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...

Finishing and restarting

It is summer and, even though we are not travelling this year, it seems that the amount of tasks we are dealing with never decreases.
The days pass by too fast to have reached the feeling of completion when one of the eternal tasks we need to address are actually done, really done.
There are always a lot of leftovers and even if it is summer and we are here, things accumulated from last year are still waiting for us.

The escutcheon is back

With a certain satisfaction I can state that our garage doors are soon completed. We finally managed to put up the last escutcheon, after losing the screws in the grass just outside the garage. A memorable story that one, which should be spared from this site.

Anyway, still some minor steps missing from the door per se', but we are getting closer. 

I am though desperate between the rain and the amount of things just piling up and I don't manage to get really a momentum with things that should have been done few years ago.

Hence, I really pushed myself to go out with the brush and color and start to pain the roof in the poolhouse as we have some decoration ideas that should be implemented as well (luckily, those not by us, since probably they would happne in 30 years).

There, now I have started painting

I never understand why my base color is very thin in pigment although I mix it properly. Maybe for that reason I always end up with three layers of color...

View from the ladder. I have got quite some nice bushes there

 Now, it is "just" to wait to dry. Not a problem. There is plenty more to paint!

One of the two chambers 

They are back!

Once upon the time I feel in love with a furniture set. An IKEA (!) set "1700-talet", (hand)made in the 90s. After some digging I eventually managed to buy what I thought would fit in our veranda.

Unfortunately, though, it took few years and its age started to appear in terms of holes a bit everywhere and a bit too much.
So, I thought we would have to fix it up. Also this.

But now, they are finally back. It was a bit sad to see the "naked" couch and not be able to use it at all. Not that we sit there often anyway, but at least the look matters quite much ;)

The couch and the foot rest

Sadly, the exact same textile was not available. It had bigger squares. I don't know if by searching for more than the time I put into it, I would have actually succeeded in finding the right one. I do not like so much to compromise with how things were originally.

The armchair. The covers for the arm supports are still to be finished

We are almost nailing this. A small piece of textile needs to be ordered furthermore for the arm supports cover. They were simply too short and looked a bit weird (again... I have hard time with copromises...).
But, finally! We can sit there! I am sure the cats will be happy :) The foot rest was one of Pico's favorite places to sleep.