What has happened lately

December is always a quite intense month. Christmas is what is dictating the rhythm and, despite corona and the cut of most of events, maybe due to the darkness, things have been moving with a heavy step focusing on the advent and Christmas preparations.

Chloe has discovered immediately the tree

We started to decorate Villa Bellevue directly from the 1st of Advent. We have a plastic Christmas tree (second hand one!) and, knowing that the kittens would have had great fun with it, we decided to limit the decorations on it and exclude the balls. That was a wise choice. 

After few weeks the lights were broken, branches kept falling and the few decorations were thrown allover the house. 

Just before Christmas Eve Mattias started a big restoration and since then it has at least looked decently.

The restored Christmas during Christmas Eve

Eventually, despite the days running too fast, I pushed Mattias to put up yet another shelf that I bought at an auction, to end up in Isabella's room. I am not very convinced of the position, but I guess we will have to live with this until some more drastic change occurs. 

Her previous shelf got crowded quite soon and we knew that she would get a new load of books to devour.

Her room with the new shelf just hanged

The new shelf

After we had got the walls in the entrance restored, we have had the thought of try to protect them.

In september I managed to get in contact with a company that could prepare plexiglass sheet shaped as we wanted. 

We took the measures. And we took them again. And then again. Bah, the walls never seemed straight, so we decided to make a template. But we didn't have the right material for it, so we had to order it and then to find the time to fix the template.

Eventually, again under coercion, we spent an evening trying to sort this out. It had just pasted three months since I was in contact with the company... 

Mimmi is helping

Or maybe she isn't

Ok, I am not sure of the result

Once again, this project had to be put on hold, because even though we had the template and new measures, the company wanted to wait few months as they are understaffed right now.

So, let's wait few months more for this.

Finally, Christmas came. The Eve was spent mostly preparing the last things and for me it meant finally having the time to bake. 

I can imagine that Bellevue has been seeing a lot of Christmas baking during all its years...

One tray of gingerbread cookies

Lucia cats (Lussekatter) 

Two types of fudge

An orange sallad to refresh the heavy Christmas food

The buns are ready and it is time to go to bed and wait for Christmas

The good thing with Christmas is the extra little free time to be able to do some project. 

One of the things that I have been doing has been starting to clean up the boiler room. It was a mess last year. We got some minor order and clean up some stuff, but we never finished, with the result that it got very messy very quickly.

On top of that, the ceiling has fallen down on one side of the room and I am thinking of tearing down the rest of it to fix it up properly.

The hole in the ceiling

I think the higher planks are the original roof. I believe that when the toilet was made, they probably reinforced it with iron beams and lowered part of it

Also this part is soon falling down

While cleaning up I have also noticed how great they have been patching the window, in this room.

Some foam, a big cut, some random pieces of wood, part of the window has never been painted in green. I wonder what did they do to it from the start. I suspect that there might have been a shortcut for filling oil in the oil based heater but that was patched brutally? 

It is weird that in such fancy house nobody did take care of the details of the less noble parts of the house...

How the window is looking from the inside

Wooden bits and pieces are placed on one side of the window

The window has been chopped off in some weird way. That part has never been painted in green - so
not touch from the 70s at least?

In the room I am trying to squeeze in a lot of things to have tools and spare parts and whatever in order. 

Right now though it is a bit complicated if I have to be fixing the roof. So, I have placed some stuff just temporarily in the middle of the room.

There will be a drawer, a carpentry table and a quite generous shelf

Mimmi is approving the temporary placement

A triple coincidence

I usually scan Tradera for Jugend items and I did see at a certain point a couple of old fashion humidifier. I sadly lost an auction of a beautiful one, that would have fit in the bedroom, but I got the hands on one that had a bit more art deco style in it. I had an idea where that should be, but each task takes some time to be implemented and the humidifier was ready to be placed at a radiator for few weeks.

The first dehumidifier

The nice thing is that just after that I saw another one, same size, same color, same pattern. Well. There was no question I should get it (although then, the placement question was starting to get trickier).

I paired these two together on the big, curved, radiator in the tower part of the living room

This didn't end up here (and note, we didn't put the dehumidifier on yet...). I was scanning again Tradera, when I saw yet another one (!), same color, same pattern, but slightly slimmer. 

No doubt I should have it. 

The last, slimmer, dehumidifier

At this point, I knew that all three would fit perfectly in the living room, where, with the William Morris curtains (when back), they wold have a great match in color and pattern.

Close up on a Jugend/Art deco dehumidifier

Even the toilet...

 ...deserves proper attention :-)

In reality I have even long term plans for this room, as it is almost intact from 1958 when the Edler had moved in in Villa Bellevue. The same tiles were found in the bigger bathroom and as far as I have understood, they were also in the kitchen, at the time. 

The toilet is breathing 60s with its style

I sadly haven't had the time to look behind the paperboard that is today on the walls. I have seen a picture from the previous owner where the walls had some yellow medallion wallpaper, but I do not know if that is from the 70s or earlier (I doubt it was the original one).

The roof is lowered - I guess for adding the ventilation, but who knows, maybe there are other interesting traces there if one would there to open up? - but my understanding is that this was a small wardrobe room from the start. 

Windows and doors were in dark brown with a slight tint of red. 

I am probably repeating myself from previous posts where I have described the toilet and what I have deducted/found around it, but I do not remember everything I wrote in these years :-)

Nevertheless, although I have the ambition to one day fix this room but simply patching where the column for the upstair bathroom has been placed, paint doors/windows with the right shade, have once again the 60s-70s bathrooms accessories (hangers, mirrors, etc.) and have the most appropriate wallpaper on the wall, right now we are happy to just add some minor decorations.

A perfect jugend newspaper holder

As the space in the room is quite limited, being it pretty small and narrow, I can't add much furniture in it. But the walls can be decorated. 

It is probably a bit suboptimal, in a toilet from the 60s, to have a jugend decor, but I think the mix and match works quite ok in this context.

The latest addition is then a jugend embroidered newspaper/magazine that matches the toilet rolls holder on the wall and can keep some of the "toilet cultural material" in place. 

It at least got some attention through this blog post! :-)

Autumn and news

 Autumn has eventually arrived, a bit later and milder than usual. I do not mind it at all, also because I am late with all the "autumn" tasks related to the garden, especially.

One of the typical autumn tasks is to pick up apples. This year, though, it has been a terrible apple year (luckily in a way, because I do not know how on earth I managed the previous years to pick up all those apples?) and our loot has been a misery. Just 92 kilos. 

Our receipt from Sövde Musteri

I dragged myself out today to cut the peonies, looking at the dahlias that are impatiently waiting to be digged out. It got dark very fast and it even started to rain while I was out, but this time I decided to just finish the task. 

Preparing the garden for the winter

Struggling to get things done, I got contacted by a journalist of Sydsvenskan that wanted to make a reportage about me/us/the house. I could have talked for days about the house, cultural preservation and Åkarp's history and the journalist did manage to get something out of all my blabbing that did make sense and focused on Bellevue (although he could have probably been writing some very boring and long essay summarizing all I tried to say in the few hours he was here).

I was eager to see when the article would be published

In the newspaper

I am very proud of the article but a bit less of one of the pictures, which ended up on the front page of the newspaper! I have a horrible grimace and the picture is there even less clear than on the web, as Chloe is sneaking out from the stairs banister and gives better sense to the composition.

On the front page

Chloe. Still, couldn't they have picked up a better pic of me?

A turn of the century feeling

 We have ben very inspired when watching the old pictures from the Ingemansson. When looking at the dining room picture, I indulge in staring at the details and trying to understand how did the room look back then.

There are of course missing details, like the chest panel. But I see a drapery where there is the sliding door, there is some textile decoration over the left door and well, there is a nice wall pendulum.

A dinner at the Ingemanssons, 1909

Now, I have been looking for several year to find a wall pendulum that I would like. I think the one in the picture is slightly biger than the one I finally managed to purchase. 

View over the wall pendulum

It is not exactly in the same spot, but at least in the same room, and right now it is surrounded by a jungle of plants, since we want to save them from the kittens, which are still quite wild and interested in destroying my vases/plants!

The pendulum is from 1907

The watch maker was from Nyköping and was called Frans August Nilsson

Sadly, we haven't yet tested it. It would be nice if it would be working :-)

Something else that we bought, that is semi working (and ideally it should be connected with the few ringbells we have in the house) is an housekeeper bell display (in swedish betjäntklocka/pigklocka) which I think gives a very nice touch to the kitchen, the housekeeper's kingdom.

The housekeeper bell display

There, now we are ready for service ;)

It would be wonderful to find out how many bells we had, where was the display originally and so on. But I guess we will be content by having two of the bells still existing and working. Amusingly enough!

Little fishes near the pool

 I did think that just having a white ceiling could have been a bit blend in an already simple poolhouse. Not that it needs to become anything complex but I think having some decoration it would embellish it and make it more welcoming and particular.

I had a vision on how it was supposed to be, but it is always very hard to transmit what you have in your thought to someone else while also accomodating Mattias' wishes to have something water related theme. 

After painting the whole ceiling with white linseed paint, we got a rim of little fishes painted with acrylic colors, catching on the shade of blue and brown of the mosaic tiles on the walls.

The tiles and the fishes goes in the same tones

The fish motif is taken from a stencil which reminds of a mixture of jugend and art deco. Using a stencil on the ceiling was not a straightfoward operation and required a bit of turpentine to clean out the first trials.

A close up on the fishes

The poolhouse is then getting relatively close to be completed. I still have to finish the exterior and the doors and the windows. I should have been done in june... :)

A vintage look for some fishes

Still "vacation"

 It is becoming a summer tradition, but I take advantage of some solitude for painting the floor in the entrance, as quite some little elefants have the property of leaving thousands of marks on it, since it is painted black.

So, that has been one of the final touches during the last days of holiday (or actually, one of the first working days...).

 

I so wish to renovate this room, but I know we have to wait for it. It will be nice to have a real floor and not this painted "under floor".

The last days of holidays haven't been that bad weather wise - pity though that I have managed to transform the pool in some nice soup, as today it is a very bright beautiful and sunny weather and we can't really take advantage of our luxury issue. 

Nice corner of hollyhocks

The work in the garden has been focusing on the usual cutting of the several hedges that someone planted for torturing me, I guess, allover the place. But some corners are just beautiful to watch, after the hard work!

I have been also continuing to make progresses, slow but steady, on the pool house.

Now I have one layer missing for the inner roofs. 

This is not a very ergonomic position. I get a lot of pain in the shoulders when painting the roofs.

Vacation at home

This year there hasn't been much travelling during summer, nothing that I really mind as I think home is the best place to be (despite the quite boring weather that has been pestering Skåne since I have been on vacation).
One of the reasons why it is nice to be home - although I do love travelling - is that there is a lot to do and it needs to get done. So, why not take up the sleeves and start to dig into the different tasks?

Despite a slow start, I have finally got a flow eventually in the middle of the holiday time.

Firstly, in the garden there is an eternal fight with ground elder and ivy. While I managed to attack properly some areas with the ivy, nearby the garage, I haven't managed to defeat in the way I want the ground elder in the slope behind the pool. I simply don't have enough time for it.
But this year, instead of just cleaning it out, I thought of starting to plant some things, hoping that they will keep the weeds away.

The effort on the small piece I managed to clean out

At the same time, we have finally started to remove some bushes jungle near one of our hedges, which looked horrible and hinder also cutting the hedge.

Now part of the jungle is gone

Our gardener will come one time more to complete the job. Some of the plants, chervil mainly, got moved to another part of the garden, hoping he will undermine the ground elder job. We couldn't spare though some of the nice flowers that had spontaneously come up there...

On the other hand, inspired by the visit of Andre', a window carpenter within the byggnadsvård domain, I started up again the work on the poolhouse.

First, I have now painted with the first layer the windows.

The window wood was very dried and I did have to oil it 

Then, I started to continue focusing on the poolhouse. While the weather has been decent, I have focused on the eaves of it and even one round of it takes many days and I am not yet done with the first layer. But I am getting closer...

First layer for the north east part

Probably I was starting the second layer for the southern part. I have lost count.

At least one can see a bit of difference, finally

Now, vacation is almost over and I definitely need to complete cutting the hedges that are remaining (about 3 of 6,5 we have), continue with the ground elder and try to finish off the poolhouse. Theoretically we should have started to use it in June, but well, I was very optimistic then...