Wednesday 15 December 2010

SOME LIGHT KITCHEN PIMPIN' IN THE COUNTRYSIDE

Those of you who read this blog know that Eddi has a house out in the countryside; at their family farm he and his brother run besides their normal jobs now that their father has retired.

At only fifitly minutes from the Helsinki city centre (and forty from where we live) it is still way out in the country side, where the snow stays white in winter, the roads are dark whitout any street lighting and people leave their doors unlocked at night (crazy people! Haven't they ever seen any horror movies?).

The wooden house is big, built in the late twenties and will be great once it is renovated - right now it has nice features but contains the worst of the seventies, eighties and nineties. It seems most of his relatives have been living there at some point, the interior isn't really in any style, but items have been bought and left there sporadically over the years.

The plan is to at some point bring out the old ceilings and dig up the old wooden floors and fix each room, but as we just fixed our flat here in the city there is nor the time, money or spirit for it for a few years to come. Or, shouldn't be. But the itch is there -so, we decided to do a little quick freshing up in the room one spends the most time in; the kitchen. A small make over, some light pimping so to say; but you can do magic with some paint and new details during one weekend.

The kitchen before:

The walls were in what I called baby poop brown, the cupboards old and worn from the eighties.

The room was full of extra stuff that had no practical or aesthetically purpose whatsoever, like an extra sink out of use. Eddi had removed most of it though, including the fugly curtains that were hanging there before I managed to get pictures...

We removed some of the cupboards on the wall to lighten the room up, reveiling a mint green colour that had been on there earlier. Not that far from the colour we had in the cans, waiting to get up on the walls!

Afterwards! A huge change.

We re-painted the ceiling white, painted all the walls robin's egg blue and changed the door knobs and handels.

And put up some shelves instead of the old cupboard.

I made us some new curtains.

At some point I intend to find us a big nice old cabinet for the china, but for now a trip to IKEA was enough. The cabinet can be used for other purposes once the perfect vintage piece comes along; I am not one of those to keep the plates and cups in a plastic bag to wait for that perfect piece to show up, I go for compromises until that.

We still intend to paint the door- and window frames, as the tree colour does not really match the pale blue walls - I am tempted to paint them in a dark red shiny colour but we will most likely go for white though. We also intend to paint the table and the chairs and get ourselves a new lamp. And a new fridge also. Perhaps another Smeg, but in another colour. Cream, or red.

(Please ignore the microwave there on the table waiting to be hidden). It feels a lot more nice to spend time in the kitchen now. This little project took us one weekend.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

SO cute. Your renovation posts make me wish I had a home of my own :)

Miss Rayne said...

It s amazing what can be done with a pot of paint - 100% improvement.

Anonymous said...

Wow! What a difference - so beautiful! :)

Frollein von Sofa said...

Can I move in ???

Kate said...

Wow, it looks lovely! Love those curtains; the colours work so well with the wall colour.

Anonymous said...

You did such a great job! It looks amazing :)

Anonymous said...

Ohhh, beautiful! What a difference! I love your choice of colour, it freshens up the room so much!
Can't wait to have my own place to have fun with :)

Olivia Rouge said...

Absolutely fantastic! (once again) I wish I had a house like that, so I could make it look pretty.. oh well, you are so lucky :)

The Black Opal said...

It is amazing what a coat of paint can do! The kitchen looks so lovely!

my best friend jules said...

Little things usually makes wonders! And you've definitely been able to do it with this kitchen! :)
Xo Mervi

http://myfriendjules.blogspot.com/

mispapelicos said...

Brilliant to see the inside of your house and your project.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Vanessa said...

lovely old school oven!

Penny Dreadful Vintage said...

Wow, what a transformation. This is really inspiring.

Kate the Hausfrau said...

It's darling. Please tell us about that stove...Staying, going? What is function on that cute little door to the heat?

Karin said...

Oh, nice.I love that colour in kitchens. By the way, go red on the windows! Color combinations ftw!

Anni said...

Ihana muodonmuutos! Piristi kyllä keittiötä huimasti. Oliko seinillä pinkopahvit? Ainakin tuosta yhdestä kuvasta päätellen näyttäis olevan nupinaularivistö :)
Terveisiä Tampereelta!

Steffaree said...

The colors completely open the space up! So lovely!

Unknown said...

Nice memories as my grandmas kitchen used to have a stove like that one, with the little door... I love the kitty shadow, always there :)

Anonymous said...

Wow! It has made a huge difference - great to see how you've begun to transform the place! A great post as ever!

Stitchybritt said...

It looks fantastic! Well done. You've inspired me to see what I can do to pretty up my old house (built in the late 1800s)

Unknown said...

I grew up in a house much like that one. When I went to college in the cities I had to learn to lock my apartment/car. I love going back to the country home on my breaks! Love the blog and the photos!

Cheers,
George
Raised By Wolves

Lacey said...

In addition to how much I love your sense of style (clothing and otherwise), I super duper love how small everything is, such as the fridge and stove. I'm so tired of everything being supersized, this was so very refreshing.

If you have a moment, would you mind recommending an interior design magazine/book or two? My house does feel a bit blah and this post has most definitely motived me towards a change.

Love from the states and thank you for the post!

Anonymous said...

A real refreshment with this colour palette. Knobs are such a small thing but so essential for a good look! The tins and boxes give it the final touches.

The Freelancer's FashionBlog said...

Thank you all.

Kate the Hausfrau : so far it is staying - then later on, when we start doing more, we'd like to get a stove that works with gas. There is a cuboard above the stove, the air pipe goes inside it, so the door is for that.

Buzzkillbettie : jepp, melkein kaikilla seinillä on pinkopahvit

Lacey : hmm, I don't know so much about interior books, I read a lot of scandinavian magaizines though, they have good inspiration from time to time, but not always, like Deko for example. I check out blogs too, like underbaraclara and vihreä talo for example!

Lacey said...

You are so sweet, thank you!