big bedrooms come to those who wait.

"Oh come on, you know you've got plenty to write about!" my mum tells me, lifting one of her eyebrows slightly higher than the other, something she only does when she not-so-subtly tries to persuade me into doing something.

Uh, yeah.. we're talking about the radio-silence on my blog, that has been so long now, that it would even have made JK Rowling anxious ( I still haven't forgotten about that terrible wait for book 4, Joanne!) High time to get my lazy bum back in the writing chair!

So here's the quick "hey-Marije-you-slacker-what-have-you-been-up-to-this year?"-slideshow of my life.




So, over the past months, I....

saw a hippo having a tiny fart under water.. 

Tried to pronounce "phenomenalism" in front of an audience.. (and failed, of course)

shouted "oh no!" while Joost took a picture

Did a tiny research into the importance of bum-inspection amongst velvet monkeys.

Was that about it? Yeah, that must have been about it.

oh, and we build a bedroom. An enormous bedroom, that began its life as a garage.


This is the space we're talking about, about two days after we moved into our house.

huge, dark and full of moving boxes!

In the 100 years or so that our house has existed, it has been used as animal stables, the workshop of a house-painter, the working space of an oldtimer and motorcycle enthousiast, garage, and finally, Joost and my dumping ground for just about anything.
But seeing that 30m2 is quite a lot for a room you barely use, we began dreaming about doing something cool with it. Such as using it as a bedroom with a walk-in (Aaaaah!) closet!

But it took quite a while before we got there. The garage was leaking, uninsulated, infested with woodworm, had a cracked roof-window, and a ceiling made of cardboard. A challenge, and quite a daunting one to be honest. But bit by bit, we got started.

The before! I removed this cardboard ceiling to expose the old wooden beams above it, And gave all the wood a good anti-woodworm treatment.. 

My parents came ever so amazingly to help us with replacing the leaking by two smaller skylights.

The old beam-structure! The insulation was non-existent, so we insulated between de beams.

and Joost had to make sense of the "amazing" pipe system that our house has got. We think someone installed it while being drunk.

and we had the "brilliant" (ugh) idea to put the underlayment (plywood) floors in before we cut into our walls to install the heating system ( so now our floors are ever so slightly pink from the brick dust..)

Luckily there's plasterboard to cover up the weird pipes..

And with the essentials more or less done, It was time to think about the lay-out of the room! So we drew up a blueprint, that divided the 30 m2 into a sleeping area, and a wardrobe area.

just kidding, I started doing that the days we got our keys; I'm an obsessive blueprint-maker, even though my it-abilities are limited to powerpoint. 

So, we build a dividing wall in the middle of the room (hurray for plasterboard!). We decided to keep the ceiling above the bedroom open, and replace the ceiling from scaffold planks above the walk-in closet part, so we can build some extra storage space up there. (we found dozens of scaffold planks above the old ceiling, and they are amazing.)

Our neighbour helped us to cut an extra doorway into the wall, and my parents gave us this beautiful old door for it,  that my mum bought years ago from an old farmhouse.

And with some a lot of late nights plastering, painting and doing what-not, the room is now ready!

Tadaa!!

I am also slightly in love with the old school lamp we have in a second hand shop. 

"my" side of the walk-in closet. The closet is the result of some furious online bidding.

stool, set of drawer, mirror and bin are all thrifty finds!  The set of drawers (once from an apothecary) cost me about 90 euros, the rest was about a fiver each.

Joost made this amazing lighting from copper pipes, and I love it! 

I love the ceiling!! The last scaffolding plank still has to go, but.. ah, we'll get to that some time..

I'm happy to be back, and even more happy to finally see the end of this project. Now it's up to the next one..

And the view from up above. I found the carpet in South Africa.

Hugs!