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 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!

DIY: backpack becomes... well, a backpack.

"Ugggh, I can't move..." I sighed last Monday, whilst hobbling through the house like an old lady. 

Yeah.. After a couple of years being lazy in the city center of Groningen, those bicycle rides (31 km a day) are something to get used to, if not for the sore muscles, than at least for the damage that a saddle does to your butt. I'm not gonna describe the situation of my bottom in detail ( I've got boundaries, people! Not many, but still some!) but let's just say that if I had been a baboon, they surely would have thought I had my fertile period. 

Luckily, the view during my cycle ride is not too bad...

See that tiny white house on the left? That's ours!

As I soon discovered, not only my butt and bicycle, but also my collection of bags is not entirely adjusted to the long bike rides: I only own shoppers and hand bags, which aren't very useful on a bike. So, I decided to make myself a backpack!

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: chaos, cats and crappy paint

before I go on with this post, I feel obliged to show you the dark side of our moving skills:

wowza!

well, one member of our household enjoyed the mess..

"Boxes!"

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.