My homes are funny things, I sit in them and look around in them and than all of a sudden they tell me what I need to do. This new home told me to use black. So I've started to use black. What do you think?

Ingrid even sneaked in some black yesterday and I just didn't want to give it back to her.

I've bought the botanical rose poster from The Evolution Store, the chestnut seller closed her Etsy account and the tree chalkboard is from here. The rusty Y was a gift from Marné many moons ago.

The TV room so far. The walls are a bit empty and it quite echoes in the room, which freaks the BooBoo out, but I'm pleased with it so far. A room always needs to grow on me and over time I'll add, remove and replace stuff.

This is what the room looked like when we bought the house. We took all the old plaster off and the wood ceiling, replaced all electricity, made a new ceiling, re-plastered, took the carpet out and painted the wood boards, made a new windowsill, new radiator and that's about it. The ceilings are 3,40mtr high which makes me look like a gnome with my 1,64mtr.

I used Loom by Histor (S 1002-Y50R) for the walls and All White Estate Eggshell by Farrow & Ball for the all the woodwork. For the floor I used Sigma S2u primer and Sigma S2u Satin for the top coat. I didn't use the recommended S2u Gloss for the floor as you'll end up with a mirror compared to the F&B Estate Eggshell with only a 20% sheen level. If you're in Germany, Belgium or The Netherlands and you find F&B paint too expensive, try the new Histor One as it's fabulous.

You can find more info on the stool and cupboard in my previous TV room post.

I love to crochet while I watch TV so I've made myself a little corner. The bunny and bird vase are by Joanna Mendicino.

I'll shoot some more pictures as the light outside is getting a bit better, this is the darkest room of the house. I'm really ready for spring as this winter is taking quite long.

It was September 2009 when Nina and I met Ingrid for the first time and on that same day Nina gifted me this plate, known in my home as 'The Nina Plate'. I've been meaning to photograph it and send it to Nina, to show off, for ever and never got around to do it as 1. I've been living in my car for the past few months and 2. because of bad lightning.

Today I got my hopes up as the sun is out and she makes my kitchen so bright and shiny. That's why I devote a blog post to 'The Nina Plate' and show off my new kitchen cupboard doors I'm dead happy with. Later today they'll have glass too as I can now just grab everything inside without actually opening the doors, but you can't see that.

I'm off to play around in the kitchen a little more. And also in my study as we found some amazing old tiles for my fireplace ... oh and ... crap the sun is out, I must go outside.

Will be back more often, I promise and try to keep away from the car ;o)

Happy 2010!!

This is what I did over the holidays.

I'll be writing, telling about color numbers, places to buy and showing more during the week as I'm still unpacking and painting. But damn I love my study so far.

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.

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?

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 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.

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)

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.

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.

I've made it! I'm in Belgium pretty much settled. I have to say that one adapts to a new home routine quite quickly. As the electricity network in the the house is quite a mess I can't do chores at the same time. For example when I run the washing machine I cannot hoover, do the ironing or run the tumble dryer. So I have to do everything in turns. Wash first, than dry and than do the ironing. I've been doing 3 days over 5 loads of laundry and saved all the ironing for today. The Bo is going to trigger the fuse box before the builders start this Saturday because I'm afraid we'll be out of power constantly if they use heavy machinery. Oh and we now have hot water - amen!!

We also mastered quite an organized living, as we do not have a running kitchen yet.

This is our current home plan. We set up an area to cook, eat, sit and work in the living and dining room. The office is under renovation as we found out that under two retro ceilings a true gem is hiding. It's a beautiful ceiling with 3D ornaments of birds and flowers. We're going to fix that up as the previous owners (we are the third owners of this house, the house is from 1896 so that's pretty unique) brutally smashed beams through the plaster leaving horrible holes. The piano room (the previous owner was a musician and kept that room for his grand piano) is currently our storage for stuff that needs to go to the cellar. And on Saturday the builders will start to work on a proper kitchen, a cloakroom and on the heating and electricity in the kitchen and conservatory.

This is what it should look like in a couple of months.

And this is how we are living right now.

I've made a temporary kitchen out of an old table and Bo hung a shelf for me because I can't go without a shelf.

And this is where we sat last night for the first time and watched Sweeny Todd on DVD - not such a great movie to watch on your first movie night in a new house. Beside that, great GREAT movie!!

Finally I can break the silence with some official news about my future!

About a week and a half ago we returned home from Sweden to realize (and accept) that we can't just make it financially to make such a big move. The companies in Småland Bo talked with are just too small to work with and because we only want to move to Småland and don't want to move to Stockholm we can't move to Sweden after all. It's still a dream we have, so one day we'll realize it.

Because this Sweden plan is been playing for a few years and because our focus was so strong on this big move we had to come up with a plan B in a really, really short time. But as things always work like magic for us, that wasn't a problem. On the day of the catastrophic news that our big yellow house was sold a newspaper with realty adverts landed on our doormat. As we have a NO un addressed advertising sticker on our letterbox we were quite pissed off that it found our doormat but after browsing the houses listed on the pages our eyes dropped on a house in Belgium, just across the border of The Netherlands for a ridiculously low price. So a week later we planned a viewing and were instantly in love. Just before we left for Sweden I placed a bid and when we returned home from Sweden with the sad news of us not moving there we closed the deal on the Belgium house. How odd is that?

As from Friday we are the official owners of a real gentleman's house in Lommel Belgium. You may think what's a gentleman's house. In The Netherlands (and the Dutch part of Belgium where we're moving to) they call a gentleman's house a house that's typically made of brick with a front door and hall in the center and a living room on one side and an office on the other side.

Meet our new new old house.

As we have to move out of our home on the 28th of August we're going to sign the papers for the new house at the end of July to replace the oil tank that's under the ground, and the heating supply for the house, with cleaner natural gas. We also have to build a new kitchen and cloakroom and after that we're slowly going to renovate the house because it's big and I don't want my husband in a mental home.

I did all the grieving already for not moving to Sweden in my time away from blogging and feel recharged, ready for a new adventure and for blogging about the new new old home.