Autumn in a nutshell

This autumn has been a bit special as the weather has been fantastic till few days ago (brittsommar, to be specific). I have then taken the occasion to work a little bit extra outside, apart that there is the usual extra pile of stuff to do, also because it has been very beautiful to be out.

A bit earlier than usual this year (just before the end of August), I started the apple harvest. As usual it is a mess. The apples are ready in different times on the trees, I don't manage to store them, most rotten and few get saved in some emergency apple mousse, apple pie, kids eating them randomly....
The worse occurs for the ones that are picked up during the early September.
The later types have better chances to survive, but possibly because of the warmer weather, they have fallen in huge quantity and most of them have got damanged and have had problems to not rotten while waiting to be delivered to Sövde Musteri.

One of the first batches of apples

We have now brought there about 560kgs of apples, but we still have more. The amount that has been thrown is probably the same. It would be great to have the possibility to do one own must here, so possibly we would save the time of driving (though, we would have to spend an ocean of time making the must, handling the rests and fixing bottles?!)

I managed also to made some small progresses on the poolhouse frames.

Sadly, still a long way to go and I am not sure I am willing to paint in the cold as I have done some other year. 

I have just painted the frame

It took some time extra as the frames were already a bit damaged and I tried to made a decent ground work, for once.

Let's see if I have done a decent job next year...

One layer more to go for having this finished

This spring, with the help of the kids, I planted some tuber that would bloom in the late summer/early autumn. Around the pool there is plenty of potential, but unfortunately, planting those and few other plants, didn't help out as ground elder took over and with it, a lot of other annoying weeds.

I have started to clean up a bit the area and by going to different plants nursery (thanks also to a nice goodbye present from work) I managed to fill in the stock and fix some parts of that flowerbed.

The plants I bought with the present

I definitely didn't manage to finish the cleaning off (and all the stones are completely covered by weeds as well) and when doing that I couldn't even find all the flowers I had planted!? 

A beautiful old style Dahlia with amazing autumn light

Another Dahlia variation

The bee and the gladiolus

The ones that came out properly bloomed amazingly and I really enjoyed being surprised by their colors and shape. 

Sadly, now, a few days of real cold just arrived and in order to save everything up I had to take in all the tubers. With the cold also the legal time came and that means that I had really few hours of light to work on this.

Working in the dark

At the end, I ended up working with the torch of the mobile phone, trying to see what I was digging out....

Last days of a sunny autumn

This autumn, after a windy start, has brought some very beautiful and warm days to continue the unusual heat wave that hit us during summer. As I have had the luxury to have some days off, I have had the opportunity to do a lot of things, although, as always, time has not been enough for everything.

I have for example, finally retouched one of the windows that I had finished maybe one or two years ago. Sadly it is not finished. I should have taken care of the inner frame when summer was at its best, but I ended up prioritizing probably very wrong here...

The putty has detached itself from the glass. Some pain had then fallen off due to the humidity. I tried to seal that again

As our pool house is not yet completed, I have also tried to move forward in that project.
Waterspouts are some of the missing parts.
We have chosen a metal material so that we could paint it quite easily. This is called aluzink in Swedish. When making these choices there are always a lot of parameters to be taken in consideration. Already during the roof renovation we had discussed a lot what kind of metal one should have, what is best to paint on and so on, and we have learnt few things on the way.
Now, this is possibly not the best material anyway ever, but I decided that we should take a risk as at least it is a cheap material and if something goes wrong we can just change it.

Squeezing the eaves in the car

So, some of the parts we could order them standard (I hope they will work... I fear that). Some though didn't exist in aluzink. I had then to drive to Hässleholm, to our trustworthy beater (wonder if that is really the word in English) to get this piece. The road there was one of the most boring ones ever...

Finally, this was not really my doing, but there has been some progress in the garden.

One of our apple trees got a big broken branch. I blame Mattias putting all his weight on the hammock that was hanging there, but the branch was most likely already in a bad state and his weight and the apples weight just gave it a final blow.

The cut branch

The apple tree without the branch

What was cut down 

Now, we have plenty of stuff to throw - but that has to wait as we are in "picking apples season".
At the same time, some of the flowerbeds have got to be freshen up.

The front flowerbed after some care (and a piece of my thumb, I guess)

There is always a lot of meat on the fire

This could actually be the standard title of almost all the posts, as there are always a lot of things ongoing and all of different nature. One has to be simply allover the place.

1) The garage. The garage had an amazing hole in the wall. The theory states that the previous owner had the secret wish to make a door out of a window and started to smash the wall there. Luckily, he didn't succeeded. See this old post.
As we had some good mason around, we took the chance to make them patch, after who knows how many years, that wall.

Patch on the garage wall. Now this looks dried and camouflaged with the rest

As the garage is almost looking decent (except the attic, that is still in need of care), we have started the "decoration" of it with some of the items found during the different cleans up.

Details from some old car are now hanging on the walls

2) One of the two windows in the attic.
Thanks to the mild autumn (I bet that now that I write this, there will be the coldest storm ever appearing tomorrow), I have managed to do some of the painting work that I should have rushed more during the summer.
One of this is related to the metal sheet we mounted back. Mounting back was not exactly as easy as one could think.
The inclination of it has to be accurate so that the water flows out. However, although doing that, the wall around it is not "sealed" around the metal.
This is a problem that we need to address or we will have water issues anyway.

That metal should be hooked in the wall

When there is simply a big glitch between wall and metal

3) The garden.When finding 2 minutes of peace, I try to read some magazine (I have of course an infinite long pile that will never end) and the one that has been on my nighttable for few months is about gardening.
The garden requires a lot of planning. Taking care of. And neither one or the other thing has yet happened really, except some occasional saving from our gardeners, who at least take away the worst weeds.
Anyway. I saw this hanging chair and dreamt that it would be accessible price wise and hence purchasable (?) one day...

The hanging chair

Wouldn't it be nice to have the chair for spending those 2 minutes there reading all those magazines? Yes. Of course. We have the hammock too....I should be happy with that :) But....(There is a follow up to this for the next blog post!)

Painting in different formats

Metal sheet and windows are usually among our favorite subjects when we want to "show off" how much we know about how to handle such things in old houses. Not that we can really compete with the real experts, but at least we can pretend to.

As we started the painting of the metal sheet in the roof this summer, we have seen some progresses.
We have got all the base paint done (well, almost, some details have casually got out of the plan) and a first layer of paint all around the cornice plus some details in the other shade of green.

Around the window it is dark green, while the cornice is lighter

As we have found out when going arond the roof last time, the cornice should have a stripe of pale yellow on the lower part. But I guess the exakt right color for the exterior of the house can ben analyzed for the next round of paint in 10 years time.

This is not the only painting that is getting partially done! This summer for some completely weird reason I haven't managed to make big progresses on the painting of the windows. Despite the good weather. I can only blame myself to it. I don't know where time has flied.
Anyway, since it was already more than a year that on a window in the attic the windowsill was missing because the frame was rotten and we had to remove it all, I thought it was about time to avoid getting more water in the walls, considering the autumn is usually a very mild season (no storms, no violent rain, no wind.... or rather, the opposite).

Mattias is studying the situation and trying to understand what to do

The first thing we did was getting the plaster under the metal. When we removed the plate, half of it went off.
Then, I took care of do some rust protection procedure for some rusty spot of the metal and Mattias finally had the chance to have few months for planning when to hammer all together.

High concentration for making this job right

I then took occasion, while he was hammering the metal, to paint the outside part of the frame on the other window. After all, it is just two years that that window has been missing and maybe it would be good to have it fixed before winter comes.

There still a layer to go and I have still to fix the inner part of the frame (and the window, of course)

When the hammering was over, I painted the first layer of rust protection on the new mounted metal. Next step is the next layer plus painting the first real layer of paint on the outer frame.

The day was possibly on the very tail of summer

Now, one has just to find few days in a row where it doesn't rain too much...

Jugend addi(c)tions

Trying to decorate home is a constant ongoing process/project. I try to find (affordable) time typical items (hence jugend) which need to try to have also a pratical side. During the past months, apart possibly overbuying a lot of old plates, we have added few items.

Jugend vase

Sadly, I haven't taken a decent picture of this vase in a good environment. But the vase is really beautiful and fits the rest of the "home".

A jugend textile (sadly, I am horrible in taking pictures)

It is very typical swedish to have old textiles with texts, quotes and words of wisdom. In this case the text says something like "Enjoy every delight with thankful mind, take care (?) of the roses that life brings to you, take care most carefully of the childhood memory, the most beautiful time of all that is".

Since we have no tasks at all, or half done projects already, we got the opportunity to save some old furniture in a questionable state and now the whole "Black room" (that is house the entrance + staircase room is identified) is filled with semi dirty furniture (appreciated by the cats so they have something to label...).

Cleaning is ongoing, then we have to decide what to do with it, despite them being time typical.

Some of the saved furniture

Being a doctor to the house!

As a owner of an old house, one has to learn to take care of it in the "right way" (especially, in our case, the right way can be a bit complicated).
Now, the most interesting one is related to the garage doors. The garage doors project is a very good example of an eternal one (still details need to be refined, although this summer I spent some time painting minor parts, including the new irons).
The frames are landing on the ground and thanks to that they absorb humidity and they are slightly rotten on the bottom.

Linseed oil injection for the door frame

For taking care of them, a hole have been drilled on the side and I am on a daily base injecting linseed, so that the wood get saturated of it and will not absorb anymore the humidity from the ground. 

I just wonder if I am doing right. The oil comes out of the holes when I am pushing it in (I guess it means I have filled it..) and I wonder how long I am going to do this. The wood has to stop to suck the oil in. 

I am waiting from a notification from the door frame...

Since we are on the garage doors topic, I will follow up on my trip to the blacksmith, which was (finally) fruitful. 

Not only I got fixed a minor detail on a candelabrum, but I eventually got fixed also the handles of the garage door. With how much they cost, I could have probably bought 3-4 of them, second hand, but I thought it was worthy to think that these were the handles that all the owners of our house had held when opening the garage. 

Maybe I should be more cost oriented and less nostalgic?

Internal side of the door

External side of the door

What is missing?
First of all the plates to have around he handle and the key hole.
As we have had the carpenter adjusting the lock plate and adding some rings to the irons, since the doors were not aligned, I have also that minor painting to do.

The final healing procedure is related to the metal in the roof. As we have started the painting project, of course we have got some water leak that has made some nice humidity stain appear just above the piano and has made a minor mess in the tower room.
I am not sure I can state it is a coincidence that we have had someone on the roof and all of a sudden (although he has swore he didn't wash that metal since it looked rusty) we get a water leak, but indipendently of his action the metal is not in the best state ever.
This of course was completely invisible 3 years ago when we did the roof renovation... right!?
For once I will not try to hunt down our roof company, as we have had already plenty of discussions with them at the time of the work.

It is hard to see from the pic, but there are a lot of small holes.

The rubber mass that has been sed for protecting the metal has started to get loose

More on the bad state

Today there will be a plater (plåtslagare) coming by and check this out. I know this is not going to be a smooth operation.

Since he is here, I will also ask him to check the possibility to do the fitting for the eaves for the pool house. We want to have it in aluzink (so it should be easier to paint) but there is not available from the producers. 

I am a bit concerned in having two companies working with the metal there, although it is a minor project and I would prefer to have just one (and the more competent one on the matter).

Let's see...

Just a minor hole in a very peculiar corner, not sure this is a culprit to the water leakage

Small projects

Our life in this house is constituted by a lot of ongoing small and big projects. Also the small ones require quite some time to be accomplished (even when we try to focus on exactly that one) for a reason or another.

A perfect example is finding the "right" furniture.
This lamp has been waiting to be found for about 4 years (and by the way, I would have wished to have it with three arms).
We have added some new furniture in the house since I was more active on the blog. Some of them were pieces that we had been longing for for a while.

Lamp from the 40s or 50s

A project that has started two years ago is the outdoor dryer. You can read about this here.

We (well, actually, Mattias), finally started to play around with it and made good progresses.

Next step is to finish the sawing of the decorative part and I have to oil everything.

Mattias is in action preparing for some sawing

Look! His hands are so fast, it is impossible to take a pic (or I simply took a blurred one and I am trying to be funny)

One of the pillars is waiting to be oiled

Considering the people in action and long projects, we have our blacksmith doing a lot of small and big things.
One of them is trying to fix the handle from the garage doors (see here to read how did it broke).
His first attempt was unsuccessful so I went and harass him again.

Preparation...

At work!

Now, tomorrow I need to go and visit him and see if he was really successful this time...

Building new and discover old

In few months we have actually been getting going with few things. Starting up projects is always pretty easy.
One of them was planned for later on in time. But the occasion and opportunity arose as I got in contact with an italian conservator and thought, why not getting also this ongoing (after all, we have nothing else to do...)
The task here is try to recover the old (original, I suppose) wall in the entrance that has been covered now by some structured wallpaper. As it turned out from the traces one can found, the wall has been covered at least since 1958 (wallpaper from the late 50s and the one from the 70s were visible).
First step has been to see how removing the wallpaper would be.
If the painting would be completely destroyed out of that, or if it would be savable.

Removing the first bit of wallpaper

Last piece of that piece of wall

It was easier than one could imagine, though depending on how much glue was applied, some pieces of the colors have been tore away with the wallpaper.
I guess it has been covered since for adding electricity on that wall, they had to destroy the wall and recovering it would have been too much of a work.

How the painted wall looks today

While we dig into old walls in the house, we are "modernizing" the pool area with an extra building.

Especially with the thought in mind that kids would become teenagers and have friends over swimming in the pool, I have realized that having them running over the lawn and entered full of freshly cut grass and dripping water in the house would tickle my patience.

For their survival, we have been then planning to help everyone out by building a toilet + changing room.

But this I have mentioned before...

First layer of bricks

Designing the house has been an interesting process - also because, of course, we are not expert in the field and I was wondering if this would have worked at all.

One of the thought has been to not use leca blocks, but old bricks and get as closed as possible to build in the "old ways".

We almost managed, I guess.

The structure of the house is in place

We recycled the same tiles we have been using for the house roof and, last year, we went and pick up some windows and doors from an historical house that got tore down (Villa Stighill, Baltiska Villan). 

I didn't of course think that I would have to add many items to my already crowded list of "windows renovation tasks".

So, right now the windows are a bit in pause. The frames are though in the house, painted with the base.

One of the windows frame was in poor shape

This gave the chance to Mattias to proof his carpenting skills. One of the windows frame had been eaten in the bottom piece by some worm/insect. He cut it off the piece and put a new one together.

Good precision job!

I was imprecised with the communication with the building company who is performing the job and they mounted the old frames with a modern technique, instead of using wedges in the wall. That is something I still have to fix, because I have now to patch the holes and glue the piece of wood that got broken in the process.

This was not exactly how I thought the frames should be mounted

Lessons learned is to be very precise on how you want to have things done. Hard when you are not aware of how many different ways there are to do things.

The house seems quite "huge", but we were not sure of what proportions to have. Though, I think it turned out pretty good with the roof height.
I was hoping we could have the same gable as the garage one, but this didn't work out as expected either. 

The roof is being mounted

The roof under construction

View from above

The base of the house was possible to add, instead. Maybe a bit too high, especially if one compares with the garage one, but still working pretty good with the proportions of the house.

I would have preferred to be able to think thoroughly around the paint. I knew (know) what I wanted. But it was not possible to get. And we simply messed up the color of both the facade and the base. Not a disaster, as anyway it melts with the house, but still. It was something I wanted to handle differently. (Lessons learned again...)

Now the facade is painted. I would have thought something a little more beige than this

Also the base is painted. That color maybe was better on the facade. We were aiming at something greyer and with more contrast for the base.

From the original plan we have specified few things more and added some on the way. Some possibly can be questioned as they are not much "old house" feeling, but they have elements that we have found in the house, at least.

We have refined the rooms with some extra tiling. Those blue small tiles have fallen from the well. The previous owner had put them there, but it seems they didn't want to stay there at all.
We have saved them and now we thought we could use them in this project.

We refined the floor with some list of the same tiles (in slate, as we have around the pool) and we made a band of the blue tiles

We had found in the house some other tiles. A zodiac mosaic. We never know what were they supposed to be used for, but they must have been planned for some outdoor thought as they have a built in sundial.

Might be not very much jugend or past century style, but maybe it works in a pool house construction!?

The zodiac mosaic

The house with the zodiac mosaic on the pool side

As we are amazing in being unclear, we have spent some time trying to get to the details with some drawings. It is sometimes very hard to define those before hand, as a lot of thoughts come up while a project is ongoing.

One of our drawings

I am sure there are still things that we give for granted and that instead we should have learned to pinpoint as soon as possible.

Another add-on has been to have a sort of inner roof, to cover up the modern wooden supporting beams. The current plan is to paint it, but I guess with the amount of windows and painting that we have to deal with it is not a highly prioritized task.

How the inner roof look. The ventilation hole is visible here

A minor detail is the ventilation hole. We have one for each room. For this purpose I went to Byggfabriken and bought something old style looking.

Another item to paint?

The grid for the ventilation hole

Finally, we need some down pipes and similar. As we have spent some time in the past around this subject, at the time we renovated the roof, we are at least familiar with materials and style.

So, we knew what we wanted style wise and after a quick search, I promoted aluzink as material.

The down pipe is waiting to be mounted

Aluzink should be reasonable to be painted and this will allow down pipes and gutters to have the right colors as the house is having. Let's see how it will look like after they get mounted.