Applied scrum

Maybe this wall in our kitchen could have had also another name, considering the frustration that sometimes is floating around our heads. Frustration due to a quite big amount of tasks that we have to deal with, short deadlines, interfaces that are not alwasy very easy to deal with and also the will to actually enjoy ourselves, there and then, and take care of babies, cats, friends and family.

Summary: it doesn't feel like we are not at work!

Our scrum board

Just to strenghten this feeling, Mattias made a quite crazy, but very useful suggestion: to apply scrum or something similar to our "project".

Considering the amount of resources (us) and everything else, I built up something very simple that resemble a scrum board, we filled in an excel sheet-backlog, and, after an intense analysis + sprint planning, we started to have our daily scrum meetings during breakfast. 

The result is that we are actually having a vision (common) of what we need to do and that we finally prioritize right. It has always been too easy to just take the quick/nice/easy tasks and leave the boring/big/I have no clue where to start from one lying around to rotten. 

So, Scrum has saved us! However, I'd prefer if we could get more resources...

PS: for the ones that have no clue, Scrum is a methodology for developing software. Google it!

Have breakfast in the kitchen!

After many years of eating breakfast standing or carrying all the world (e.g. plates and food) around to find a table, we have improved our life quality by buying a table that we have placed in the kitchen.
Our decision process was slow as always, of course, and it implied going to a couple of shops.

White, old style, not too big. These were the characteristics we had in mind and I had a quite good picture of what we were looking for when we were already at Ilva, and we came up with this table:

Right now, I am in a "second hand" period. Hence, before giving my approval for the purchase, I spent some time surfing on Blocket, first finding exactly that table (with chairs), which were however already sold (then, remove the ad from the web, lazy! ;) ) and then finding another one, without chairs.
After contacting the owner, we decided to go there and see the table and ta-da the purchase took place.
The table was used in a restaurant on the shore of Ringsjön and with it, we got also 6 very nice Äppletstolarna (apple chairs).

Breakfast time!

Detail of the Äppletstol

A new mobile phone

Or maybe not!
This is what we have found today when inspecting some second hand shop in Kalmar.

It is about time to make some serious bakelite phone call as in the 30s... :)

And wallpaper was...

Finally, after all the waiting, also the wallpapers we chose are up.

The master bedroom as it was

The "fondvägg" of the master bedroom. Villa Nova, Bloomsburry serie, Rowan Pearl/Lipstick

The hall as it was

The hall, Karlsund 2938 from Borås Tapeter

Some glimpse of the garden

I should have started the "thread" on the garden much long ago. From April, when we got the keys to the house, the garden has changed a lot.
It is because we have done any major refreshment in the garden, but because spring has come and now we are soon entering summer and lot of flowers have bloomed and some have already withered. And some others, are preparing to bloom and fruits are appearing in some branches.

This is what we found in April in the garden:

This is how the Mahonia Aquifolium looked in April. It screamed: prune me!

In April, the peonies were sprouting once again

Some hyacinths were then blooming...

...with some narcissus

The muscari are peeping through the chelidonium majus, dreadful weed

A lonely chionodoxa luciliae eaten by some insect

A cute vinca crawling on the ground

And at the end of the month of April, this is what we could "dig out".

A frittillaria imperialis, bloomed powerfully and withered in an instant

A suffering Bergenia managed to bloom

Chaenomales japonica is painting the veranda corner of red (and pushing down a  poeny plant)

A ribes sanguineum a "dream" of italians gardeners

The first cowslips appeared

And the first tulips started to show off

In an unorganized pattern

A touch of color

We are now able to have an idea of how things are going to look like (if we exclude the fact that we have no idea how to place furniture, if our furniture fits or what we need to buy) since last week they started to paint the walls.
From the pictures below, it will be obvious that we surely are not following the main scandinavian trend of white, white and even more white everywhere. With maybe some black item. But mainly white.
"We spat on white" (what a lovely metaphor) and obtain a very nice rainbow of colours, as you might have read in this post by Mattias.
Crazy? Quite much, but at least original in this white mass ;-)

The master bedroom - unfortunately, this color is possibly wrong (Karolina, from Beckers)

One of the small bedrooms (Alexis, from Beckers)

The guestroom (Stina, from Beckers)

Isabella's rooms (Johanna, from Beckers)

The dining room and the living room (I think Robin  and in the background Peder, from Beckers)

The studio and in the background the living room (Mikaela and Peder, from Beckers)

Please, do note that they haven't yet finished to paint :-)

Cooling down

We have got just one week of "heat" and now we are in winter mode again, so we are not trying to cool down for that.
Maybe, instead, we are trying to cool down since the house project has become enormous, problems have started to appear from several small and big corners and right now, maybe we should get our heads cooled down :-)
However, we have not only to pack, but also to start to think of some furniture we need to buy. At least some essential piece. Among which: the fridge and the freezer.

The house was equipped with this fridge/freezer. A Liebherr KSD 203 (somebody interested in buying it? It is on sale on Blocket ).

Liebherr KSD 302

But this doesn't fit our needs. We need a bigger freezer and honestly, this piece above doesn't fit the kitchen style, whatsoever!
In fact, we think that black will suit the kitchen very much:

The kitchen as it was in 2011

We really liked some models from Miele, initially, which was available in black, but then disappeared from the market:

Fridge from Miele

We searched for environmental products and ended up checking the brand Gorenje, which was having a very interesting price. But it didn't inspire us at all when we went and look at it at the shop. Also, the reviews were not that positive.

Black fridge from Gorenje

After a lot of searches, we finally ended up checking Husqvarna-Electrolux and, after a quick visit at the Electrolux Home shop, we decided to go for it. The fridge has a very nice cooling functionality, that makes it possible to have the same temperature in the whole fridge, and not just closed to the back wall. The freezer doesn't need to be defrost any longer, which is a relief, since I end up always postponing such operation.

The fridge QR2560K, from Husqvarna Electrolux

The freezer QT3560K, from Husqvarna Electrolux

Now, the "problem" is welcoming in the fridge/freezer in a not ready house...