Linen cupboards

I have been quite bad in updating this blog properly as I wanted in the past years, but sometimes I have also felt that the subject I could lift up is not that interesting.
The case is valid also for this post, but since it is nice to share a bit also of the interior of our house and not just the painful renovations, I have decided that it is worthy to try to write about that.
The result is not as glamorous as other more raffinated blogs (like Villavagen3) but maybe I can learn from her (possibly, as start, I'd need a better camera...)

Now, the problem is where to store the kids clothes.
The kids room are equipped with "built in" closets (under the roof, with doors). This is very good but it is best for hanging clothes and not having them folded somewhere. At least, that is how I do with all their t-shirts and trousers/skirts.
Linen cupboards are best and in Sweden, one can find some nice wardrobe that is called drängaskåp, a cupboard for the farmworker.
Why this cupboard has specifically that name, it is unknown for me. My guess is that the farmworker didn't have too many clothes and was happy to have a small wardrobe like this style.

A linen cupboard bought at Bukowski market from the beginning of the 1900

Detail

The linen cupboard in Isabella's room, next to the built-in wardrobe.

A big drängaskåp bought on Blocket, which amazingly enough had a color matching the wall in Oscar's room

The built-in closet in Oscar's room

Jugend furniture

It is now almost an year and half that we have got hands on some piece of jugend furniture thanks to Matilda and Anders (note, Matilda is one of my sisters in law).
We really don't know where the furniture comes from originally, but it was placed in the house that they purchased, which is a funkis house, so it has nothing to do with jugend.

The set is consistuted by one sideboard, one cupboard and one closet.
Thankfully it has not been painted in white - quite common mistake done in order to follow the shabby chic fashion (yes, some things are indeed pretty in that way), and they are in a quite decent shape.
Unfortunately, we got a layer of tiles hardening oil on them, but so far the damage given by that seems to be minor.

The sideboard with vases from Oscar & Clothilde and one from Indiska

The cupboard was impossible to photograph. 

It will be funny to find items to place on the sideboard and cupboard. For the moment, there are some temporary ones but I will most likely relocate everything.

The closet located in our guestroom

One big issue that we have been having for over one year has been the key. We found while cleaning the furniture a small piece of what was once upon the time a key. With that though we couldn't do anything.

The piece of key

We visited few key shops in Malmö and we go redirected to one which should have been able to provide what we were looking for: three proper keys copied from that leftover. 

Unfortunately, for one long year, everytime we tried to contact them, they couldn't get an hang of the material since the wholesaler didn't deliver it. 

Well. We got tired of such an excuse and during our Christmas trip to Italy, we went to a shop and got three brand new keys made in iron. Was it really that hard to fix?

Detail of one of the new keys and the sideboard decorations

Half moon dormer windows

I am probably very repetitive, but it is not like I have been working on something else (well, in the restoration sense) lately.
Yes, another two windows have been completed and they are now back in their own place.
When putting them back, I have noticed that the window frames are a bit torn, but it could have been that I have painted them in the wrong time of the year, or that the weather has not been very nice in these months. Still, they should have survived that, but I will have to paint them a bit more later on.

In particolar, one of this dormer window has gone through a major renovation, during our roof renovation. Possibly covered by 100 year old metal sheet, the status was very bad and we didn't have the chance to save it. Or better, we could have done some effort, but I don't think that the result would have been good.

The dormer window during the renovation of the tower cornices, 2005

Scraping some paint off.

A very much naked dormer window. This is what we could save, the rest of the wood was rotten.

New dormer window covered with roofing felt

Metal sheet is partially done. I am working on the window frame, which was in a very bad state.

New metal sheet on the dormer window. The window frame is painted

Feburary sunlight over a new dormer window

Oscar's room new dormer window

Three are done! 

Gardening literature

Yesterday, I forgot to add to the collection a very much desired Christmas present. A couple of books which I have been asking Mattias as present since we went and visit Sofiero a couple of years ago.

The books are written by Princess Margareth of Connaught, known in Sweden as Margareta. She became interested in gardening once she got Sofiero as wedding present together with her husband, Gustav VI Adolf.

The two books. "Our garden in Sofiero"(Vår Trädgård på Sofiero) and "From the flower garden" (Från Blomsterträdgården)

Of course, these books are for future purposes, since our garden style should resemble the one of Sofiero, just in a smaller scale. I'd like to use it as inspiration when we will possibly sort out the jungle mess that our garden is today.

A page of From the flower garden

A picture describing the structure of part of Sofiero garden

Literature & Collections

Lately, I have spent a lot of time with yet another task. After I went to Hasselagård and wrote that post about it, I have found extremely interesting to look more closely at the history behind the different villas in Åkarp.
So far, the results have been very exciting. Not that I have found something that is revolutionary, but it seems a lot of "important" (from a small Swedish town perspective) people have been living here and that this has always been a quite dynamic small town, despite the fact that today there is very little that could make life interesting.

In order to fulfill my research I have collected few books more, to the ones that I have had purchased.
"Åkarp genom seklerna" (Åkarp through the centuries) was actually a 2012 Christmas gift from Mattias. It is a small book that summarizes the most important facts from even ancient history to more modern times, but it is very incomplete.
"Burlöv Kommun Historia Del I och II" (The history of Burlöv's Municipality part I and II) is currently borrowed but I am planning to get it into the collection as soon as it appears around the market with a good price. It is a very comprehensive book with a rich chapter about Åkarp and its farms. There is also a small chapter about the "merchants" in town.
"Kring Lund C" (About Lund Central Station) focuses on Lund Central Station history and the railway. For this reason, Åkarp is mentioned in some parts of the book and that underlines the importance of the railway for Åkarp's development.
"Hvilan Historia om en skola" (Hvilan, history of a school) narrates the development of Hvilan, which is an important folkhögskolan (a sort of higher education school), the oldest one in Sweden if I have understood right, located in Åkarp. Due to this reason, Åkarp's history is definitely interwined with the one of the school

Literature

On top of this, I have finally put the hands of the so called Åkarps samling (The Åkarp Collection), a collection of about 100 Åkarp postcards that I have been looking carefully at for a couple of years. First and mostly, I have been interested in those postcards were Villa Bellevue was visible.
At this point in time, I have realized that except for some postcards depicting just the pond and some swan, all the ones with the houses were relevant for my curiosity.

The Åkarp collection

Now, I would just need some extra hours every day for being able to dig into everything...

Some more Jugend touch

Our house is surely lacking the "cosy factor", considering that we have barely spent any effort in decorating. In fact, the paintings and frames that are lying around waiting to be hang are countless. Every now and then, though, we manage to get some items that hopefully in the future will contribute to give a nice atmosphere (maybe like another Åkarp citizen with passion for jugend).

A pen set, coming from Mattias' family

A Liberty parfume bottle

A table brush set

Some weights. The 5 kg one is used to hold the child gate opened for the cats

The Freebergs

Just before our summer holidays in July, we had the visit that I had been looking forward to for at least half a year.
During my research, I had found that our house had been owned by Kathleen Cook-Marslen Frieberg. I had talked about her (with a mispelled surname) in this old post.
On top of that, I had managed to find that she had two children, Essie, who I have already mentioned, and Chris.

I have been very lucky to get Chris and his wife's email address and get in contact with them, since they nowadays live in Florida. It is then that I have found out that they were coming to Sweden for a visit around midsummer and we then agreed in meeting.

I was so excited when I went and pick them up at the station, and they were accompanied by a granddaughter and a his sister grandson.
It was not certainly that long ago that they have been around in Åkarp, but I believe also in this occasion it brought back 60 years old memories. When that happen you could see that in their eyes.
Chris was telling us stories about the Tre Musketörer and when he was also working there and how the business started to decline. When it did, Kathleen sold Bellevue and the Tre Musketörer and moved to Näsbyholms Slott, near Skurup.

I hope they did enjoy the visit as much as I did. When we were out in the garden, Chris was impatient to go inside and his eyes were sparkling when we finally entered the door.
Outside, he told us that the grapes that are growing on the veranda were there also when he was 20 and that in the back garden there was an orchard.
One of the most interesting details was that he was using the garage to park his car (of course, we are the only one not doing that ;-P) and that such car was a Mercedes. It was said that there was a rumour that the car was once owned by Hitler and that had been given as wedding gift to Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden and Princess Sybilla of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who got married in 1932.

Unfortunately, they couldn't find that many pictures of the house, but they had few that shows the sophisticated furniture taste of Fru Cook-Frieberg. She liked antiques and the whole house was filled with very special furniture, some of which was coming from Sweden and in specific, from Vinslöv (Hedbergs).

Chris had been living in Bellevue just few years, from 1952 to 1956, before he moved to USA when he got married with Joan Connie. Their memories of details had been surely faded out. But few things were memorable: in the veranda there was a fountain (!!!!) which was going on and on, with its dripping sound during the long dinners that were taking places in the house, for the guests' unconvenience which were queuing up to the toilet...

Chris' room was our current guestroom. Isabella is instead using Essie's room.
Kathleen's mother, a British who had got married very young in UK and left with two daughters (Kathleen's sister towards the Swedish shores at the beginning of the 1900 century, was occupying Oscar's room.

Katherine Payne. Essie is behind Jack Bagner at the piano.

She was called Katherine Payne and married in 1897 Charles Cook, who was 10 years younger than her. More about her can be read in this forum post.

Essie is getting married!

 When Christ and Joan Connie returned to USA they sent me few pictures. Unfortunately, I was too much excited by their visit to remember to take pictures of us with them. I know that the kids did take few, though.

On the way to the train station, we almost knocked on Tårtrummet's door, but time was flying and there was a train to catch. The Tre Musketörer has to wait their next visit to Sweden.