In the entryway...

About one year ago, we were "almost" ready with the invasion of relatives for our first Christmas at home. Thinking of how many people we should have been, we were planning to finally put a form of clothes hanger.

We did manage to put one, but we didn't manage to put the other one that is in our entryway and that is supposed to be the "main one" for guests, at least.
We ordered the combo hat rack and shoes rack at Sekelskifte (the link shows the shoes rack). Both are in jugend style, a copy of some original piece, with beautiful detail and a very robust construction. Since our entrance has green and oak details, we asked that the metal details would be painted in green and the wood should be oak. The delivery was then scheduled for the end of January.

On top of that, when we finally (every step takes few days here) measured which was the max possible length, it turned out that both needed to be cut off to 80 cm from 120 cm.
Task that ended up being on our shoulders, and we know, we are always good in handling yet another task in our enormous to do list.

Mattias finally sawed the wooden bars this autumn (!) and when he mounted everything, it turned out that the sawn ends were definitely too light in color and they looked pretty weird. At least, for us that knew about where to look.

After searching high and low the right oil to use (thanks to the kindness of the Sekelskifte staff), I did decide to end the pain of looking at those ends and eventually paint/oil them.

Oiling the ends

So, after one year, we finally have a shoe and hat racks in our entryway, ready to be used by our guests!

The shoerack

The hatrack

Welcome in Villa Bellevue!

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