Green is the new black

Pillows from Ferm Living

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:52:59 -0500

I love Ferm Living, especially their kids stuff. Now they have teamed up with Norwegian design duo Darling Clementine, and created pillows with prints from the Marionette series:

And I love their other pillows too:

All made out of organic cotton.

(images via Ferm Living)

Beautiful paper jars

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:26:00 -0500

I wonder where I can get beautiful paper like the ones below? If I had some I would definitely do some nice jars!

For this and other easy DIY tips (and general interior design inspiration) check out Sania Hedengren’s and Susanna Zache’s web site.

(image via Susanna Zache)

Sunday night

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 14:56:00 -0500

Another week’s gone by. This weekend we have painted Eowyn’s door (the back of the door I showed you before) with blackboard paint, so that she can paint on it. We’ve also painted the shelves we put up on the hallway (I’ll show you later) and the kitchen cabinet. Yesterday we visited Kretsloppsparken in search of a second hand door for our bathroom.

I’ve also been to dinner with two good friends. We discussed recycling (amongst other things). Turns out that Trolhättan, where one of my friends lives, has a really neat system in place. Everybody puts their organic waste in green waste bags and their other garbage (that can be burned) in red bags. Then you toss everything in the same bin and it gets sorted later on. Very easy! I wish we had that system here in Gothenburg. Right now we have no where to put our organic waste for composting.

And I’ve gotten the nice little fellow that I won over at Hello Tiger’s in the mail. Thank you! Eowyn was very excited about opening the package:

And Ester thought it (he/she?) was very tasty. :-)

Here are some nice pictures via Sofie Lawett to end the week:

(images Marcus Lawett via Sofie Lawett)

Eldblomma

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:47:34 -0500

Here is our new re-made door. Unfortunately the second hand wallpaper we had wasn’t enough to cover it, so instead I went out and bought a roll of Eldblomma by Josef Frank. (I have some other ideas on how to use that retro wallpaper, so it will hopefully come to use soon anyway.)

To renovate or not to renovate?

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:21:12 -0500

We’re thinking of maybe renovating one of our bathrooms (our only bathroom really, since we just turned the other one into a small laundry room). On one hand I feel it’s not really necessary to renovate, because even though the room is quite boring and ugly (plastic carpet and walls in beige), it would probably hold together for 10 or 20 more years and I don’t like being a part of the whole renovation/redecoration-hysteria that I think is going on (but of course I’m already a part of that).

On the other hand, the bathroom hasn’t been renovated for 20 years or so, and since we’re planning on living here for quite some time, it would be nice to renovate sooner rather than later. It’s not like we’re tearing out a completely new bathroom just because we didn’t like the design… And, once we started thinking about it we came up with several ideas on how to make the space more practical for us. Not to mention more beautiful (who am I kidding? practical, pft!).

I’ve always liked checkered floors, perhaps in combination with white and green on the walls.

Since the room is quite long and narrow, I would also like to have a big mirror covering one of the walls, to make it look a little bit bigger. I really like the wooden frame on the mirror below. And the light bulbs above it.

(images via Byggfabriken, Hus & hem)

Hus & hem

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:58:32 -0500

Family living is my favorite Swedish interior design magazine at the moment, but Hus & hem isn’t far behind, and they have a much more updated web site. Check out this beautiful house for example! I love just about everything about it, but most of all the yellow door.

(images Mikkel Adsbøl via Hus & hem)

Books in the mail

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:59:51 -0500

Today I got two new interior design books in the mail (thanks to I love Peggy for the book tip). Flea market style and Cheap chic by Emily Chalmers:

And the amazing “Vem ska trösta knyttet”, by Tove Jansson. For the beautiful pictures.

We also got I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay about the financial crisis, which should be interesting reading.

(images via adlibris)

Another beautiful summer house

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 08:42:12 -0500

At the moment I’m starting to get a bit tired of this winther and all snow we’ve been getting (but I do prefer snow to rain though). As I mentioned before, I sometimes like to dream of a summer house. Even though I don’t know if I actually want one, with all the work that probably is required. But we’ll see what happens when we get settled in the apartment. The good thing about a summer house is that it doesn’t have to be in perfect condition, right?

It probably takes some effort to go from your average-haven’t-been-redecorated-since-the-70ies-summer-house to this though (according to the article about a year and about 500 000 Swedish crowns).

(images Tia Borgsmidt via Hus & Hem)

Dust everywhere and a lot of noise

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 15:49:46 -0500

We’ve had a little bit of help from two carpenters this week. This meant a lot of noise and dust everywhere.

On the plus side we’re not that far from being finished with all of our planned projects for the apartment (apart from the bathroom, but that’s another story). Among other things they’ve built a shelf where the door between Ester’s room and our livingroom was before. We’re very pleased with the result.

On Monday they’re coming back to finish off some other projects. Then we’re gonna do some big time cleaning of the entire place.

Dreaming of a summer house

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 15:01:00 -0500

Every now and then I start to dream of a summer house. It doesn’t have to be big or fancy but it should be near a lake where we can go swiming. And not too far away from town either so that we can use it on the weekends too. Unfortunately those last two criteria combined sums up to quite alot of money - that we don’t have… But If I do get one some day I would decorate it just like this!

(images Tia Borgsmidt via Hus & Hem)

A whole lot of white

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 11:00:00 -0500

Checking the apartment adds looking for bathroom inspiration. Didn’t find any bathroom to my liking but this apartment was very nice, despite the usual for-sale-styling (I find the styling of apartments that are for sale quite boring). I should have added some bright colors to mix up all that white though! :)

(images Alvhem)

Another redecorated door

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:08:30 -0500

Here is another great way to redecorate an old door, by Hanna:

(image via dos family)

Plastic bead patterns

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:18:00 -0500

I wish I (and my kids) had a little bit more patience, then I would do something like this (by the amazing Cilla Ramnek):

(image Cilla Ramnek)

I'm the winner!

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 14:33:05 -0500

Just found out that I’m the winner over at hello tiger’s of this strange but cute little fellow from kidrobot:

Yay!

(image via hello tiger)

Snowstorm

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 14:29:05 -0500

The last 24 hours we’ve gotten a lot of snow here in the south of Sweden. It’s been a little bit of chaos, actually. So instead of going to an indoor swimming pool today (we didn’t feel like going anywhere in the car. probably wouldn’t have gotten the car out of the parking space anyway) we’ve been decorating our walls.

A couple of days ago we got three of Madame Mo’s beautiful posters in the mail from Havtorn design! Eowyn got to decide where we should put them. Two was placed in the hallway and the third in Eo’s room.

AJ Light

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:00:59 -0500

Found these beautiful pictures of the fiftieth-anniversary edition of the classic AJ Light via remodelista:

It’s just not pictures of beautiful lights, I love the whole settings with the retro furniture against the pale wooden floors and white walls.

(images via remodelista)

Upon cars

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:47:42 -0500

For the most part of my adult life I haven’t owned a car - I have gotten by on public transportation and, for a short period of time, by being a member of a car pool. When we did get one we tried to get the most environment friendly one we could find. At the time that seemed to be a natural gas vehicle and when we switched to a slightly bigger car last year we chose another NGV.

Although I would prefer not owning a car altogether, now that we have small kids having one seems inevitable. Living in the city as we do, we don’t have to use it on a dayly basis, but since we have most of our friends and family outside of the city (why can’t everyone we know just live really close by?? :)) it’s just too impractical to get by using only public transportation. When the kids grow older I’m thinking we should sell the car and join a car pool again but for now I guess we’re stuck with it.

Therefore I was really happy to read in yesterday’s newspaper that NGVs are becoming more and more popular here in Sweden. It feels good to know that a growing number of people choose to buy what I believe to be the most environmental friendly cars on the market today (although the Opel Ampera/Chevrolet Volt electric vehicles look very promising!) and that the number of CNG filling stations are growing here in Sweden.

Another great sneak peek

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:57:37 -0500

Design sponge has given us a lot of great sneak peeks at homes of creative people. Check out this colorful Dallas home belonging to Vynsie Law of We are 1976. I wouldn’t want this much color in my own home but it’s very inspiring to look at. I especially like that they have a lot of art.

(images design sponge)

Zigzag jumpsuit?

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:45:36 -0500

It makes me really happy that there are so many brands of cool, ecological children clothes popping up! The Zigzag jumpsuites from Organics for kids are way cool. I wouldn’t mind dressing myself as well in that pattern (albeit not in a jumpsuit…). I really must look into ecological adult fashion more, so that I also can be cool and sustainable. :)

(image via Oiidesign)

Another stool-makeover

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 14:10:40 -0500

We needed somewhere to sit and put on our shoes. Johan went ahead and made this from an old ikea stool and some wallpaper:

Here’s how he made it:

The end result: