I'm in the list again with a shy 12 votes - one from myself ;o) I'm never much for lists or groups but it's quite cool to be acknowledged. So if you'd like to vote for me or if you like to know who I have voted for, you can do that here and here.

Cheers xox

East, west, North or South, Winter or Summer I want to thank you all for your support and kindness throughout 2009 and wish you and your loved ones a very merry Christmas and a wonderful 2010.

With love, Yvonne xox

The TV room of my house is almost done. It still needs a new (old) radiator, a ceiling lamp and the TV! I also might swap sofas tonight.

This afternoon I just sat in the TV room (without TV) looking around. The Boo came to join me.

Last night I quickly crocheted these stars to add a bit of Christmas to the room but I've already decided to keep them there after Christmas as they make me happy. The paper lanterns are by Jurianne Matter and are sold here.

I've repainted this cupboard in the same color as my front door, Vert De Terre by Farrow & Ball, and removed the white knobs and replaced them with various porcelain knobs I've collected. The TV will be on this cupboard. I also made a new slipcover for the footstool, I used washes roses by Cath Kidston.

The Boo likes the room too. This is her 'I love it' look or I would love to think so as she always looks at me like this.

After two years of happily running The Yvestown Shop I've decided to close shop. The reason for it is that I can no longer offer you cheap book prices as Paumes is selling them directly for just €13 a book. I think it's a crazy world when a publisher is forcing their retailers to sell their books for €24 while they sell them for €11 less.

I started this shop to make the édition PAUMES Books available to us all, I did this almost profitless. I just can't make it fair anymore. It's a sad day people.

All édition PAUMES Books are now €15 while stock last! The MilK books are sold for the regular price while stock last.

All my life I said that 35 was my 'scary age'.

At 35 I should have met the man I'm going to be with for the rest of my or his life. At 35 I should live in a nice house and have a fun job. At 35 I can't slob around anymore and move from here to there, I should be settled. And at 35 I have to accept that I'm definitely not going to be someone's mother.

Today I have reached that 'scary age' of 35.

And so far everything turned out the way I wanted it to turn out, it's not scary at all. During breakfast I told the Bo that I thought I was going to be really old at 35 but I haven't aged, I only have four grey hairs and no wrinkles. But that must run in the family as my 94 year old grandmother still doesn't show much wrinkles. We must be very lucky ... and I am, at 35, one lucky pig!

Bo bought me the brightest pink roses, the MilK Déco books are now for sale in The Yvestown Shop and the print is by Sugarloop.

Last Thursday Roel and I went to Ingrid to shoot some pictures for a new product Roel and his partners are working on. Ingrid and her husband invited us to stay for dinner. Henk cooked us a gorgous meal while Roel, Ingrid and I were expoloring Villa Augustus again.

Lots of laughs, lovely food and a lot of inspiration ... it was a lovely day.

Just because this device is brilliant to keep up with friends. But I still haven't changed my mind about what I said before.

You can keep track of me again at http://twitter.com/yvestown

Ever since the R word (recession) it's been awfully quiet in my mailbox (the non-virtual one) and I miss it. Not that I'm greedy and want free stuff but it's just such a nice gesture. I believe that when you give you will receive, but giving has been hard for a lot of us and I'm happy things are slowly getting better.

So when I walked in my office building last week and a big brown envelope was waiting for me at the entrance, I was quite excited to find The Farm Chicks in The Kitchen book inside with lots of recipe cards, stickers and lovely messages. My readers know me so well because I LOVE this book. It's ME written all over it, I want to be a farm chick!!

I can highly, highly recommend it. Thank you so much Serena xox

Big news! For the last two to three weeks I've been working with Ingrid from wood & wood stool on a new site design for her, today it's done and in the air.

As a thank you Ingrid brought this super cute recycled wood (christmas) tree for me last week and tomorrow I'll get my own wood & wool stool. I'm thrilled as I'm absolutely in love with all of Ingrid's products.

Please go over to her new blog and give her a big warm welcome.

***

The oven mitts Cath Kidston
The kettle Le Creuset
The storage jars Jamie Oliver
Car Jaguar e-type Bo's favorite

It bothers me when people ask me if Bo doesn't get sick of all the pink in our home and think he's weird if my answer is no. What people don't realize is that I equally have a lot of blue at home. I think that all the blue sometimes outweighs all the pink and ho ... wait a minute ... I have quite a lot of white at home, white definitely wins. But people never seem to bother to ask me if Bo doesn't get sick of all the blue and all the white makes me wonder; do they get sick of my pink? That's very Freudian but quite correct.

So for all the people who get sick of my pink, here's some blue and white for you.

This is my kitchen WC, still without a door so it's very open air or the kitchen is one big WC.

The print is by Linzie Hunter for Tumbtack Press. It used to hang in my old study now it matches the tiles perfectly. The carved Dala horses are from Sweden and that mushroom is a kaleidoscope from Dille & Kamille bought by Bo so he can look at the tiles on the floor when he sits on the toilet - and now who's weird eh?

This is currently the number 1 question in my Top 10 of most asked questions; "is there are pattern for that crochet blanket you have?". I don't know to be honest. I did have a proper look at my blanket and made something up that quite resembles it and it's working for me. There must be other, maybe better, variations but I can only share the one I made with you today.

These are the stitches I use:

dc = double crochet
ch(s) = chain(s)
sl st = slip stitch

I first start make a bunch of circles using 3 colors. Here's how to make the circles:

Color one, round one - ch 4 - sl st in first ch (you now have a wee circle) - ch 3 (this is your first dc) - 11 dc in the circle (having a total of 12 dc's) - sl st in third chain of the first dc - cut.

Color two, round two - ch 3 between first and last dc of first round (this is your first dc) - 1 dc - 2 dc between first and second dc of first round - and so on until end - sl st in third chain of first dc - cut.

Color three, round three - ch 3 between first and last dc of second round (this is your first dc) - 2 dc - 3 dc between first and third dc of first round - and so on until end - sl st in third chain of first dc - cut.

How to make your first square:

ch 3 between your first and last dc of the circle (this is your first dc) - 2 dc - ch 1 - 3 dc - ch 1 - 3 dc - ch 3 - dc 3 (between the same dc's) and so on - sl st in third chain of first dc - cut.

Now you want to start to work the circles into the blanket:

I have to stop here as it's getting too complicated and I'll have to make a movie of this as it's too hard to describe. So 'Crochet a Blanket The Movie' will be here sometime next week.

Maybe you can have a look at the pictures and figure it out for yourself, as I always do with crochet. Otherwise you'll have to wait for the movie as it's so much easier to show you what I do instead of writing it down. I thought I could do it but I can't.

Have a lovely (almost) blanket and weekend.

At last ... October is left for next year and a really stressful month has past. I didn't enjoy October much this year as it was just too busy and filled with annoyance. The main big annoyance is that Bo's assistant is leaving us as he can't stand the pressure any longer. He's leaving us without even having a new job so we're quite gutted and wonder if we can ever find a new assistant to replace him.

So if you know anyone who's under 30, preferable male and a skater or ex skater who's creative, intelligent, presentable, hardworking, handy and flexible who can stand to work odd hours, spend a lot of time in traffic jams discussing quantum theory, the old masters and doesn't mind to listen to weird experimental jazz who likes to eat a lot of McDonalds meals or KFC and who lives in the Eindhoven area with a driving license and likes treats that mostly come in pink and who has a good sense of humor ... you're our new employee. Please contact me, seriously people we're quite desperate.

And I had a lot of family drama (we're like the Forresters sometimes) and Citroën (spits on the ground) Berlingo related problems.

But there were also a lot of great things in October like two plastered rooms that I can move furniture into over Christmas. New styling/photography projects I've been asked for by some seriously talented people. I've made a new friend and I've met someone (his site is still a work in progress) who shares my weird taste in music and even sang a K3 song for me yesterday - how often does that happen?

What I do really like about October, as I don't want to diss one of my favorite months of the year, is the cold that's creeping in at night and the smell of fireplace when I open the kitchen door. I also like waking up in the morning to see that my bed socks have gone off and can't remember when I did that. I love the fluffy eiderdown that's been proclaimed by Boo and her obsession over it. And mostly I love the colors. Wishing for a better new month and a freaking awesome new assistant for the Bo.

The bedding in this picture are from old Cath Kidston and IKEA collections. The bed socks were made especially for me by Marné.

Today I've made a bunch of cushion covers using Amy Butler fabrics for my friend Mandy as it will be her birthday Friday. The fabrics are from the Midwest Modern and Midwest Modern 2 collection and this time I ordered them from Quilt Home.

Here are the links from left to right:

Cushion 1
Cushion 2
Cushion 3
Cushion 4

You can download instructions on how to make a simple cushion cover here.

how to make a simple cushion.pdf

First of all the Tea Cup Giveaway winner is Emma McCann. Congratulations Emma and thanks to all of you who've left such wonderful, sincere and lovely comments. I don't know you but already love each one of you. I have lots of other cute stuff in store to give away so maybe in the end, and by the year 3010, you'll all have something in your home that once was mine :o)

Today was a very busy and fun day in the office as Ingrid came over to work on her new web design. This is still her old design but I'm going to work on the new one in the next week or so. We've been basically glued to the computer screen and had our noses stuck in Paumes books and Fermob catalogs. At four we finally made it to a lunch room as our grunting stomachs were getting a bit embarrassing. We had a lovely lunch at Landerijk en did a quick browse at our favorite shop, OXO. The OXO people are always so super lovely and interesting.

Don't you just love how Ingrid her outfit matches perfectly with this cute car parked outside my office building? What a good day.

I've been in plaster hell the last few days and those who follow me on Twitter know that I'm in the middle of some hardcore cleaning. Hardcore cleaning also always includes rearranging cupboards and today that is my kitchen cupboard.

I have a whole bunch of these rare Cath Kidston cups and saucers and would like to give two sets away to one of you as I simply have too many. I bought them for just a couple of pounds each a few years ago in the CK outlet in Bicester Village and couldn't really control myself. I was thinking about two winners but I believe that all things should come in pairs and even numbers.

Leave a comment and I'll draw a winner after the weekend. Let's say Tuesday ... Good luck!! This giveaway is open to everyone worldwide with an address that is of course ;o)

This giveaway is now closed.

I'm not such a big fan of all sorts of unpractical items on display throughout my house. Having said that, I can't leave a surface empty so I always try to put a small group of a couple of practical little things here and there.

For example on the kitchen mantel I placed these three small items. A Cath Kidston milk jug, a tiny ceramic bunny from Joanna Mendicino and a Muji incense burner. All functional except the bunny.

On the kitchen table I have a Muji tray with all the essentials we use for eating. Salt en pepper shakers from GreenGate, a soy sauce pot, and a basket with toothpicks. The wee pumpkin and the flowers in the vase I can change with the seasons. A tray is also great for wiping the kitchen table as you only have to pick it up.

Next time I'll blog about grouping with books and magazines.

This is a recipe for a quick, dry, risotto as I don't like my risotto wet.

This is what you need (serves 4):

400 gram boneless chicken or chicken filet
500 gram frozen peas
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
Risotto rice
2 chicken stock cubes
Pepper

Cook the risotto rice in chicken stock - you can use one of those cubes. Steam the boneless chicken in a little bit of chicken stock, add some pepper and put the lit on. When the chicken is done cut the chicken in small pieces, chop an onion and press two garlic cloves and put back in the pan with the chicken and the frozen peas. Drain the rice and toss in the pan with the chicken, onion and peas. Stir well and you're done.

When I returned home today, after working off Roel's party grocery list which contained beer and I'm not custom with buying beer so it took a bit longer and I have a beer cap cut in my index finger, I found Boo snuggled up on the new shag carpet in the sunroom.

That's a good sign, Boo never set paw in the sunroom before.

I've changed the whole sunroom again. I also changed the kitchen (as the sunroom and kitchen are in the same construction) and bought some bits and pieces to make it more 'us'. I like pretty but I do mostly like functional and sunroom v.3.0 was far from functional as we couldn't really sit properly on that sofa ... and why would we sit there anyway as we can sit at a table in the kitchen 2 steps away? So I went online and bought a secondhand Ikea Nikkala sofa as I sat on one at Ingrid's and liked it. I found one for 25 Euro and a 40 minute drive, ordered a new slipcover at Bemz and used my judging discount.

I'm so happy with it now. All I have to do is wait for the slipcover to be delivered and change 2 of the 4 Ikea roller blinds I bought yesterday as one is twirled and one is just a complete different blind, why is that always IKEA? After that I'll post a completed sunroom v.4.0.

And to know that I still have a whole house left to finnish + a shopping list will be in my next sunroom post.

I had a date last wednesday, a fun and exhausting date. Nina and I drove to Dordrecht to visit Ingrid of wood & wool stool, to do some shopping and to pay a visit to Ingrid's inspiring workplace, Villa Augustus also in Dordrecht. I still have so much more to write about this meeting but I'm just so overwhelmed by inspiration that I have to process it first. So you'll be hearing lots more about these two on my blog in the future.

In this picture, Nina's shoes and Ingrid's fabulous floor and Fermob chair.

I think I'm done with the sunroom. Yes I think I'm done with the sunroom, I still find it a wee bit too sweet. I'm hoping to make a shop stop at Loods 5 next week and I hope to find a nice piece of Fermob to replace with the yellow chair. I hope with bringing some aluminum in the place I can actually make it a little less sweet. Who knows ... will report again next week.

And I've made a 'where to buy' right here.

I've made a little tutorial on how to make your own chalkboard house right here.

I'm dead proud of my biggest pumpkin. I was so scared these plants were ruined after the big horrific hail storm last July but they've survived and are absolutely growing bonkers ... I love it!

The bag in the picture was bought at Catherine's Etsy shop, Little Glowing Lights. I love that one too and have been taking it all over the place.

I'm finally done walking up flights of stairs with desks, chairs and other heavy office supplies. Besides a washing up tub we're completely settled into our new digs.

I've decided to move some of my Yvestown work out of my home for tax reasons and because it's super fun to share an office with my friend, Roel, in a former prison in the heart of my favorite Dutch city, Den Bosch.

We're inmates of Cell block B. We're behind the barn windows on the left.

We dislike the bright blue gym floors but we're quite happy with all the white walls the previous tenant left us. This is Roel's space.

This is my blue floored space. Here's where I send all your Paumes orders from.

It's a weird place to have as an office but we quite love it. It's peaceful and packed with a fun lot of self employed artistic people. I'm looking forward to my tuesdays and thursdays especially when we'll have internet. As soon as we have I'll have live office blog posts.

Just to let you know ...

We should eat fish because fish is high in protein, vitamins, minerals, and omega 3 fatty acids, and can reduce some problems associated with PMS, memory loss, cardiovascular functions, colon cancer, and stroke. I try to cook something with fish twice to three times a week.

My 'fish dish' is really simple (as is all my cooking) and serves two.

Put two pieces of salmon in a baking dish, season them with black pepper and sea salt. Now you want to toss a whole lot of 'flavor makers' on top, here is a list of things you should chop:

cut one red union
two garlic cloves
one lemon
fresh thyme and rosemary

Season the prawns with fresh parsley, sea salt and grated garlic. Poor some extra virgin olive oil over the whole dish and put it in a pre-heated oven on 200°C for 45 minutes. Do not cover the dish with anything to get a nice roasted effect.

Serve with some new potatoes and a fresh kitchen sink salad.

Oven Temperature Conversions

This is a real simple way of putting something delicious, pretty and quick on the table. This is what you need to do;

Buy a simple cake from the supermarket or bake one yourself, slice the cake in 3 layers, mix the whipped cream with sugar and strawberries. Paste between layers and put in the fridge to keep it stiff and take out once you want to serve it to avoid the layers to collapse. You can also add some fromage frais (quark) to keep it stiffness. And for the finishing touch, sprinkle some powdered sugar on top.

I wanted to create a small herb garden off my kitchen door for my cooking. I found this zinc (galvanized steel) tub in my old barn and bought all the basic herbs at my local garden center and planted them in the tub. I prefer keeping the herbs outside as I never have to water them, nature will take care of that.

I used the basics:

Chive
Thyme
Parsley
Celery
Basil
Rosemary

I added lavender for some height, color and luck.

You can also start a herb garden in a plastic tub to hang over your balcony, or Tubtrugs are excellent planters. Never forget to drill some holes in the bottom for drainage, you don't want to drown your herbs.

Hello and welcome to my new blog layout. I've been planning this for quite some time, I find with a new house comes a new layout and some new stuff here and there. For example I'll start sharing gardening, cooking and making tips with you and file them outside the blog instead. You can find them under the tags at the top of all the pages. I'll announce on the blog when I add something to a category and will direct link you to it. I also have a bigger picture size.

As you can see (and for those who visited) I've intergraded The Yvestown Lifestyle blog with The Yvestown blog but I'll be no longer blogging about third party subjects as I only gave good contents away. You can now enjoy the things I love via my tumblr page 'Today I Love' instead. This blog will all about me LOL!

I'm not so happy with the technical bits of the blog itself so I'll be working on that. It needs a lot of weeding, hence the blog title. I might archive all the older posts and start from scratch.

I hope you like the contents so far. I'm planning to add items daily starting as from September as I have to move offices first and ... oh all about that later.

Oh just really quick because I'm having a secret hiatus and will be back with a brand new blog in two weeks. But I couldn't resist to show you sunroom version 2.0 (this definitely will look different in two weeks) and to let you know that I'm excited to be one of Holly's 'Favorite Things' guests.

See you in a week or two with all new things.

Type "yourname loves" in Google and hit enter.

"Yvonne Loves"

• Phoenix.
• to gossip and meddle but she's got a good heart.
• Micky.
• composing and singing worship and gospel music.
• to stay in shape by roller blading, bicycling, running, and skiing.
• to see positive changes happen in her client's lives and their Businesses as they easily adjust their internal thinking to achieve the results.
• to perform she is also very interested in selling her songs to other performers or producers.
• doing the fight scenes and is getting Kung-fu training.
• lagers.
• Geoffrey, or is just having rescue fantasies.

Yvonnes sure love to sing.

I just want to introduce my new "Today I Love" tumblr blog.

It's wednesday, let's discus my sunroom floor.

Good news, for those interested in my floor, we've finally found someone who can fix our problem without spending too much money and without having to take the whole sunroom down. He'll be fixing it next week and after that I can start decorating.

At last!

Now I'm quite giddy about decorating this room because I've been looking at that horrible floor for too long now, disliking it but appreciating the room itself more and more. It always has been such a non-room to me as it is really oddly shaped and an extension to the house that doesn't really fit. But over time it has become quite a lovely extension of the kitchen and I find myself hanging bits and pieces on the walls. My birds are already up there and now I've hung this artwork by Geninne up there to. It's going to be my bird room, or nature room. But also a good room to photograph in as the light is quite something.

Will post pictures when the room is done.

When the room is done ... sigh ... that sounds like music to my ears.

Thank you to everyone who entered my giveaway. I always love giveaways as I get the read all the lovely comments. Thanks again they were so much fun and much appreciated.

I didn't want to use random.org this time so I've decided to print out all the comments, toss them in a basket and hand pick. Even though I've wasted half a forest, it's more fun this way.

And the winner is Elle! She wrote:

Hi Yvonne,

Thanks,
Elle

Now I'm a bit confused as Elle Tweeted earlier that she was happy with her received copy of Appartements de filles à Paris. Can Elle look into the future? This is so weird ...

Update: ha ha silly me. Elle bought a copy of Petits appartements à Paris. Oh all these Paris titles, very confusing ...

I want to say Thank You to all my loyal costumers who shopped for Paumes books ever since I opened shop in April 2008. I'm not such a great track keeper but I've sold hundreds of books to parts as far as Thailand, Singapore, Mexico and Australia and I'm super grateful for your trust and loyalty. There has not been one missing order in the past year and even though sometimes we were pinching our bottoms tight, being scared that some books just didn't make it across the pond, all went well in the end.

Since March 2009 I've noticed that sales have dropped and that has all to do with the financial crisis we're all currently in. Because of the uncertainty I've been a bit careful with buying stock and because of that shipping has been a bit slower. You've all been rock stars for not complaining, mailing or being impatient. I think I have the best costumers ever. Thank you again.

I've noticed that sales have gone up a bit again and I do believe that now is the time not to hold your money but to spend. If we all say things are better, they will be.

To reward, and to pamper a bit in these weary times, I'd like to give a book away to one of you. You can pick between one of the three new titles all you have to do is leave a comment and tell me which one you'd pick.

London Ateliers

San Francisco Kitchens

or Appartements de filles à Paris.

I'll draw a winner in a week, Wednesday June 17th, and make sure to put in some lovely other bits and pieces.

I also want to say thank you to all the lovely people who have been supporting and promoting my shop.

I have a bit of a strawberry thing and lately I've been making lots of desserts whit strawberries in them.

Today I made some strawberry pastries using frozen puff pastry.

What you need:

Frozen puff pastry
1 egg
Crystal sugar
Strawberries

How to prepare:

If the pastry isn't already a square, cut a bunch of squares. Whisk the egg in a bowl and paste some on the pastry. Dice strawberries and put a tablespoon in each pastry square. Fold them so you get a triangle. Paste egg on the outside. Sprinkle crystal sugar over the egg and put in a preheated oven at 200°C. Bake until they are brown - aprox. 15 minutes.

Now the weather is so nice we've moved from working indoors to outdoors. We are planting a garden from scratch. Only the trees were here and probably have been for the past 113 years.

I've started a tumblr blog for inspiration.

Please do not fall of your chair, you're not losing your mind, you haven't stranded on a different website that looks at lot like mine. It's true and yes ... I did two posts in one day ... it's almost scary.

I just want to tell you about what's going with the house and me and the garden and the mess and the really filthy cat, who's turning my bedding black right this second. We're fine, all is fine and 8 months after we've started this project we're still married and quite happy with one another, we still don't want a baby, I still want a dog, Bo still doesn't - we'll have rabbits instead and next year, when the back garden is done, we'll have chicken. We thought we have done so little but when one of my mum's friends told me how impressed he is by how much work we've done and quoted this amazing line I'm going to tell everyone because it's so good; "you've done an awful lot of work but because you still have to do an awful lot of work it seems you haven't done nothing" Brilliant! This man is brilliant and I'll start to phone him weekly for words of wisdom. Last night they cleaned up the whole front garden and now I have to decide what to do with it, the hard task. We have a fantastic working kitchen and all my pots and pans and things are in place an already cooked some delicious meals. only we need doors, quite a lot of them. The kitchen cupboard, Bo made, needs doors and the toilet needs a door. Also the kitchen doors need to be fixed and I have to make curtains When all that is done my kitchen will be revealed on an amazing website for the first time. I'm really excited!

PS: click on the image and it will take you to Flickr where most questions will or are be answered.

I did a swap with Nina the other week because I was swooning over this cup.

It's a great cup for holding pens, flowers and it even goes with Cath Kidston bowls. You can buy a whole bunch of great stuff in Nina's Etsy Shop and she really does need the money.

Thank you Nina :o)

I have finally finished the bird mobile I intended to make last July ... JULY!!! Time sure travels fast.

You can find the pattern for the birds at Spool. They also have a fun flickr group where you can see other bird mobiles.

Because I wasn't able to do any sewing for the past six months I started crocheting like mad. It's such a good thing to do while you do another thing. I'm all about multitasking. I don't like to be 'just' on the phone chatting. In a regular phone conversation of approximate an hour I have done the washing up, laundry folding and a sanitary stop (cleaned that up a bit) or I have painted one door or crocheted one pillow. I also crochet while I watch television because that's one activity that's so useless, sitting down on the sofa watching something. The amount of work I can singly process watching television is amazing.

For the past six months I have been crocheting afghans (I haven't finished) and these pillows.

They've become my absolute favorite thing to crochet as I can mix all kind of colors and because they are done in no time. They've actually become an addiction and most of my friends own one or two because I just kept making them, and still do. So I've decided to sell some in my abandoned Etsy shop.

I'll be adding 7 or 8 pillows on Tuesday April 21st to the Esty shop.

My other shop, the bookshop, is back to cheaper prices. I've been begging Paumes to let me decide my own retail price and not use the one that most shops are using. And they are allowing me to set my own price again - yay!! To celebrate this fantastic news (because I was about to close shop) I give all readers of my blog a 5% discount. Use code sfkitchens in the shopping basket.

On your way out don't forget to order the fabulous new book San Francisco Kitchens.

Easter was good. Now I need to get on with some projects.

* I'm crocheting and sewing again.
* I'm in contact with Paumes to get the book prices down.
* I'm exercising.
* I'm up way past my bedtime.

I hope your Easter was good too.

Goodnight xox

It's good to have my mum over as she reminds me of all the holidays where I'm free to go a bit decoration crazy. Christmas I remember, as it's my favorite time of the year, but all the other catholic holidays I forget. It's also because supermarkets and stores start selling Easter stuff in February. To me Easter starts when there are chocolate eggs for sale.

So I had to do some last minute decorating as my brother and his girlfriend (hello Themar and Suzanne) will be here for Easter brunch on Sunday. Now our kitchen is almost complete (spot the messy fireplace and oh, there's no door to the loo) so I had to improvise as this is the only pretty place in our home to eat.

More Easter stuff this weekend.

Hello, I'm back - finally.

It's been a hectic 8 months since we've moved here. This house is really something, each time we start a job it turns into about a thousand other jobs. Like the floor job I did in the sunroom, it turned out to a complete disaster. THE HORRIBLE FLOOR MAN, as he's know in my house, decided to seal the top layer of the concrete floor with polyester. This is quite fantastic if you want to have a cool floor that doesn't show wear, doesn't get dirty and doesn't let anything get in ... white paint included!!

I was rather pleased with the result I showed you in March to discover 8 hours later that the paint came off faster as it did to apply it. I could scrape it off like butter. A lot of products, tears, blood, sweat, money and threatening phone calls to THE HORRIBLE FLOOR MAN later we came to the conclusion that we had to take the perfect top layer of the floor off. I phoned another floor man and he diamond stripped the whole floor. Straight after that I painted the floor again and it stayed put ... for just a little while. After my first floor mopping the floor went sticky and the paint went all yellowy weird. Turns out that the actual concrete floor under the removed top floor didn't dry out completely so that's why it's sticky.

This is the sunroom today. The floor seems perfectly white but don't let the pretty picture fool you because the floor is sticky like hell - if hell is sticky and if hell exists.

I'll have to wait for the concrete to dry and than I'll sand and paint it again. I know for sure it will turn out to be ok but arrrggghh ... all the unnecessary work because of THE HORRIBLE FLOOR MAN!!

Just on the other side of the wall I'm setting up my kitchen.

This is my loo view :o)

I just want to let you know that you can keep track of me over at Twitter. Yes, I've been caught by the bug too. It's like Crocs isn't it? In a couple of months everyone is using Twitter, including my mother in law and we'll be so fed up with it. But for now it's quite fun ;o)

Just quick to let you know I'm hosting a fab giveaway on my Lifestyle blog. You can get a free lamp from Artemide or Droog!!!

I'll be back again to full time blogging as from next week. I'm so sorry for neglecting this place but man alive I've been through some crazy 6 months.

I was supposed to paint the floor of the sunroom in the same color as the basement floors as that was agreed with Bo. He thinks it's a ridiculous idea to paint the kitchen and sunroom floors white because we don't have a boot room and the kitchen or the sunroom is the first room you walk in when you come from the garden. In a way I know he's right and point will be proven when I start yelling and bickering that there's mud on the floors but ... who cares now? I want my white floors!!

So what I did to prevent Bo changing my mind and having more endless discussions in which he of course is right, I phoned the paint shop and let them mix my All White in concrete paint and told them my husband would pick them up later.

I might regret this but for now I don't care.

These are the tools I use: a felt roller on a stick (so you can roll the paint out instead of using a brush - I don't like brush strokes and this is a really speedy solution), a brush for the sides, a paint roller bucket to dip the roller in, a piece of wood to stir the paint, concrete paint and my iPod - can't paint without the iPod.

I started by sanding the floor, gave it a good hoover and mopped it clean with hot water and a bit of ammonium. Next I started to paint the sides of the upper left wall and the first 3 corners with a brush, then I dipped my roller in the paint and started to apply the paint as if I'm cleaning the floor. You have to make sure that you spread the paint out evenly. Always work to a point where you can get out easily and where there's enough space to end.

45 minutes later it looks like this.

It's like a super blaster sunroom now!!

I need to apply another coat, paint the skirting boards, put up the skirting boards and I'm ready to start decorating although I don't have a clue what to do with it yet!

I've been whooshing around and making the streets and roads of my local area unsafe!

I've been postponing getting a driving licence for the past 10 years. With all my traveling around in my late teens and early twenties I never got round to complete my driving lessons because I was never in a country long enough (or legally) to go through the whole progress. I've been relying on Boris for the last 10 years and my British provisional driving licence which is very illegal outside the UK. Boris never really minds being my personal chauffeur but with us living in Belgium these days and because I still have a lot of jobs to do, errands to run and people to meet in The Netherlands it's becoming some sort of a handicap.

So for the last 3 weeks I've been on this crash course of 20 hours driving split over 2 hours almost daily at one of our local driving schools. With these intense 20 hours of training I'm allowed to drive on my own and it allows me to take my exam within 18 months starting after 2 months. So I'll have 2 months to practice on my own and than I'll take my exam.

I'm really excited about this and I keep telling myself that at 34 I'm proud that I finally did this. I've been driving around in Carnival chaos traffic all day yesterday and did quite well. Today I want to go to the swimming pool, do grocery shopping, plant shopping and tub trug shopping - we're going to be so bankrupt with me having access to a car!

I've also been busy painting the sunroom and I've been really busy ordering Bo and Jos (our previous, previous, previous neighbor who keeps helping us fixing up houses. He asked if we could move to Spain the next time) around in the kitchen. There are actually 3 cupboards put up and a dishwasher. Nothing works but I'm already ecstatic as I know in 2 weeks everything will work and I'll be over the moon.

After all my shopping driving trips today I'll sand the sunroom and start to apply the first coat of paint. I've picked All White by Farrow & Ball - our new home sponsor. I sometimes wish this was real-life. We could have Cath Kidston sponsor us, Farrow & Ball, Dove, M&M's, Boden, Lotus Toilet paper. Think of it!

So what have I been doing in my new sewing room? ... not much, time won't allow me as I have to paint the kitchen and garden room floors and doors - Bo's in charge of ceilings and walls.

I've managed to do some stamping and made the linen pillow using some sticky foamies I cut out and stuck on an acrylic block. I had some white textile paint left over and used a roller to get it on the foamies and pressed it here and there on to the fabric. The round crocheted pillow is actually inspired by Jane's post only I made mine smaller and more puffy as I wanted it to look like a cake. I started a ring of 6 chains, and made 12 double crochets, after that I just went round and round. I'll come back to this post later and tell you what I've done but I don't want to disturb BooBoo because by now she's snoring her head off.

What a historical day .. oh my .. CNN on all day .. the sun is shining .. only another two hours .. it's so exciting!

Did you see how I tried to make an American flag there with my new fabric stash .. impressive eh?

The sewing room is almost done. I only need to paint the heating pipes, put chicken wire in front of the windows (because I'm scared frogs will get in) and find a cute free standing cast iron radiator because I find it too cold with just the pipes.

Most of the furniture in this room is new and from Ikea. As this house is three times bigger as our previous house, we are in desperate need of furniture. Now I'm not one for buying everything in one day (can't even afford that) because I like rooms to evolve. I already had the EXPEDIT bookcase but bought some extra drawer inserts to house all my yarn. I bought the MALM chest of drawers, the two MELLTORP dining tables for my sewing machines and the table top for the VIKA ARTUR trestles.

I planned all the stuff I wanted to be in this room in advance by sorting out and preparing boxes in another room. This way I only had to move everything in.

The radiator will be under this spool rack. I used Elephant's Breath floor paint by Farrow and Ball for the floors. For people in The Netherlands and Germany Forel from Histor will match perfectly and you should get it mixed in the Histor concrete paint.

It was pure practical to start to renovate the basement first because so much stuff can go in there. The room next to my sewing room is the Bo's tool room and where the combi-kettle is. The first corridor is used for storage (vases, pots & pans) and the second corridor will be for my shop. There are still two uncompleted rooms on the other side that hold wood we need for building and one where we keep junk. We also really like to work in pairs, like we are doing the kitchen the same time as the basement. The kitchen will be done plastering tomorrow so while that dries we can work in the basement. After the kitchen is finished we'll work on the TV room and my office as they are next door. Next we'll be working on our bedroom and the bathroom and so on.

I'm in love with this room and I think today will be the first day I actually get a chance to play in it.

I'm really honored to be in the top 100 list of "The Homies" at Apartment Therapy. Thank you for those who put in a good word for me, you are sweethearts!!

The floor of the basement is drying really quickly, I'm going to move in furniture this week - whoooooo!

Happy 2009!

We didn't celebrate last night instead we painted our dungeon aka the basement of the house.

I now totally understand how people like Dutroux can hide people in their homes without other people finding out. Our house has a typical Belgium basement where you can easily house a small family of immigrants or some kids. People in Belgium don't fuss with their neighbors. The houses across our street never show any activity. Last night, during the fireworks, I got excited to see a little boy run out of the house but that was just for a fraction of a second. So in other words, god knows what people are hiding behind those drawn curtains.

This is the second corridor in our basement, there are two in total with on each side two rooms. The door on the right is the door to my sewing room, the door to the left is going to be for storage. There's another door to another room and to a blocked passageway to the old brewery in the storage room. It's all really scary but white paint and some Cath Kidston floral fabric will do the trick.

This is what my sewing room looks like today. This is what it looked like a couple of weeks ago.

The floor is going to be painted in a sandy color and the heating pipes will be white too. Those holes in the walls are vents and will be covered with something pretty in cast iron.

We went for a shopping trip to Ikea last week to get some furniture for this room. It now depends on how fast the floors will dry before I can start moving all the furniture in. I get so ecstatic knowing that by the end of this month I'll be able to put things where they're going to be for a long time. To know that if I enter this room my sewing machines will be waiting for me, that I know in which drawer the good scissors are. Also this time next month I might have a working kitchen ... the thought of a working kitchen ... well let me spare you the details.

I used Farrow & Ball's Pointing (no. 2003) for all the walls and doors.