2012 English Blog postings

Lots of before and after but not much during...


At new-years we tend to reflect on the year that passed. I think it is a worthwhile thing to do especially when it feels like time just flies and nothing gets done. We HAVE done lots of stuff this year - but still one wants to achieve more....
 The somewhat cryptic heading to this posting stems from earlier on this year when we were deep in to renovating our house. I often wondered why there are so few pictures in house building magazines and blogs showing what it is like whilst the work is in actual progress. All you see is before - and after...not much during. But, now when we have finished ( well, the last floor list is by no means in place but still...) I don't seem to have many pictures from the during either! Maybe it is just not something you get the camera out to document? Or are your hands too dirty to want to handle the camera?

This is the kitchen very much during! Note the baby blue tint on the walls and the black hole where the plumbing from the upstairs bathroom should be. Luckily there were no toilet in place to use by accident  on a tired dark evening...As time went on I often wondered where and how Christmas dinner would be cooked this year.

A few months later it looked like this - and I can report that both Christmas dinner, New Years feast and a whole lot of everyday suppers have been cooked and served in here since! The kitchen needs racks on the tiled wall and, ah yes.., a door for the sink cupboard, but it works wonderfully even for several people to cook at the same time since there is lots of floor space to run around on and the wonderful old workbench by the window. The workbench we have not altered at all - and THIS blue color I am strangely attached to now - I think it will stay!

The bath room - oh yes - it is probably my favorite room with the under floor heating and a shower big enough not only to sing in but to have a happy dance as well! But for A LONG LONG time it looked like this. When Jakob had finished taking out the old stuff there was not much left really....

The new improved Christmas bath version (in the good old days the only bath swedes took in the winter was to clean up for Christmas....) looks like this - nice -  is it not? It is terribly non-Swedish to praise ones own achievements like this but  to hell with that - it IS a great bathroom and I enjoy it every day!

So - next on the agenda is to start renovating the other house to make it ship-shape for holiday lets in the summer. Strangely enough i am actually starting to look forward to it - which was not the case a month ago. Then, renovating just spelled cement dust and mess everywhere, broken deadlines and endless bills rolling in. Human nature is to forget...and forgive.

 Happy New 2012 to all you mad house renovators out there - and the rest of you too!