the thought of buying a convertible sofa to my bedroom for a while and now, when my working space moved here, I really see the need. I could arrange the furniture in completely another manner if there were no need to note that I need to have room for a 120 cm x 200 cm matress (I despise sleeping in smaller matresses even when I sleep alone - admittedly it has felt a bit cramped since I slept a month in Wolfie's huge bed *grin*).
Even more so as my bedroom is small and its "layout" not very well designed (two whole walls, on opposite sides. The other two have either window or closets on them).

After some window shopping at Ikea's site I have three (el cheapo) candidates:

1. Solsta (Oh, I love the colour! That would go well with my bedroom curtains... (pair 1. black with colourful leaves, pair 2. burgundy) )
2. Grankulla Massum (This is nice to sit on, I know (or maybe it was N. who was nice to sit on on this..).)
3. - ' ' - Munkarp (a bit expensive though, and I am not sure do I really need matress that thick - and I could always buy that thicker matress later if I buy Massum now...)

My luck is that my back loves hard matresses (that is why I need to replace my old one, its springs have got old and don't support me very well) and that it's not very picky in general on what it sleeps on (as long as it is not all soft and thick enough to provide some padding between hard place and my pelvis).

In addition to this plan I have been thinking of buying two curtain rails/ rods, removing the door from between vestibule and hall (Firstly, I don't see the point of having both vestibule and hall in two room apartment, I'd rather had tad bigger bedroom or living room), sew a curtain to cover the sight from door's window inside the apartment (directly to my living room!) and buy one of those beaded curtains on the other side so I can choose between two visibility options (as I rather enjoy the fact that my apartment has very few doors and lots of natural light I prefer not to close the doorway completely).
And then, finally, after only *grin* seven years (crikey, I have lived here 25% of my whole life!), get a mirror in the vestibule (there's only one whole wall in the hall and I have my router base on that wall) and small coat rack.

Hmm... We were talking about a trip to Ikea #1 with my mother some time ago (because she lives close to it (ok, I live close to Ikea #2, but it's not very accessible for a person who relies on public transport)... I think I have an excuse here...

795

Heard in train, child and his mother talking, topic yours truly:

K: It's not allowed to come in here without shoes!
M: Yes, it isn't, but we can't say what other people do.

I really wanted to ask the mother to show me the law against walking barefooted in the streets, or the rule against barefooting in public transporting, but I managed to control that impulse... Oh, the ignorance. (It may not be wise, but it's not forbidden in urban areas...)

Otherwise I have had relatively nice day, though my account balance disliked my minor shopping spree - but I got black curtains for living room! They'll look good with those red ones I've in (t)here. And new lamp shade for bedroom, though it might look good with my living room curtains which would mean that I need to purchase lamp for living room and just decide to use the shade in (t)here... anyway, thingies I needed, and I actually got them quite cheap (and I got some magazine boxes, for my stitchy mags, too).

And... I got my flosses from Wyndham Needleworks! Happity!

So, Dan left few hours ago. It was nice to see ("see"... he was here over three weeks ) him, but it's also great to be alone at home. In fact I should do some cleaning as... who knows, maybe I'll have someone to drop by some day. (As I may have mentioned: my life has been odd last 1½ months, and New Year's Eve was interesting.) Have to see about that though, but anyway it wouldn't hurt to do some cleaning.

I also found little something which seems to help with my PCOs related pains: rooibos. I have rooibos which is spiced with vanilla and it's absolutely delicious (if beverage can be that)(and as I ate some chicken I couldn't drank coffee as I drink my coffee with milk. Rooibos just needs some sugar with it and yummy).

When it comes to my VE item I've stitched about 1/3 of it. I'm surprised how nice it looks like as I changed colours of the flosses of original design, and those ones I use are quite 'candyish', but they look good together and IMO are just right ones for Valentines Day.

Btw, have I mentioned that this year will be great? Don't know why, but I just feel like it.

[400]

400th entry.

And as my camera was willing here are some pictures taken from my balcony few minutes ago:

      

Lovely snowy, crisp winter's day.

VE

I spent last night rinsing those overdyeds I'm using for my Valentine Exchange item, and I was really surprised how much excess dye there was in them (though nothing drastic. Vinegar is your friend. ). Fortunately they dried up quite fast and I've been able to begin stitching. I have only one problem... I have few more ideas for finishing so I may have to change my plans.

Anyway, as it's exchange item there will be no pictures of it before 14th of February (parcel opening day, as it's Valentine Exchange... )

Got an odd idea

(...while spamming my album in here.) I'd like to share few pictures with you:

I live in Metropolitan area, ~30 kilometers from Helsinki, quite hard to believe maybe?

Unfortunately my dear camera is so getting way too old to be used with batteries so no snowy pictures of those same places. In fact it's very unfortunate as it's very lovely outside at the moment.

Household appliances.

I haven't used my dishwasher in about a year, and was terrified when I tested it. It works fine, so this means that I don't have to to the dishes today. Let that machine do them, that is why it came to this place.

But why the hell haven't I did that before? Maybe I am just plain stupid or something...