Pile of mattresses (no pea just other green stuff)

You might remember we bought a sail boat last summer. Last year we did not do much maintenance to it, besides some work on the engine for the winter. This spring there will be some more work to be done for the hull, electrics, genoa sail, the motor and for the cabin. 

Last summer the textiles looked like in the following picture. The cushion covers are faded, stained, missing buttons and even broken from some parts. The curtains are faded and well just ugly.

The cushions also have moldy spots under them and they stink. Also the matresses on the rear which we mainly use for sleeping are too thin and at least for me those are not comfortable for sleeping. So not only do all cushions need new covers, they also need to be either totally replaced or washed.

And there are a few of those cushions. To change the covers for these we needed to buy almost 20 meters (22 yards) of fabric. That is, sorry for the language, a shit load of fabric. I had to order most of the fabric. The colour I chose is called Gargoyle, but I almost ordered the wrong one. On the samples there was also a colour called Charcoal. The pronunciation is fairly similar and I did not notice difference until I got home and looked through the receipt again. Ups, lucky I noticed that, it would have been embarrassing to get the wrong colour.

I'm planning to recover the cushions only a few at a time since I do not know how many of these I can get done and how fast because of Likka. She might not co-operate with me or then she will. So in case I wont get all these done, then those are not all unusable, but some will be finished and some not started at all, or at least so I hope.

Schedule for cleaning

 

Before we used to clean together, it took one hour, A vacuumed all rooms and wiped the kitchen counters, I washed the toilet and bathroom and did dusting. Because I'm on maternity leave now I spend time at home all day and let's admit it, I have too much free time. Or at least more than A does. And since I am home all day I do get annoyed by the messiness in our home because I see it all the time. Now because of Likka, we might not have one full hour for the cleaning, or we might but it might not be when we want. Also because of that I had been thinking that I should divide the cleaning into different days, that way I am able to start and finish the cleaning in even very short time periods. That is why I have created a cleaning schedule to follow.

Because I also hate check lists my schedule is very undetailed. Check lists make me feel like the tasks on it are mandatory, and mandatory things are never fun. And since I'm not planning to print or write it down (any better than here on the blog) I have created a schedule that I can easily remember and it's based on the first letter of the weekdays.

 

Makuuhuone maanantai (bedroom Monday)

Changing sheets if needed, general tidying and dusting

Toiletti tiistai (toilet Tuesday)

This applies also to the bathroom, every other week is cleaning of toilet and every other the bathroom

Keittiö keskiviikko (kitchen Wednesday)

General tidying, dusting and wiping

Työhuone torstai (office Thursday)

Putting away some finished craft supplies, tidying and dusting

Perus perjantai (basic Friday)

Yeah, I'm having bit of trouble figuring a name for this, if you can think of something more suited I'm happy to hear some ideas. Anyway this day involves general tidying and dusting in the living room and in the entry.

I'm still leaving the vacuuming for A, because I hate vacuuming. It's so noisy and just annoying because of all the furniture on the floor. Then of course I do laundry and wash dishes and that sort of things, but those I can do when ever needed.

I've now followed this schedule for couple of weeks and it's working ok. Places do look better than before and at least once a week each room looks quite good. Do you have a cleaning schedule of some sort and how is it working?

Preparing for the christening

Some stuff to do for tomorrows christening of Likka

Offshore

We are sail boat owners now, how cool is that!

We bought a sail boat together with A's parents'. A's family used to have a sail boat quite many years ago and now they had missed sailing so much that they wanted to get one again. My family used to have a motor boat when I was a child, so I'm not that unfamiliar with boating, but sailing is something that I need to learn. I have sailed a little before with some friends' boats, but I cannot do anything in a sail boat without instructions.

The sail boat is old of course and it does require some maintenance. Besides the yearly maintenance it could use new covers for the seating and sleeping. And curtains could be renewed. Maybe those projects are something I could work on the winter.

This summer we will just enjoy the boat as it is now. Pretty exciting!

General yapping about stuff

I feel like we are drowning in stuff. Having a kid is not helping in this, on the contrary it has brought up the horrible feel that we cannot fit the kid's stuff anywhere or yet alone fit the kid anywhere.

There are certain items children need, actually there aren't that many things, but some of them are big, like for instance the crib and the strollers. The maternity package also contained huge amount of stuff that I know will be useful, but it also seems quite excessive to suddenly have huge box of stuff that no one has thought where it will be stored. Also I have been making lots of things for the kid, mostly I've made all of the things from materials we used to already have. So in theory we have not got more stuff from what I've made, but previously all my material was not lying on the office floor so it just seemed that it was more in control.

It's still almost three months before the kid is supposed to be born. It seems really difficult to store the kid's stuff for that time. Usually when I get something I'd like to put it in place immediately, but now it seems so useless to put everything in place, because that means that some of our own stuff will need to move and there really is no point staging our home like it already has a kid. But also there is no point postponing of getting all the stuff. I like to be prepared and not have to buy all things in a hurry in last minute. So I have tried to find temporary storage places for the kid's stuff.

What makes this most ridiculous is that for people of two or even three our apartment is supposed to be BIG. I mean we have almost 100 square meters (1070 square feet), many people live in a lot smaller apartments. A lot. Only explanation is that we have too much stuff, since nothing fits anywhere and everything is so darn difficult to put in place. That also means that it is difficult to find places for the kids stuff, temporary or permanent place.

On last Monday Christina posted about radical decluttering of her clothes. She got rid of about 75 % of her clothes. I feel like we should do something equally radical, but to all our stuff. I know that is not very realistic, but something needs to be done. The kid we are having is not going to be with us just temporarily, s/he will need more and more space when s/he grows up. This is quite obvious but I think I only just realized this. I'm not sure if A has realized this yet.

I hope to have some serious purging, decluttering and simplifying done on the summer.

Spring jacket, unfinished

I have not had much inspiration lately to continue with the spring jacket I started some time ago. I had to stop with the jacket when I had some trouble finding the right coloured lining and while I was looking for it I found much more inspiring things to do.

I've already made atleast three mistakes with it. First of all I had the fabric op-shopped years ago and I did have a bit too little of it. Then I did not understand the pattern fully and cut way too little pieces from the fabric. In the end that resulted that I had to cut one piece in different thread direction than others. So now when all other parts have the fabric pattern going to the top right the one piece has the pattern going to the top left. A said that is fine and no one will notice and I do agree with him, but I'm still annoyed. Also since I'm now truly run out of the fabric and I would still need small pieces of it for the lining, I need to figure out something else. I know I will be able to do something, just don't know what yet.

So the point of me showing you this project at this stage is to get me back on track. Next time you see this I hope it's ready and spring has not passed.

Bespoke a knit pattern

You can do it. Designing your own knit pattern that is. It's not difficult at all. Okey maybe it's not beginner level knitting, but not far.

You only need cross ruled paper (not necessarily sponsored), test knits, some common sence and a grafical calculator.

Kidding! regular calculator will do. Draw the whole pattern on a cross ruled paper. If it's a small pattern you can assume that the hight and the width of the stitch are equal, but if you want a bigger pattern you should check from your test knit what is the ratio between the hight and the width of the stitch. Therefore you will have to draw your pattern to appear quite long on the paper. In the knit it will look normal. You could also make a grid with excel that has the correct ratio and design the pattern on it.

Divide the total amount of the stitches on your knit with the amount on the pattern, you should end up with an even number, but most likely you wont. Then find out what is the closest amount of stitches that would give an even number. Adding a few stiches or removing some wont affect much on the size of your finished knit. Unless it's like really tiny, like a baby mitten.

By the way, yesterday I saw on the pharmacy a woman that knit, she was about my age. That was so cool, but not that rare. But few years back I saw in a bus a girl that was making a cross stitch, that was even cooler.

How ideas form

I've never been a list person. I don't like lists, I do make some, like shopping lists or to-do lists, but those are usually very short and not too detailed. When I need to put my ideas on paper I make a mindmap or a drawing. It's very common for me to make a mindmap from lets say... blogging, like in the picture under I have two mindmaps. Also it's very common for me not to save these mindmaps. I usually throw them away after I've looked them for a few days. That means that I write the same things on the mindmaps again and again. Once in a while I forget some idea or discard it as a dull thing and sometimes I write there things I've not written for a long time, for some reason the old idea might feel fresh to me again.

I have a few notebooks and paper piles around the home. So when ever I get an idea I can instantly write it down or draw it. I don't tend to flip trough the notebooks or papers, I trust that if the idea is good enough I will remember it or it will come to me again. I've sometimes wondered why I even write things down since the paper is never really needed afterwards. I have a theory that because I get so excited about the idea, I need to move on it at that instant and sometimes writing it down is the only thing I can do at that time. Also when I draw or write I can assess the idea and it's practicality. I've been known to study and draw some detail of my idea for ages eventhough I'm not even sure where and when I will use that idea.

Often the ideas come from materials, like in the instance of the heritage, I got lots of material that I liked but had really no use for. It's not either rare for me to go trough my craft stash. When ever I get some material I like, I fiddle it, move it around, clean it, organize it, stare at it for long periods of time. Then if an idea hits me I have to carry it out immediately and when that happens I hate if the lack of some other material slows me down. It does not even matter if I have something else unfinished. When I get inspired I need to work on the new thing, I can allways return to the "old" thing later.

I do collect inspiration from the web too, although I try to avoid collecting too many images or ideas from the internet. I sometimes do that, but the amount can soon turn against me. The mass becomes too big to find anything anymore. I flip through web pages, blogs and so on actively because I enjoy them and collect ideas unconsciously. When ever I do get an idea to realize I change the way I use the internet. If I do not know how to do something I try to find instructions, allmost everytime the case is that someone has done something similar, or similar enough before. I also read discussion forums, where crafty people are sharing their knowlegde. I allways search instructions both in Finnish and in English, I've found that some crafts are more popular in Finland than in the English speaking world and other way around.

I think the weirdest thing about the me is that at times even when I have gazillion ideas written on notebooks I have feelings of total idea black out. This usually happens on evening when there is not much time to really start anything big before bed time or if weather or some other obstacle inhibits me to do something I'd like to do. This usually leads me to wonder around apartment and frustrate about the lack of anything to do. In those times I go to A and ask him what I should do. And he usually has no suitable answer. A is very good if I need his help in some technical issue or if I have a few options on how to do something but I cannot make my mind, but he is not good in brainstorming craft ideas, go figure...

I'm not saying I'm the most innovative person in the world, because I'm totally not and I'm not saying my way to figure what to create is any better than anyone elses, I just wanted to write through how I get those ideas I get. This is my way, I'm interested if your way to create is anywhere similar or very different. Do you keep track of your ideas and how, write them down or save pictures?

Now speaking of material, this is what I've been obsessing lately.

Inheritor

I am an inheritor.
I inherited huge amount of sheets, glass jars and other nick nack!

That is not even all of it. Actually A is the one who inherited I was just given those things since all in A's family know how much I like to do crafts and how much I enjoy old utility items.

The person A and his family inherited had one closet full of old white linen and cotton sheets, it was unbelievable. I've never ever seen anyone with such an amount of sheets. A's mom took many of the sheets also A's uncle's wife took a huge pile, but still to me was left to give a humongous pile too.

Most of the sheets have yellowed over time and don't look too fresh. Especially the linen sheets are very yellow, the cotton sheets are a bit better. I've occasionally used chlorite to whiten cotton but I had no idea how it would work on linen. I tryed to google about it but couldn't find any trustworthy info. So I figured I need to try it on my own. I took one pillow case, dilluted the chlorite down with cold water (about 1/20) and sunk the pillow case in the solution.

I waited for two hours or so and rinced the pillow case clean. Then I washed the pillow case and let it dry. And it did turn much whiter. The lace on the side changed to blinding white since that was cotton but the rest of the pillow case looks much much better now too. Here is before and after.

Please ignore the fact that the pillow case is not the same one. I assure you the left one turned equally white as the pillow case on the right and the pillow case on the right was equally yellow as the pillow case on the left. I whitened whole bunch of these pillow cases and sheets after this experiment and I guess I got them mixed up and took photo of the wrong one. Trust me, it worked. Now our bathroom smells like swimming hall. I run out of chlorite so I need to get more before I can continue the whitening.

I guess you must be wondering what I will do with all those sheets. Because you are right I will never need as many sheets and I allready had good white sheets. Thing is that I don't need sheets, I need fabric. There is always a need for good white cotton or linen fabric. Here are just a few ideas that have popped into my head.

• curtains, this and the next one are especially good for the monogramed sheets that I'd like to keep intact
• table cloths
• napkins
• clothes
• chair cover
• ironing board cover
• duvet cover from two sheets
• basket cover, can you notice I'm repeating the term cover here

I haven't decided what I will do. If you have any cool ideas please share.

PS. Could someone tell me if this chlorite is the thing that is often referred as bleach? Or is that something different?

Spring clean: Living room to-do list

The living room has gotten a bit out of hand lately. A has been home on a sick leave with his knee and because he has had hard time moving he has gathered all sorts of things near the sofa. So the livingroom definately needs some cleaning.

This spring I've had the sudden urge to change the living room TV-unit/bookshelf. Also I want to paint the walls. And I want everything to be white. Our living room is so dark. The conservatory makes it even darker on winter when snow is on the conservatory roof and no light comes through. Now it's getting better, but the living room could be even lighter.

Just look at that arsenal of remote controls, that's ridiculous.

A's knee is already better and he can walk a bit without the crunches. Only a few days ago he had a huge pillow pile on the sofa where he could keep his foot up. Now he does not need that anymore. So maybe this is not too early to try to make the living room nice again. My plan is to do the following.

Take the carpet outside and give it a beat
Vacuum and mop floor
Wash sofa slip covers and dining table seat cushion covers
Wash curtains
Vacuum sofa
Go through CDs, try to convince A to let go of some
Dust

+ Brainstorm a shoe rack for the terrace shoes

I've already collected some inspiration on Pinterest. I would like to have a system where the shoes or the rack are not on the floor, although I do like the looks of the pebble tray.

To-Do list for A

Ups, I forgot to finish this post yesterday. And now this post is late, according to my own schedule, I usually post at 7:30 UTC. I have been really sick, that is why I forgot. I have influenza, I diagnozed myself using wikipedia :). I've had very high fever and sore throat. Now on the morning I feel better but evenings have been difficult. Some of my colleagues have had this too, so I quess I got it from them. But it also didn't help that I spent last sunday morning freezing my ass off on the terrace while removing paint from the stools.

Anyway back to the actual post.

~ ~ ~

A had a knee operation on tuesday, according to the surgeon the operation went well and A should be recovering nicely. But for a week or two he is not allowed to put any weight on the knee, which means that he is going to be house bound for a while. And that to my understanding will mean constant Xbox playing in quantities that will make me mental.  I think it would be healthy if he had something constructive to do. So I compiled a To-Do list for him. I know I'm evil, he is recovering after all.

• Check from my ancient computer what is the spec of the hard drive (the computer will be sold, for some very very low price)
• Go through and organize papers in several folders and boxes. 

He has organized some of his papers earlier and now I listed the categories he already has so when he goes through the papers and finds something that is worthwhile keeping he can check if he already has a category for it, or if he needs to invent a new one.

My evil plan is to bring one folder a day near the sofa in the living room and then while he sits there and rests his leg he can look through the folder and categorize the papers. After he has categorized the papers and hopefully decided to throw away lots of them I can then leave one category pile of papers in the living room and bring the appropriate folder there, where he can then file the papers.

To me one folder a day sounds like a piece of cake but A is different. It takes him forever to go through paper. So I'm pretty sure my schedule is way too tight for him, but it's a plan, and it can be adjusted.

Start of a spring clean

Alana's Hybrid Cure was the first thing I blogged about and now she's having another one. Originally the idea of the cure came from the book Apartment Therapy: The Eight Step Home Cure by Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan. The purpose of the cure is to clean everything, get rid of things that are weighing down on the general atmosphere of the home and making all rooms and spaces usefull and fresh again. After doing all the steps last year according to the book both Alana and I think that the whole cure is not needed this time around. We both just want to do a spring clean.

Last spring I did a massive clean out in the kitchen, bathroom and terrace. I think those places are still in a pretty good shape. I don't think there is much point cleaning those areas scrupuloysly again, I'd rather consentrate on the areas that were left with less attention last year.

Want to hear a revelation? I don't like regular cleaning. I don't! I hate it. But you know what I like? I like massive, let's-clean-the-whole-home-from-top-to-bottom projects. Also I enjoy special cleaning tasks which require freaky or specialized cleaning products and time consuming scrubbing. Regular cleaning is just... well too regular to see any real progress. The special cleaning tasks are where I see exactly what I have accomplished. That is probably why I like organizing too. And that is why I enjoy the Cures and spring cleaning.

The plan is to dedicate a week for a room or an area.

• March 11-17: Kitchen

• March 18-24: Entry

• March 25-31: Living Room

• April 1-7: Office, this might be bit tricky since the office is under some renovation.

• April 8-14: Bathroom, sauna and toilet

• April 15-21: Bedroom

• April 22-28: Finish up

I will be continuing the office renovation when the weather allows (it's been very cold lately to do anything outdoors, like sanding) while the spring clean is going on.

Cabinet drawings and plans

I have planned to build a cabinet over the wall bed we have in the office. The general plan is to build a frame from lumber of 45 x 45 mm (1.77 x 1.77 in), marked with balloon 1 in the picture. The back support would be planks of about 90 x 15 mm (3.5 x 0.6 in) (2) and the sides, top and bottom are plywood or similar of about 5 mm (0.2 in) (3).

I originally thought of using doors to hide the wall bed, but I hate attaching hinges, I have propably never managed to attach a hinge on a cabinet so that the door would be leveled. The hinges are just beyond me. Also doors would be pretty heavy compared to the rest of the structure. So now I have been thinking of some lighter options.

I could use regular curtains. I could use a roller blind or I could use roman blinds.

I like most the roller blind idea, but what I don't like is the selection of roller blinds Ikea has, because that is where I assume I could find the cheapest ones. I don't like any of the patterned roller blinds, also the plain white one is just so cheap looking. All the fixings and the string where the blind is operated are white plastic, it just doesn't look good. I think there is only one blind that has metallic fixings and string and that is the Enje roller blind. Bad thing is that the Enje is not opaque. But want to hear the good news? The good thing is that it is not opaque.

I mean then I would have an excellent excuse to take the blind into parts and add a new nicer cooler colourfull fabric and piece it together again. Like it is done on Design*Sponge. The biggest conserns I have are that will the new fabric I deside to get roll nicely over the rod and how will I attach it on the cabinet, would I need something to cover up the top part of the blind. But the biggest of all big conserns are that will I be able to find a fabric that I and A will like for many years from the gigantic selection of fabrics in the stores.

Projects are coming along

I introduced my to do list for the office redo on The grand plan - post I did some time ago. This is what I've done so far.

Floorplan

• Buy a Sesam wall bed mechanism and place the guest bed inside a closet (the grey rectangle in the floorplan)

The Sesam wall bed mechanism should be on it's way. We are not going to Stockholm after all, all the cruise ships were full when we started to book the trip, but I ordered the mechanism few days ago.

• Move the shelf on the small window wall closer to the small window (the yellow long rectangle)
• Move the table against the big window wall, or even get a new table

All moving is waiting for the painting of the shelves. I cannot move the shelves with all the books on them so when I remove the books then I will paint the shelves at the same go.

• Place a table board inside the shelf (the yellow rectangle on the top right corner) to create a computer station

The table board has been bought. 

• Get a nicer looking office chair for A

I've looked for some office chairs but haven't found anything nice and resonable priced.

Building, painting and sewing

• Remove wallpaper and paint the room white or light colour

I've removed wallpaper from one wall, but then the shelf came on the way. I was so excited to remove the

wall paper that I didn't realize that I have no place where I could now paint the shelves and move them out

of the way. I have to wait for spring before I can move the shelves to the terrace and then paint.

• Make a closet for the guest bed

This is waiting for the Sesam wall bed mechanism and spring.

• Paint the shelves white
• Sew a roman blind for the big window or get a roller blind
• Sew a slipcover for the chair

Started making the slip cover on sunday. It's going on nicely.

That's a plan

So I had a plan. I was about to remove all the wallpaper from the office and then paint the walls. I knew that the wallpaper in the livingroom which I removed few years ago was on very tight, so I thought I was prepared. In the office there are two layers of wallpaper, the rosy one and under is a stripy one.

I watered the wallpaper with a pressure sprayer (hope you know what I mean, I have no idea what that thing is even in Finnish) and the top wallpaper, the rosy one, almost slide off. I was able to rip it out in whole sheets. It was amazing.

Then I watered the old wallpaper, the stripy one. I watered and tried to rip the wallpaper off, but it was very stuck. Then I watered some more and tried to scrape it off, that didn't work. I even borrowed a steamer meant for removing wallpaper from A's parents'. That didn't work either. After one evening of work and messing around with the steamer, this is all that I had done.

That looks just pathetic.

Then I started to think that I need to change my plan. According to Benita you can paint over wallpaper and eventhough I trust her to tell the truth I still hesitate. So since the rosy wallpaper comes out so easily I will remove only that and leave the stripy one be. I will spackle the edges and some holes and then paint. I know I could just paint right over, but I'm still afraid that since the top wallpaper can be removed so easily that it will start to remove on it's own once I wet it with paint.

So that's the new plan.

Sand

I was just wondering that have you ever seen grey sand? Because I haven't. I've seen black, beige, yellow, white and red sand, but I've never seen grey. I've seen grey stones and many of them, but not sand. Isn't that odd? I've also seen grey gravel. Why is there no grey sand? What happens to the stone when it get's smaller, does it reflect light in a different way so that it does not seem grey anymore?

Not that the grey sand is particulaly important, but I'm still thinking of making the dry landscape zen garden around the Teahouse and I've been checking some pictures of zen gardens and I noticed that grey gravel has been used in most of them. In miniature scale I would be using sand obviously, I even have the sand ready and will be using that eventhough it is yellowish. But I just started to wonder why I haven't seen any grey sand. Is there grey sand where you come from?

Asking for ideas

I need your help. Today, on friday, is the day of Nuutti. That in Finnish folklore means that the Christmas peace ends and Nuutti comes and steals away the Christmas. Earlier in Finland it was a habit to dress up as Nuutti-goat with scary looking antlers and wander from house to house and make pranks. Anyway what this day means is that the Christmas is officially over. I have removed all other decorations except the tree.

And the tree is what I need your ideas for. What should I do with a tree that is in perfect shape and does not drop any needles but that would look dumb sitting in the livingroom in february?

We vacuumed last week, so over 7 days ago and I counted the needles that had dropped from the tree after that. Quess how many had dropped?

It was 14 needles, 14! This tree is amazing. It's the healthiest tree we've ever had. It would be a shame to throw it in the trash. So I'm asking your help. What should I do with the tree? Any ideas?

Should I put it in the terrace? Make a wreath out of it? Use it in the garden for covering up plants? All ideas are very welcome!

The grand plan

 It's almost a year since I started to plan the office redo. It has not moved on at all. But now it's going to. I've discussed this with you before and you gave me some excellent ideas. This is the office floor plan now.

Here are also few pictures from the room, they were taken last spring, but the room has not changed one bit (except that I donated those big pillows on the bed just this saturday).

What we want from the room is that it can hold all the paperwork in the shelves, a computer station for A, a guest bed, a table for crafting and sewing and a chair for reading. Also I want it to be open and fresh and white. So here is how the floor plan will be.

And here is what we are going to do: Floorplan

• Buy a Sesam wall bed mechanism and place the guest bed inside a closet (the grey rectangle in the floorplan)
• Move the shelf on the small window wall closer to the small window (the yellow long rectangle)
• Move the table against the big window wall, or even get a new table
• Place a table board inside the shelf (the yellow rectangle on the top right corner) to create a computer station
• Get a nicer looking office chair for A

Building, painting and sewing

• Remove wallpaper and paint the room white or light colour
• Make a closet for the guest bed
• Paint the shelves white
• Sew a roman blind for the big window or get a roller blind
• Sew a slipcover for the chair

I want to thank Kattis for introducing me the Sesam wall bed mechanism. We are planning a trip to Stockholm this winter and are most likely going to buy the mechanism from there. How do you like my plan? Any gaps found? I know it's going to be lot of work. I especially dread the painting of the shelves, that is going to be very labourous, but I hate the shade of the wood the shelves are now.