posted 2012-05-01

The kitchen project

After having lived in the apartment for a week, Christina's parents Lars & Inger came down to Norrköping to help us tear out the yellow '60s kitchen. We got most of it down the first day and a large part of the second day was spent driving all the material off to the dumb, once everything was dismantled.

The week that followed tearing the old kitchen out was spent hurrying to get the walls repaired and ready for the new kitchen to be built... whenever not at work we were working at home to spackle the holes, wash old grease off the walls and ceiling and get the most important parts scraped and painted.

Left picture:The kitchen as it looked when we first took over the apartment. Right picture: Part of the kitchen as it looked after Lars & Inger had helped us tear out all the cupboards and tiles.

Left picture: Concrete repairing material filled into the biggest holes and some spackle on the smaller ones. Right picture: Ceiling painted and everything spackled smooth. First cabinet installed!

The kitchen as it looked after the weekend with expert help from Therese & Håkan. Still a lot of work to do but it's looking like there might be a complete kitchen there in a not too distant future!

The last weekend in April we had expert kitchen-building help arrive in the form of Christina's sister Therese and her soon-to-be husband Håkan, as well as their their 3-year-old daughter Siri. There are tons of adorable pictures of Siri and the kitchen-building in the Gallery...

We worked hard and long to get all the things mounted to the wall the first day. The second day Håkan cut the countertops into the right lengths and cut out the whole where the sink goes so that we know how it's done for when we have to do the same for the stovetop when that arrives in a few days...

Shenzi and Siri sleeping on the couch after a long day of 'helping out' with the kitchen-building.

When Therese, Håkan and Siri drove home on Sunday Christina and I took a break in the kitchen project and focused on getting the first baseboards mounted in the living room. We also built one of our new book cases and can now really see feel that everything's going to come together in the end. It's still really chaotic and messy in the whole apartment but it's getting easier and easier to get around and live here.

// Kristi & Christina

posted 2013-04-20

Let the renovations proceed!

Once we took over our new apartment we threw ourselves into the renovation process head on. The first thing we bought was our floor since they were going to discontinue the one we'd chosen. A ton of different tools and materials were also stacked into the apartment and then we started pulling out baseboards and tearing down wallpaper.

We've been working pretty much non-stop for about two weeks when I'm writing this and in that time we also managed to move all our belongings from the old apartment to the new one. A process which took the help of four strong police officers and three rounds to the new apartment.. insane the amount of stuff we have! I was so tired of all of it by then that I just felt like throwing it all away.

There are tons and tons of pictures of all the progress of each of the sections in the Gallery and that part is updated with new pictures more often than posts are written so check in to follow the progress!

Our bedroom before we took out the floor and wallpaper... and the bedroom with the new floor and lots of spackel and paint! This is the condition it was in when we moved in. Still needs baseboards etc.

The living room before... and the living room with sanded and lackered floor and scraped, spackled and painted walls and ceiling. Still needs baseboards and some white paint around windows etc.

Shenzi getting in the way of our work... inspecting Christina's sweeping and stealing a tool.

Shenzi sleeping in a sunny spot which just happened to be among all the filthy wallpaper.

Shenzi enjoying laying on the foam before it was covered with the new floor in the bedroom... while Kristi's on the phone selling our old couch.

Now that we've moved our furniture into a building zone the chaos has gone from crazy to just plain insane. But we're dealing with it one day at a time and working as hard as we can to get everything finished. But it will take time before everything's done...

Despite all the crazyness, filth and unpacked boxes which cannot be unpacked at the moment... we're still overjoyed with our new place and it feels great to have finally moved in to our very own apartment!

// Kristi & Christina

posted 2012-03-30

Provence, France

In the midst of everything I have to do both at work and at home, I took a short trip to visit my Mom (Michele) in France. She's been staying in Uzés, an adorable town in Provence, for three months so it was about time I paid her a visit!

We did so much in the few days I was there. After an amazing seafood lunch in Marseille, we drove around in Camargue to see the salt lakes, rice fields and semi-wild white Camargue-horses. The next day we went to Pont du Gard in the morning, ate lunch in the sun in the incredible mountaintop village of Les Baux and walked around in the ruins of Glanum - reading about the sofisticated water and sewage systems they had back in 300 B.C...

The ancient roman aqueduct Pont du Gard (which is on the World Heritage List) and a beautiful blossom on a fruit tree.

We also spent a day in Uzés. Scouting around the french market and seeing the sights in the town, after eating tasty bakery fresh croissants in the morning sun on Mom's balcony. The day I flew home we made a quick stop in Avignon just to see the former papal palace and the famous bridge that doesn't cross the river Rhône. Amazing/frightening what power and money the pope had/has... Avignon is definitely a place I would like to go back to some time.

There are thirty more pictures from the trip in the Gallery. They'll tell you more about the wonderful sights Provence offered in the early spring.

posted 2012-03-06

Our very own apartment!

The first few month of the new year have just zoomed by! Right before X-mas Christina proclaimed that she wanted this to be the last X-mas we spend living on Ljuragatan. That really kicked us off into seriously looking at options for buying a place that would be our own. We looked at a few options before totally falling for a place in the city. The bidding war was nerve-racking but we finally won it! Out came the champagne to celebrate (on a Tuesday) and we went to bed totally exhausted, excited and a bit scared...

Shenzi enjoying the sun from Kristi's lap during a Saturday breakfast with French Toast on the balcony.

Since then the evenings and weekends have been filled with planning the renovation, making budget lists and checking out stores both online and IRL to find the perfect wall colour, floorboards, kitchen, dining room table and couch... etc. Our new place is going to be awesome but there's a ton of work for us to do before we get to that point.

After a very short but quite cold winter, the weather has been getting more and more like spring every week. It's light in the mornings and farther into the evenings and the sun has a destinct determination to spread it's light. It's still cold but we've been able to enjoy a few wonderful breakfasts on the balcony out of the wind. Shenzi's enjoyed it almost more than we have...

Siri with her cake and three candles (her cousin Edvin in the back) and Shenzi running fast through the dog park looking like a hyena with the fur on his back standing up.

Shenzi with friends running over icy patches in the dog park on Drottningholm.

We went up to Stockholm a little earlier on Sunday March 4th so that we had time to let Shenzi enjoy the wonderful dog park out on Drottningholm before we headed to Siri's birthday party. We were so proud of Shenzi for getting along really well with the other dogs. Some dogs he didn't like but he gurgled a bit and walked away from them rather than getting dirty about it. Also - he came when we called several times and kept and eye on where we were most of the time. Such a good boy!

The rest of the Sunday in Stockholm was spent celebrating Siri with a bunch of family. There were several kids and they played with pretty much everything they could find to play with. Christina and I took the chance to ask Therese and Håkan everything we could think of about the renovations we were planning on doing in our own apartment since they've been working really hard to make their house into a dream home. It's really turning out very nicely and I'm sure it'll be wonderful when they're done!

// Kristi & Christina

posted 2012-01-15

X-mas & into a New Year!

Unlike last winter, this year we could only dream of that white Christmas. It was hard to really get into the Christmas spirit with no snow and hardly any days off in connection to the holidays. But nonetheless, Christmas was still very enjoyable. In fact, one of the better ones!

Shenzi and I took the train up to Stockholm in the morning on December 23rd. Well, we missed the train we had intended to be on by a smidgeon... we had run as fast as we (read: I; Shenzi can run a lot faster...) could through half the city only to have the conductor close the door in our faces even though I yelled. After a phone call to mom who calmed me down, we went and bought a new ticket for the next train and then sat down with a cup of coffee at the station's café. Shenzi sat in my lap and made people smile when he tried to steal tastes of the coffee I was drinking. But we did finally make it to Stockholm, riding on the next train together with a ferret(!). Christina drove up later in the evening and joined us for dinner.

Left picture: A tired Shenzi riding in luxury on the train to Stockholm. Right picture: Shenzi and Christina on Christmas Eve in Saltsjöbaden.

Christmas Eve in Saltsjöbaden was calm and nice but we still managed to squeeze a lot of things into the day. After sleeping in and then eating a yummy breakfast, Christina and I went to the hardware store and bought stuff to fix mom's mess of cables by the TV and also fixed the mess. After lunch we drank glögg and watched the traditional Disney Christmas program and once that was over we made our way to the church in Saltsjöbaden. The opera singer Madeleine Wibom almost made us cry with her incredible voice at a beautiful concert.

Mom had prepared an incredible Christmas dinner, which lasted until late, with duck breast and a dessert you can check out the picture of in the Gallery. We opened presents before dessert though, and Shenzi entertained us by playing with string and taking forever to play and rip his own packages into pieces.

The next day, on December 25th, we headed out to Christina's parents in Stenhamra for our second Christmas celebration with all of Christina's family. On the menu was a tasty selection of the traditional Swedish Christmas food. Normally I, Kristi, won't eat the herring since I've never liked it. But this year I found a type I liked! And a most unlikely one at that - Vodka/Lime herring - since I don't like either vodka or herring. Once we'd all eaten until we could eat no more, coffee was served in the living room and presents were to be opened.

Siri gets a Christmas present and cuddles with Shenzi who was sleeping on his blanket when we ate.

Shenzi managed to really scare us by sneaking out the door and was off into the dark night in Stenhamra... everyone was out looking for him for ages and all of us worried he might have followed some trail until he was lost far from the house. But finally, he was caught and got to taste one of the home made meat balls. What a relief it was to have him back!

As Christina worked until 11 p.m. on New Years, Shenzi and I walked over to the police station at about 10 p.m. and hung out with Christina's colleagues for a while. Shenzi was in such a good mood that he went from police to police begging for pats and attention and greeting people with baroos all the time! Such a little charmer.

Once the time crept closer to midnight we made our way to the roof of the police building, 10 floors up. The fireworks had been increasing in frequency for the past week and seeing the display from above was incredible! Even Shenzi was amazed. He kept spying on people down on the street ant watching the fireworks explode. It's so wonderful that he's not scared. He didn't seem to mind the loud noise at all.

Kristi, with her new pink skipants, Christina and Shenzi on the roof of the police station in Norrköping watching the city explode in fireworks as 2012 starts.

The dark, cold and clear night fills up with explosions of light as far as the eye can see... the view from the roof of the police station.

So now we're hoping that the white Christmas will come soon so that we can use the new skiis mom (Michele) gave us! We're looking forward to long outings in snowy forrests with Shenzi running alongside...

// Kristi & Christina