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.

wine shelves, an updated shower and a quick guide into becoming a handyman!

Oh wine boxes, how I love thee!

Midas' touch: the upcycled desk organizer

Before you get dishearted by the look of this project: don't!! It's really, really easy and requires very little carpentry skills! 

"Nooo! You can't use that! I need it right now!" "No you don't!" Joost and I looked at each other, hot-headed and both pulling at a corner of what appeared to be a wooden box.

oh my, trouble in paradise....

on Dust and Demolition

Joost woke up, looking not only bleary-eyed, but also slightly disturbed.  "You can't believe it" he sighed, "I even dreamt about dust!" "Ouch..." I sighed, "I think all the home-improvement has gotten into your head."

I myself also experienced something like that. Only a few weeks ago, around the time when we were replacing our kitchen floor,  I had this very vivid dream where I was attending the Olympic games to compete in the sport of.... laying floors... 
yeah.. that was exactly as is sounds: we had to line up at the start line with a big pile of wood, and lay the flooring as fast as I could.  The bends were a little tricky, but... I was incredibly fast, laminating the floor where later that day Usain Bolt would work his magic,  and... I won the race! .... Only to discover that I also had to build my own podium.
... Yeah, really, it was that kind of dream.

DIY | a hanging planter.

I kind of have locked myself out, my friends.

You may now raise a sceptical eyebrow and wonder "what happened?" well, this is what happened.

See, we (okay, it was Joost) oiled our new wooden kitchen floor this afternoon. No biggie, right?
Except that it has to dry for 24 hours and the kitchen is... well kind of the central place of our house.
So while I was sensible enough to take some measurements and lock myself into the part of the house that has a loo and a backdoor,  I was stupid enough leave many important things, such as my laptop-charger, in the now inaccessible living room.

So, here I am, in the bedroom with a slowly dying laptop.. wondering if I should use my last minutes of online time for a crash course in ninja-skills to get the charger back, or if just accept my fate and write you a post.

As you can see.. I choose the latter ;)

So, as you can understand, time for writing this is rather limited, so let's get to it! Today an easy peasy, nifty thrifty hanging planter!

Cant ignore the past: the upcycled sideboard.

moving files: the room that must not be mentioned

( small note for the tender souls amongst us:  I'm in a slightly rebellious mood today, it might show;))

if you've got a little experience with house-hunting, you might have noticed a pattern: brokers always tend to ignore a vital part of every home: the loo.  I mean, I can understand it: in our lives we all tend to ignore the loo and the business that belongs in there, but still.....
In all the houses we have seen, I think the most elaborate description of a loo we heard was " it is functional."     ...    Really?

I mean, how great would life be if brokers would approach the loo with the same enthusiasm as they describe every other room and say something like:  "Voila! and this is where you will poop! Look at how magnificent it is!"  and we would respond like " mmm, yeah, that looks like a magnificent place to poop, I look forward to that!" that would be absolutely brilliant.

So, in a vain and cheeky attempt to change the world: look at our updated loo!

moving files: the upcycled kitchen, part 2.

Before I start with today's post, I would just like you to know that I really loved your reactions of encouragement to my last post, you are all truly amazing.
Naturally, things haven't been great here, and last week was pretty tough to say the least, but a very busy week at work kept my thoughts a bit diverted, and well.. we'll manage :)

So, now on to more positive things: as I have a hour between work and, wel.. more work, I thought it would be nice to give you a little update on the kitchen!

let's take a little step back, and see what we started with, okay?

moving files: the upcycled kitchen, part 1

"errhmm.... You might want to put in a new kitchen...." the broker said, when he first showed us the house. Although brokers are usually not too happy pointing out necessary investments to a potential buyer, he just couldn't deny this one: the kitchen was indeed beyond hope.

Wait, would you like to see it?

hmpff...

What you are looking at is a patchwork of everything: a small vintage kitchen with beside it some weird extra cabinet with a piece of weathered wood, and a gap next to it where our oven just didn't quite fit in. Oh, and did I mention the styrofoam ceiling, the range hood that didn't fit and the tiles with a color of moldy eggnog?

Something definitely needed to be done, but buying a new kitchen, as the broker suggested? no..... we have something much more fun in mind!

The moving files: gotta have friends and family!

It has taken a few days, but I am very happy to announce that our hallway is as good as finished, Hurray hurray etc etc...

Let's quickly recall what we started with, okay?

Whoooooo!

okay, so as you might recall, we then got that weirdish period where we painted everything white but it looked like a milk carton..
But luckily, we came to our senses and decided to cut the wood into wainscoting.

Still a lot needed to be done, but we got some help, as our friends, Bram and Marcella, came by to lend us a much needed hand!

The moving files: the work continues...

Hi!

As I am writing this, I am catching some rays of sun on my very own lawn. whooooh!
Looking to my left, the neighbour's chickens -who are not to be stopped by fences- are happily destroying my newly planted border, and looking to my left, 3 extremely grumpy cats are staring at me through the window, annoyed with the fact that those chickens are outside, whilst they are not. So far my attempt to make you jealous ( did I succeed? )

But back to business, because there is a lot of home improvement to be done!!

Last post I told you about painting the hall, and as you might have guessed; I wasn't entirely pleased with the result..  Wait; let me refreshen your mind: this is what it looked like...

it's okay, but not terribly exciting..

The problem was not that it looked bad, it was just a bit... boring. further, the paneled walls just felt a bit like a weird choice for such an old farmhouse. But then I thought of something: wainscoting.

While many of you may associate this with frumpiness, wainscoting ( or well, the Dutch type of it) was actually the regular type of cladding for farmhouses like ours. The main reason for it was practicality: if your 1900-husband would enter the house with his wooden shoes covered in mud, spraying lumps of it all though your hall,  it helps to have a wall you can easily clean; hence the wainscoting.

like this! ( this is a house we actually considered to buy)

I figured that transforming the panels into wainscoting shouldn't be too hard, so I called my dad and asked if he would lend me his circular saw ("please don't cut your own fingers of, girl"), cued the music and set to work!

the moving files; things that can be done in a day

Break out your champagne, people, we are proud owners of our own house!



(in absence of champagne we made our own wine-labels for the occasion)

For those of you whom I haven't yet bothered with details of our house-huntinh, we bought this 100-year old farmhouse:

I still have no idea how we managed to buy something this cute.

interior hunting: thrifting for free

now that Joost and I are quite confident that we will actually move into our new house, my favorite part of moving has started: the hunt for goods to fill our new house with! And as you may have guessed, we're not doing that by spending all our money at some interior store, no: we hunt online and in thrift shops for second hand furniture.

We already bought some pretty nice things, such as an antique bathtub (with those adorable legs!) for 60 euros, a real wooden floor for 175,- and a second hand fridge and dishwasher for 150 euros. But what's even better is that we actually scored a few items completely for free! 

No kidding! If you look at online secondhand sites such as marktplaats.nl (it's my favorite site), there are A LOT of free items available. 

So, let's have a look at what we've scored so far, shall we? 

Starting with our dinner chairs. We got 4 of these chairs from a really nice lady who wanted to buy new ones, and wanted to get rid of the old ones as soon as possible, so she advertised them only for free. I didn't think they were very beautiful, but Joost convinced me to get them because they are really comfortable and practical.

When we got them, they were white. 

nice, but not yet perfect...

Since we didn't really like them as they were, we started removing the white paint, and look how they turned out:

That white/wooden look is so pretty!!!

thrifty and handmade interiors: a peek inside my living room!

Since I've started this blog, I've had quite a few conversations with various people than went somewhat along the following lines:

stranger: Hey, I read you're into making/thrifting/upcycling* (*choose one) things. Cool! I also like making/thrifting/upcycling!
me: "Glad you like it!"
stranger:  "yeah... but you know... I never know what to do with those thrifted/upcycled/handmade things. I mean, I like it when other people have these creative houses, but I like a classier/simpler/different style for my own house.

Despite my complete lack in skills to paraphrase a conversation, I actually do hear this sentiment quite a lot; People who think that incorporating hand-made or thrifted items in your house inevitably leads to a vintage, hippie-like style with loads of color and obvious crafts everywhere.

OF COURSE IT DOESN'T!!! There are a lot of possibilities to have a interior that doesn't involve any retail without making it look like your house is a dependance of your thrift shop. In order to show that, I thought it would be nice to give you a little peek inside my own humble abode, where practically all items are made, thrifted or ( in most cases) a combination of those two.

Today's edition: Our living room.