FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW: SUNDAY LUXURY

Filling this one up.
I took a walk in the woods today, and walks this time of the year - although this winter is very much warmer than normally - always makes me chilly and calls for a warm bath.
(Will also add that here I am carefully balancing and cropping out husband's mini-motorcycle workshop that has appeared on the bathroom floor, with it's tires resting here for their second week already...)

Meanwhile, filling this up too.
The rest of the family is in the north skiing so might as well do a little bubbly by myself.

In with this golden Lush bath-thingie!

On with some opera in the background (with more volume than otherwise, as, alas, I am indeed the only one in the house for now) and then in in the bath with me!
Not coming up until I have reached full-on raisin mode.

FRIDAY NIGHT IN THE BATHROOM

 We had a Firday night off! And totally luxury nowadays is not tikidrinks at the dance floor but the joy of having gotten some jobs done, and not having to do anything in particular for one night.
Went out to the countryside and lit all cadres and lights in the early autumn night.

Rolled my hair for next day (you just can't have that many days or nights off in a row...). I have found that these - the Rockin' Rollers - are the best ones for me to use when rolling my hair the night before. They are soft and easy to sleep on.

 Spa'd it up with some candles int he bathroom.


Made a fruit salad. (I had some chocolate too but that was eaten already by the time of this picture).

 And got to try out these bath truffles I got from Estonian natural cosmetics brand Joik. The good thing with oils and cocoa butter in your bath is you don't get dry afterwards at all.
But you kind of wish you could eat these, right? They look so yummy!

nd then finally time for a bath! I'm happy to have a tub but turns out it's the boys and all their toys that are using this more than I am! But tonight I had it all for myself, no Dag and rubber duckies (and toddler piss) in it. Friday night bliss.

THE ORCHID

I don't think I've even managed to keep an orchid alive and in bloom for this long, but the one in the countryside bathroom is still hanging in there and looking all nice. Sometimes when you look at flowers, like really look at them, it makes you rather quiet, thinking of how they are engineered and designed, so complex and so functional. Oh wow. (Once when I had a hangover I, for some reason, read about carrots and photosynthesis and it made me cry. I always try to avoid nature documentaries on lazy Sundays too because of the same reason.)

Have to confess that this is the second one in this room though, the first one got attacked by these small silvery evil white mini thingies and when I treated the orchid with pesticides all the flowers fell off. So this little baby gets sprayed with water and then I pat the flowers dry afterwards. Yes, I totally have the material to not only develop into crazy cat lady when older, but also become weird flower person. (There's a little way to go until Harold Smith though -for those of you who know your Twin Peaks. But really. I've never had an orchid drop it's flowers and then get new ones, what should one do in order for one to bloom again?)

And the light in the picture, which mostly is due to long exposure, reminds me that as from today we are going towards longer lighter times again! Something one never notices at this time of year since it is d-a-r-k (which is ok around Christmas I think, as there are lights and lanterns and glow everywhere anyway), but it is happening. The day today was calculated to last 5 hours and 49 minutes and tomorrow it will be 5:50 already. Part-ey.

THE BATHROOM

The bathroom on the countryside is basically finished, with some minor things lacking. (Well of course, there's always something left to do). I was totally sure I had a picture from before, when this room was basically just a big hole filled with stuff, but I couldn't find it. Eddi had started turning it into a bathroom many years ago already tearing everything out and doing the pre-work for pipes and tubes and such but that was the stage it was in already when we met. Anyway, here's how it turned out:

 

I always wanted ot have room (and enough light) for plants in my bathroom.


As with the winfows in all the other rooms too, we need to take them ot at some point and paint them (white). The sole idea of all that work makes me try and live with the color but one day it will have to happen.

The mirror is the old one I've had in a four different apartements already, made from an old frame I found trashd away a long time ago. It still needs hanging on the wall. (And yes I managed to sneak in my hairdo here ;)

Mommy's little "helper".

BABYSTEPS

We've been renovating the country side house now for five(!) months, and step by step in small bits  we're starting to finish things off. Babysteps, but getting there. Even though the whole house itself, in certain ways, will be an eternal project - you know, few houses are ever really ready. But anyway.

Things have happened in the hallway, especially to the floor. But more on that another time.


The bathroom now has a sink. More on that later too.


And the kitchen has been, as you now, in action for a few months already but is still -yes, still- waiting for some last detailing.  Meanwhile my noodles are happily cooking.

BATHTUB

I have one.

And I had to try it right away! Or, we had to. We don't have  the right drain tubes for it yet nor electricity in the bathroom but we do have hot water. Mmmyes.

Dag probably peed in the water right away because that's what I would have done would I have been not-yet-ten-months old. But I didn't let the thought ruin my bath, it's not like a little baby pee on your skin would kill you. I mean they do use synthetic piss in some lotions out there did you know? (urea).  But well, mostly I had orange oil and cocoa butter in my water. Very nice.

If you wonder why I am so bananas about a tub it's because nobody has those around here anymore, unless you specifically put one in your bathroom when you renovate it, more or less. In newly built houses with enough space they put in small saunas instead, and in old they throw the tubs our when renovating the pipes, to fit such modern luxurities as a shower and washing machine instead (and, in some cases,  a small sauna too. Finns and saunas, you know. My sister could actually turn her shower cabinet in her pervious flat into a miniature sauna fitting one behind or two small ones at max.)

I actually can't remember when I had a bath  the last time!

(OK, I can it was when I was giving birth. That OBVIOUSLY does not count. And yes I do remember the other times too, they have been in hotel rooms. But the last time at home, my home? In 2002 in a flat I shared with a couple of guys. We had a tub for some time. Then they renovated the pipes and threw the tub out. )

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW IN THE COUNTRYSIDE

Opened up a can of peach colored linseed paint which. A nice shade but turned out a bit too peachy.

Hung some heart-lights on the mirror.

Dag is totally loving the lid on his food jar.

 And I have a bathtub!

RASPBERRY

I love it when you have an idea you've been waiting to realize forever and then you finally get around doing it and it turns out just as you planned; right - we put up wallpaper in the small hall between the back porch, kitchen, laundry closet and bathroom-in-the-making.  As it is pretty much just a walk-trough space with four doors no one ever really stays in I wanted the walls to be bright, colorful and heavily patterned, kind of like a piece of candy you can spot from the other more calm rooms. En karamell.

And I wanted it to be this exact wallpaper, Vadelma (translated: raspberry). Kind of looking like something people would have put up during a previous renovation in the sixties that we would have discovered under the eighties wall paper we torn away.

Like most of our other wall paper also Vadelma is from Tapettitalo, a company that sells old and classic patterns from past decades and centuries as well as vintage dead stock of old their factory rolls. The doors are old, we've moved them around a bit from room to room, opening to opening.

I know this post totally makes it seem like I would have been putting these up but I so did not this time (phew), the handy men and Eddi did it.


Bonus pic: You can see the bathroom coming along in the background. But that is still for laters, as is the kitchen... but looking pretty good so far, right?

THIS HERE...

...will soon turn, or; is very much already turning into a bathroom. And it will oh yes fit one damn big tub too! Which I am looking very much forward to.