Exciting news

First I must apologize for not posting in such a long time! I just had to evaluate what is most important in my life at the moment, and I had to give attention to other things in my life. There are just times, when you are so busy with everything else that you have to let somethings go for a short time!

But, now I`m back!

my son`s "treehouse"

treehouse and "the secret escape door"

We finally finished our outdoor projects. Well, there is still a little bit of painting to be done in the spring. During winter I have enough time to sew curtains and other textiles to my sons "tree house". He even wants blackout curtains :D. He has really showed his skills as a "designer"! He really has a mind of his own, and there are times we don`t seem to think alike ;).

We also bought some new furniture to my son`s room. He needed more storage for his toys, especially for Legos! We ended up buying him a small Kallax unit from Ikea and another Alex drawer for his Legos. The drawer has been a life saver! It`s so easy to organize all those little parts in the right drawer! All the smallest parts we organized by color and then we have a car drawer and drawer for basic parts as well as one for building houses. He invented the "categories" himself, so maybe it`s easier for him to put all those part on their own drawers ;). Well, at least we parents can dream ;). I`m going to post about the changes we made to his room later this month and at the same time you get to see how we reorganized his clothes!

Fall has arrived here too. I love this time of the year! Fresh air, wind, colorful leaves, darker nights and sitting in front of a fireplace relaxing while candles are burning. I have made some fall decorations here and in fact some Christmas decorations can be spotted around the house! We even have our Christmas tree up :).

But wait, it`s October - there is two more months till Christmas. What I`m thinking? Well, I do love Christmas, but not quite that much ;). I do have a good reason for this all though!

Last year we had to start Christmas decorations in early November, because I had a surgery three weeks before Christmas and I wasn`t allowed to do practically anything! This year I don`t have to go through yet another surgery, so why I have unpacked our Christmas boxes?

Well, next week a photographer and a journalist are going to come here in our home to make a story of our home and how decorating is like a therapy for me! Can you believe it, I still can`t ;). So that is what has taken all my time recently! Getting ready for Christmas isn`t that easy in the early October, I have to use last year`s decorations mostly, but I do have some new ones too. I`ve been also trying to finish many to-do projects around the house like, refinishing our fireplace, painting some walls, taking off some cabinets and getting some new furniture. And everything with a very limited budget. So stay tuned what I have for you as we are getting closer and closer to Christmas :)

Thanks for patiently waiting for a post! These past months have been the busiest ones for as long as I can remember! Now on I should have more time to write down, share and reflect those things I do to achieve a home that is me!

See you next time!

Hugs,
Jenni

My planner

I´m been extremely busy with all our building work! It`s been quite long since I last really built something, so I must confess I´m aching all over ;) . I´m glad though that I´ve had practice to use a nail gun, table saw and other tools! The last couple days I´ve spent on the roof of our future firewood "shed" ;). As soon as we get it painted I can show you some photos! There is going to be a small part for my son´s toys and for my things :). I look forward the organization project :). Yep, I LOVE to organize!

But today, I wanted to tell you about my new planner. I haven´t used a planner for a couple of years as I have used my phone`s calendar. I have lately noticed that my memory isn´t the same anymore, probably due to medication and stress. I thought long what I should do to really remember things and what to use to write things down. 

I have always admired people with beautiful planners! So that was my choice too! I opted to buy a planner cover with rings. That way I could use the actual cover for many years to come and only replace the planner pages.

I searched for a nice planner cover and found many possible ones! I loved Kikki K`s planners, but sadly all those lovely teal/turquoise ones were sold :(. Also Webster´s pages has lovely Color Crush planners, but guess what? All my favorite colors were sold out! I probably should have thought about buying one in December ;) to really get a color I want! Then I found Filofax site and this lovely aquamarine cover! 

I loved that with Kikki K and Color Crush you can buy lovely stickers and dividers etc. with the planner. Filofax don´t have those same options. From Etsy you will find many dividers, stickers and other stuff you can use to personalize your planner! I splurged and bought the cover, so I decided to save some money by making my page dividers etc. myself. With the planner cover I did get year 2015 planner pages, page dividers, note pages... None of them really were my style! And those pages were made of very thin paper.

I turned to Etsy to find a solution! I do love Jennifer Jones` from I heart Organizing planner, but it´s not really my style. So I searched and searched and finally found CrossbowPrintables. I loved the black and white design (we only have a black and white laser printer ;) ) and the style. I ordered several bundles and everything worked fine! It takes some more time to really learn what things I want and need from a planner, but these printables have worked fine so far!

  

I love this weekly view! I can write up meetings, hobbies, my son´s daycare times etc. There is also a little notes section under each day and under each page. I use them to write down daily menus, birthdays, to-do lists and all those extra notes :).

I also bought pages for my projects. I have pages for marking the work hours, meeting notes,ideas and sketches. It really helps when planning a project for someone else. In the above picture you can only see, that I divide those different projects with special pages for easy access. With the Filofax planner came also that plastic ruler. It´s perfect for sketching or drawing straight lines ;).

Even thought there are tons of different page dividers available, I wasn`t prepared to pay much and on the other hand wanted something to suit my style! The answer - Doing it myself! I bought a few cardstocks, printed some free geometric pattern pages and used those CrossbowPrintables quotes printed on a basic white paper. I also had some old scrapbook papers I used, and the total cost for all these personal pages was around 15 euros. Not bad ;)

I decided to make a different main page for each section, for meals, projects, lists, budget, blog and notes!

With that 15 euros I was able to make also these dividers! I used black card stock for the yearly calendar and turquoise for the others. I decided to only keep a six months of planner pages because I used a thicker paper to print them and they all would not have fitted in the rings ;).

For the month tabs I used an old card stock I had. I cut 3cm wide piece and clued a two sided tape on the other side. Then I folded it in half and cut out a piece for every month. Then I used my label maker to make those dividers!

The months can be seen along the long side. On the short side there is also tabs!

I made black tabs for the other pages and placed them on top of the dividing pages. That way it`s easy to find what I´m looking for! You may also wonder what is that turquoise tab! It`s a divider or exactly a mark for my calendar. I mark the current week, so it´s easy to find the ongoing week.

I ordered some embellishments from an Etsy shop P.s planning supplies and from Badges Folie for my cards and overall crafting! Some of them I used to decorate my planner, too ;). But really you don`t need that much to make a planner to look like you :). 

Here you can see how I`ve used some of those arrows and tapes to mark certain things in the planner. As I use this a little longer, I´ll be back to show you what kinds of systems I have come up with!

I´ll learn along the way :)

I just happened to bought a new pen and after a few times using it, knew it was just the perfect one for my planner! It`s Pilot`s FriXion ball pen and the best part is that it´s removable using the other end of the pen! These are available in many colors and I´m dreaming of buying a few to mark different things in different colors. I probably have to order them online as we don`t have many colors here in Finland!

On the photo below you can see almost everything I needed to make this planner more ME. I also used my label maker and needed a printer for many papers and the planner pages! It´s many times a good thing to have quite a minimal style ;)

So, what do you think? Can you guess this is my planner ;)? If you have a planner, do you make it yours in some way? I`d like to know!

Our building projects are in a good shape, so I hope to be able to post here more often! See you here again!

Warmly,

Jenni

Guest post: Petra`s bedroom REVEAL

I´m so glad to have Petra here again! You may remember her last post where she described how she build a headboard with her husband and son. Now she is here to show all the changes she made to their bedroom! I just love what she has done :) And what is best, you don`t have to spend an awful lot of money, to make a space feel more you, a place you love!

Here she is now:

Thank you all for reading about our headboard construction in my last post. It really was such a fun project and we were proud of what we accomplished! 

Here it is in the room. What do you think? We LOVE it!

Probably some of you know that I am a huge Ikea fan and from the very beginning of the headboard design, I wanted to incorporate their Ranarp clamp lamp. I really love the styling of this lamp and also the touch of brass-like finish. I hoped that introducing a few brass décor touches would help incorporate the mirrored closet door trim. My décor mentor, Jackie Hernandez, of Teal and Lime & School of Decorating says that introducing a particular color or finish three times in the room will help it feel intentional and not accidental. Between the Ranarp lamps and the starburst on the side table, the brass finish now works!

A word about color… One thing I have learned about my style is that I love color and contrast. In our living room we have a red, teal, and lime as our accent colors making a complimentary palette. Complimentary palettes give a lot of energy and fun to a space! My love of contrast and complimentary palettes is one reason why our old bedding just never felt right for us. It was an analogous palette with green, teal, and navy – a beautiful combination but just not our style. Analogous pallets are peaceful and relaxing. Not surprisingly, most bedding sets are made with an analogous color pallet. 

For the new bedding, I wanted a fairly neutral base with a few pops of color. Limiting the amount of pattern is key for me especially with those mirrored doors multiplying everything in the space. I decided on the Ikea Ofelia Vass set combined with their Nyponros set. I really love the texture of the Ofelia Vass – once washed it has a sear sucker finish that fits the modern cottage feeling of our Honest Charm style. I picked up a new sheet set at Target and also added and Ikea Sanela cushion with a hand tufted homemade pom-pom.

I knew teal would be a major color in this room. It is the one color that shows up in every room of our house and is a thread connecting all of the spaces. So for a complimentary color palette containing teal but not the same as our living room palette of teal, red, lime… why not red-orange? It is directly across from teal on the color wheel and would give me that pop of contrasting color that I really love.

When I went fabric shopping, I was absolutely blown away by this red-orange fabric from Joann fabrics! It is called “Retro Morocco Spider Floral” and has touches of aqua and navy. It almost has a Scandinavian folk art feel or perhaps a 50s style. I just love this fabric!!! {Yes 3 exclamation points!!!} I made these removable covers following Jackie’s simple envelope pillow tutorial for these inserts.

All the hard work and planning was certainly worth it! We are so happy with how this project turned out. For quite a bit of effort but very little money, we gave our master bedroom a complete update to something that feels very fresh and very us! There are still a few finishing touches to be done around the room especially with our dresser so stay tuned for the final installment.
It makes me so happy to have a bedroom that is so us! It was so worth the $125 to build the headboard and the extra $225 for lamps, bedding and a few little décor items.
How about you? Do you have a bedroom that you love?


I´m so glad Petra and her husband now have a bedroom they love! When you have those little things right it makes such a big difference! I´m so glad I joined Jackie Hernandez School of Decorating, as there I met Petra and other very talented ladies! If you want to learn more about SoD or even become a member just click here!

I´ll see you here again! 

Warmly,

Jenni

Shady front porch

Hi again! So sorry it´s been so long since last post, but we finally got to enjoy warm summer days for a few weeks! Now it´s raining again. Partly, I´m happy for these rainy days, because now we can catch up on house chores, blog and other projects! No need to rush to make a "playhouse" to our son, or building the firewood storage shed. And finally I have time to write this post..;)

In last post I showed you our back porch and promised to show photos of our front porch! But before I show you the photos, one more picture of the back deck. If you didn´t catch last post and want to see more of our back deck just click here! I finally hung the mirror and decided to add a little art, too. I just want to bring my style from indoors to outdoors! Just adding a few pieces makes this space feel like a living room!

Ok, finally the photos I promised! I wanted to keep the greens simple here too, as in our back deck, so I planted only a small tree and hostas. What comes to flowers, I love hydrangeas! I´m not a rose or a lily person ;) Luckily it´s shady in our front porch, so I was able to buy hydrangeas there!

The photo below is taken quite early in the summer, just after I had bought all the flowers and hung the curtains. I just love those hydrangeas! I had them last year, too and they bloomed all summer :)

I bought a rug for our entry, but it was too thick. We should have shortened one door to get it fit, so I decided to place it on the porch. I´m so glad it didn´t fit inside - happy accidents! But i´m still looking for a perfect rug for the entry ;)

We got that iron bench as a gift about three years ago, but it´s just not my style. I hope to replace it with this IKEA`s new Nipprig sofa. I love the natural material and the look of it! We have in our living room a Byholma chair, which has almost the same design.  What´s great about the sofa is that it can easily seat two people, as we, me and my son, sit there often listening our water feature.

Here you can see more of our porch. The floor tiles and the concrete steps really need a makeover. I have to put that my next year´s to do -list ;). Last year our house was painted and at the same time we made a makeover to our door! We painted it jade green, changed the hardware and replaced an old yellow glass with a clear one. It made such a difference that people thought it was a new door! 

Right in front of our porch there grows a pine. I just love that tree! Look at those hostas! Can you believe they are the same I planted? Now they hardly fit! 

I think that wall where the lamp is needs something more! I`ve thought of a mirror or a wooden sign. What would you place there?

Here´s the porch from another side. You can see our garage back there and our latest addition, a new water feature at the front, We made it using a pump, a large bucket and a outdoor flowerpot, which had a hole in the bottom.

Here is a close up, which you may have seen in Instagram, if you follow me there! The sound as the water flows over the container to the bucket under the stones, is so relaxing and soothing! And how easy this water feature was to make :). When we moved here, soon to be six years ago, this whole front yard was only covered with poorly maintained grass! Our yard is about 1000 m2, so we have slowly made changes one part at a time! 

What do you think? Would you like to sit in our porch and sip coffee? By the way, is porch even the right word for a space like this, as it´s not enclosed? I just didn´t come up with a better word ;).

I ´m so glad you popped in once again! I hope you come back on Tuesday, as Petra visits us and shares her bedroom makeover! She was here earlier to share how she build a headboard to their master bedroom with her husband and son. Now it´s time for the whole bedroom makeover reveal!

So see you here on Tuesday :)

Warmly,
Jenni

Outdoor living

Nice to meet you here again! Since April the weather has been a little warmer hear in Southern Finland so gradually my decorating focus has shifted from indoors to outdoors. Usually in June we have a full summer temperatures going over 20 degrees (Celsius), but this year it´s been only few days, when it´s been that warm. I really look forward all those warm summer days relaxing and gathering with friends in our back deck.

In April I took all our outdoor furniture and gave them a good clean. I placed them in our back deck, but it takes a little more than that to beautify the space ;) We also have a small front porch, so I decided they both needed to better match our style and give a nice first impression! We also have a metal pavilion in the back yard, which I eventually want to decorate, too. For now I concentrated for the front porch and back deck.

I began by making some inspirational mood boards. One for relaxing and other for eating and entertaining.

When we moved here over five years ago, the first two summers were really warm and my back was in bad shape. I wanted to be able to enjoy the summer outdoors, so we decided to buy a metal daybed frame and a mattress! It´s been the best purchase for the space and we plan to spend a night there this summer (if the weather gets warmer) after purchasing a mosquito net to hang over the bed. Our bed frame is the same as in the picture, but black. To complete the look and the relaxing feel, I planned to buy big grass-like plants, jute rug, white curtains and of course some pillows on the bed :)

The back deck isn´t very big, about 3 by 5 meters and it has a see through plastic roof. So besides the bed and of course grill, there isn´t room for a big table. We have four white rattan chairs and a round table there right now. After reading Jackie Hernandez new book Free decorating, which is the best decor book I have ever red, I started to think which of those furniture pieces I really love and want to keep and which ones I plan to replace. I want a space, which I love and which has a staying power so I don´t have to do makeovers every year! I knew I wanted to keep the daybed, but the round table we have is going to go, when I have enough money to buy a new one and the chairs - well..I thought I should replace them too. I found a nice also round table from Trademax, which has those Eames DSW chairs look a like legs. I instantly fell in love with that table!

The chairs were a trickier part. I love the look of Ikea´s black rattan chair as well as a poly-rattan ones you see practically everywhere. But I was left thinking, what it is in our rattan chairs I don´t like! Color was the obvious answer! I would also like to have a chair with arms, but our current chairs don´t have them. In a small space, those armless ones are in fact better, because they don´t take so much space, and they are easier to sit in. So, I decided to keep the chairs, but paint them to better match my vision. After sawing them painted I´m so glad I kept them, because they are like new chairs! Those chairs a the very first chairs we bought with my husband, then boyfriend, when we moved together in 2002. In 2006 I painted them white to match my style then and now they got a black update! I´d like to all my furniture choices to last time and trends like those chairs!

Besides the furniture I wanted to continue the same look as in the first mood board, after all it´s one space! White curtains, jute rug, plants and some pillows would finish things off. I also dreamed for decorative lights and some big lanterns. I´m saving for the jute rug, but in the mean time, we have there our previous living room wool rug.

It´s been enough words, don´t you think? Time for some photos :) First the back deck! There you can see the almost new black chairs and the current table as well as our daybed. Just in time for big Finnish Mid-summer festival on 20th, I bought those string lights. If you look close enough, you can see a mirror there! I´m planning on hanging it to the wall, so it reflects all the green in our back yard. I plan also to hang there a few picture frames to form like a gallery wall - bringing the inside out ;). To get a better idea of our layout, that window and door next to it, lead to our fireplace room. You can even see our front door there in the other end :)

Here you can see some of the roof. It lets some of the light in, blocking the UV-rays. I had cream white curtains, which I didn´t need inside any more and which I had kept to use outdoors. I used a white plastic covered wire rope designed to hang curtains and some hooks to hang them. I also used the same wire rope near the floor to attach the curtains there too. It´s quite windy here so it´s nice to know those curtains stay in place! And hey- did you noticed the lights? LOVE them.

This is the view from inside out. Our gas grill and our "Muurikka"pan, a large round cast metal piece. It´s kept over a fire so you can use it to make food and  Finnish delicacy "lettu" a type of pancake resembling crêpe. I´m planning on replacing that awful lid over it ;) I love the fact that the grill and the muurikka are on carts, so they are easy to move around!

Here is another photo of our favorite spot! A nice breezy warm summer day, a good book or a good blog to read and a cold drink - perfection!

I bought a few different grasses, because I love the geometric look they have and one Japanese maple, which I´m planting on the ground in fall. They bring just enough of that green, lush feel to the deck I wanted.

Here´s one shot from the deck to our yard. Behind those spruces we have those big crack willows just in the border of our yard. You can see glimpses of a white house. It has only few windows facing us, and they use that small part of their lot only when mowing the grass. So we have enough privacy on the deck. The curtains can be moved to control the privacy and the sun light, too.

There is also a little water feature in our back yard, which we absolutely love! Water comes out on top of the "ball" and runs back down, where is a small pump circulating the water back to the top. The sound of water is very relaxing and that´s one reason why we wanted the feature near the deck! It´s also pretty to look at ;)

You can see on the above photo an area covered with filter fabric. It´s a place to cart tons of gravel and where we are going to build a storage shed for firewood. I hope we still have some time to spend in the outdoor bed reading ;) and enjoying summer! I first planned to show you our front porch too, but I keep you in suspense till next time ;)

See you here again! Hope you are all able to enjoy warm sunny summer days wherever you are :)

Warmly,
Jenni

Quest post: Petra´s DIY Headboard

Hi you! Nice to see you here again :). Today we have here a dear friend of mine, Petra. She recently decided to test her construction skills and I can say the outcome is amazing! I´m glad to have her here to explain how she, for the first time in her life, built a headboard! 

To start with, I should tell you that I have never done anything like this project before.  I have no wood working experience and we have only very limited basic tools.  For us to even consider making our own DIY headboard was a bit of a leap of faith!

After just over a year of living in our new home, I was ready to tackle our master bedroom decor.  The room has a nice big window and great natural light but rather dated huge rolling mirrored closet doors trimmed in brass finish.  

I had purchased a new duvet cover that I thought I would love but it never really felt right in the space.  Then to try and salvage it, I added contrasting colored toss pillows that really did not work.  The room was certainly not working for me!

What I wanted most of all to transform this space was a HEADBOARD!  I always wanted a headboard but they are expensive and my go-to cheap furniture store (Ikea) did not have any models that fit our home and our Honest Charm style (think modern cottage).  So I resorted to propping the pillows up as high as I could get them.  Yep, I wasn’t fooling anyone! 

Since I was temporarily unemployed, there was really no budget allowance for furniture shopping.  What I had for pretty much the first time in my life was plenty of extra time.  So that is why we started considering making our own headboard. 

Plus I had my support team at School of Decorating to bounce ideas off.  These ladies were so encouraging to me.  They really believed I could do this!  I was SoD member Rose who helped me see the reason why I never loved that duvet.  It was a lot of pattern for my taste and the huge mirrored doors multiplied the pattern so that it just overwhelmed the space.  I knew my new bedding would need to tone it down.

I did tons of research on the web and found lots of great tutorials.  Ana White has some amazing examples but the construction seemed difficult with our limited tools and the styles were not quite right.  I found a few examples where people built the headboard right onto the wall like a modified board and batten.  I like that simplicity but worried that I would never really like the look.

Finally after many weeks of planning, we decided to make a freestanding headboard of our own design.  Since keeping the budget as low as possible, I planned to make the headboard out of the least expensive wood I could buy.  It also meant we could not buy any extra tools to put it together.  We only used a super old circular saw and belt sander borrowed from my mother in law and a very inexpensive drill we had purchased a few years prior.  I did buy a carpenters square to help line things up mostly because I could not figure out how to do it without one.

Before we started on the project, I had to remove the wall sconces put up by the prior owners.  They were really stuck to the wall and had cord covers attached with adhesive that did quite a bit of damage when they came off.  That was a great time to hone my puttying and sanding skills as the headboard would take lot of sanding!

I measured and measured again and sketching out the plans.  Our bed is a Cal King size by the way.  Then we were off to the Home Depot!  I bought the cheapest 2x4s that they had and inspected a big stack to try and get the least wonky looking ones they had.  Since we were making it up as we went along, I just bout the 2x4s first and went back later for the large plywood piece and the final 1x4 that became the top.

 

Hopefully these photos give you an idea of how we put the pieces together following my plan.  The very last piece we put on was the 1x4 that topped the headboard.  As you can see, it was a whole family project.  My son and husband enjoyed using the drill together!  Since we did not have a fancy kreg drill, we selected steel mending plates and brackets to connect the 2x4s.  Once we had the plywood back on, it held the structure together so the 2x4 connecters did not need to be structural.

 

Then it was my turn to do the rest.  First there was lots and lots of sanding.  Then I filled all the holes and dings in the wood with wood filler.  Then I caulked all of the joints.  Jackie’s tutorial on her board and batten wall was extremely helpful to me.  I did not realize I needed to caulk and it made a huge impact in the finished piece!  School of Decorating for the win!  The best part of the caulk was that it camouflaged the very uneven cuts in the piece.  Since we used a very basic circular saw, the pieces that were supposed to be the same size were off by as much as a quarter of an inch in some places.

I applied two coats of primer and two coats of teal paint (Dunn Edwards By the Bayou).  We were really impressed with the results.  It was exactly what we had envisioned!

Finally we carried it up the stairs.  My husband assured me it would fit up the stairs since it was smaller than the Cal King mattress.  I understood his logic but I was anxious to make sure that it would actually fit up the stairs.  Yes it fit!  We attached it to the metal bed frame with some large bolts and washers.  I also put some felt pads on the back of the headboard where it would touch the wall. 

When I added the receipts, the total project came in at about $125.  That included all of the wood, screws, metal brackets, caulk, wood filler, paint, and painting supplies.  Certainly we put in quite a bit of labor and sweat!  If you have any specific questions on our construction details, please let me know and I am happy to help answer them.

So, what do you think? Amazing, or what! I´ve dreamed of a headboard for our bedroom for some time now, and this would look so good! The best part is, that Petra promised to come back and share some details on their new bedding and a full bed reveal! So stay tuned!

I have mentioned a few times already our outdoor spaces and next time I´m going to share an inspirational mood board and reveal what I have in mind and what I have already done outdoors ;) So see you here again :)

Warmly,

Jenni

Concrete and leather

Glad to see you here! It´s unbelievable how fast time flies! It feels like I just yesterday wrote my last post, but it´s actually been a week already. Last week I mentioned that I´m looking for a solution how to hang the towels in our powder room. If you are new here, you may wonder why it´s a problem, hanging towels?. We have lovely concrete wall hooks and they are big, so the only way we could hang a towel was just placing it on the hook. However that way those lovely hooks were hidden under the towels. Not an ideal solution! I wanted something else and it made me thinking...

Here is what I came up with!

Just some leather strips and curtain hooks with clips (like these from Ikea) and we can see those gorgeous concrete hooks again :)

These are so easy to make but I made a simple instruction anyway. Basically all you need is leather strips, curtain hooks with clips, scissors, a small punch (I looked this word from dictionary, so I hope it´s a correct word ;) )

First you have to decide the length of the strip and cut it to size. Next using the punch make holes on both ends for the curtain hook to go through. If you wish you can use pliers to bend the hook "closed" after that. And that´s it! Super easy, right? And what a difference it makes! I like the look of  the rough concrete and smooth leather together. Black on that wall balances the space nicely and ties everything together.

I love these kinds of fixes: easy, affordable and quick! This could be used in many hooks for easy hanging! 

Next time I´m going to show you what I have in mind for our outdoor spaces, so stay tuned! See you here, again!

Warmly,

Jenni