An art tour of my home (Bloggers Art Gallery)

Hi everyone! Kezzie came up with this idea of a kind of bloggers art gallery – basically a link up to allow bloggers to share the art they have in their homes. The interpretation of “art” was left completely open – paintings, sculptures, carvings, glassware, a beautiful patchwork quilt. Whatever art means to you. I thought it sounded fun so I decided to join in.

For my post I wanted to a kind of virtual tour, as if I was actually walking through our flat with you telling you about the things we have on display.

The first thing you see when you come in the door is one of my favourite pieces in the whole flat! My cousin sent me this for Christmas 2019 and she informs me it’s by an artist local to her in Shrewsbury. Regular readers will surely remember it as we got it framed only recently.

If we turn to the right and continue down the corridor, the next thing we come across is two decorative tiles, hanging above the cabinet where we keep towels and other things. I bought both of them years ago on Dawanda – the former German version of Etsy. The cat one is a copy of a piece by Rosina Wachtmeister, an Austrian artist. I think they’re made using serviettes but don’t ask me how!

Appropriately, the fox card is actually from Kezzie herself! It was far too pretty to put away so it lives there. The gap on the left usually contains a framed photo of my godson but I took it down before taking this picture… privacy and all that.

Some of you may remember that where the red panda now hangs used to be home of a fox that was drawn for me by blogger Alison. Never dear, Mr Fox is still around! He’s just moved further down the corridor to be with a second piece of zentangle inspired artwork that Alison sent me in memory of our twins.

Having reached the end of the corridor, we now enter the bedroom, where we only have one thing on the wall (I need to do something about that!). This hedgehog is a digital print made up of lots of triangles. I got it from a charity auction in aid of PostPals.

hedgehog

Next door to the bedroom is the spare room. In there we have something that isn’t art as such, but we found interesting enough to frame. It’s a very cool jigsaw. (It’s also a pain to photograph thanks to the reflection from the window on the other side of the room!)

Exiting the spare room, we find a very important piece of art to our immediate left – a gift from my godson. I’ve removed his name from the photo, but the date shows he was almost 3 when he painted it.

There’s no art in my office so we’ll walk straight past that door and continue down the other side of the corridor. I won this bee in the same PostPals auction as the hedgehog.

bee print

We’re back to other end of the corridor now. To the left of the front door is a shoe cabinet, which houses a watercolour postcard I bought the first time I went to Paris. The little bowl was a gift from a friend in Luxembourg – would you believe it’s made of paper? And obviously the little painted chalice is from Rome.

On the wall above the postcard, next to the living room door, we find a peregrine falcon. My dad’s girlfriend’s dad painted it for me years ago!

Into the living room next, where we turn left along the bookcases and find this poster of Paddington Bear. I’m not sure whether it’s strictly “art” but I love it!

Paddington Bear

Three pieces reside on top of the cabinet that houses our wine glasses. Jan’s sister drew the gorilla. The two cross stitches are mine – Death of Rats was a gift from me to Jan years ago and he gave me the Me to You bear kit, which I then stitched.

Above the TV is a shelf that’s full of DVDs, and also houses two little foxes. Both were painted for Jan by his sister and I adore them!

Below the shelf, to the left of the TV, is a cabinet, and on top of that cabinet there are two cards featuring artwork by my aunt. She does them as Christmas cards, and these two are the most recent. I have others that aren’t on display, including a koala from when they lived in Australia. I wonder if you can guess where they live now?

Also on that cabinet are a painted stone and two postcards, all by Jan’s sister. The stone was a recent gift to Jan, the postcards are older.

Moving around the room, on either side of the window we have two things that we had framed years . Inn the left is a print of a Rosina Wachtmeister painting (she of the cats in corridor – she does a lot of cats, but this one doesn’t feature any).

To the right of the window is something that was actually an advert for an event at a French cultural centre where Jan used to help out. He liked it so much that he wanted to get it framed. I’m not actually sure what it’s supposed to be.

Above the sofa is a poster of a painting by Edward Hopper. Jan has owned it for years, I think since before we even met. He likes Edward Hopper… I’m quite honestly indifferent to him.

Finally we head into the dining room part of our open plan living/dining/kitchen area, where we have a frame containing some mini cross-stitch motifs that I stitched for myself years ago.

And that’s the end of my tour. We don’t have any sculptures or anything cool like that, there’s no wall space in the actual kitchen area and we don’t have any art in the bathrooms.

I’m looking forward to seeing what kinds of art other people have in their homes. Once the various posts are up I’ll add the links here in case you want to see them too.

Alison’s post.

Ally‘s post.

Anca’s post.

Hazel‘s post.

Ivana‘s post.

Julia‘s post.

Kezzie’s post (host).

Mike‘s post.

MK‘s post.

Louise‘s post.

Ros‘s post.

Sophie‘s post.

Sheila‘s post.

Thrift Deluxe‘s post.

Vix‘s post.

Wembley‘s post (on Facebook).

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Renovation: the (almost) finished article

Hello friends! I took some photos of our kitchen and bathrooms the other day since I thought I should probably share those with you before all our stuff was back in and everything returned to its usual chaos. There are still a few bits to be done, but at least now things are usable!

Last week someone came by, took out one of the kitchen cupboards and replaced it with another one… we had for some reason been given one without an LED light but apparently there actually was supposed to be a light on the bottom of that cupboard as well (all the other top cupboards have them). How the builders didn’t notice or, if they in fact did notice, why they went ahead and installed the cupboard anyway is a mystery to me. But there we are. We also noticed the other day that the handle on one of the cupboards is misaligned – all the other ones are in the middle – you may see which one on the photos. So we’ll have to inform the construction manager about that. Also, the company that was installing the glass panels in the kitchen were only able to install one of them (luckily the one behind the hob so I can cook!). They came the one time I wasn’t home – I was away for precisely 1.5 hours because of an appointment – and left a note saying the work couldn’t be completed because the dimensions they’d been given were wrong. *Sigh* We’re also supposed to get a sliding door for the kitchen at some point. And one bathroom the glass wall for the shower is still missing, so currently we’re showering in the bath. Since that also doesn’t have a curtain (apparently a curtain pole will not be provided – that’s our responsibility. If we’d known that from the start we could have kept the old one!) “showering” involves sitting down in the bath so the sides can protect the rest of the bathroom from water. Why must everything be complicated? But anyway, you didn’t come for a wall of text, I’m sure. You want photos!

Apologies for the quality of these – the lights are really bright and I don’t really know how to use my camera properly, so yeah…

Bathroom 1, now with washing machine and dryer! (Click photos to enlarge)

Bathroom 2:

Kitchen:

I wanted to end this with a link to where you could see how the bathrooms and kitchen looked before the renovation, but apparently I never posted any pictures so the best I can do is say check out the Photo an Hour tag. There you can at least get an idea of the lovely eighties brown of the tiles, etc. I definitely much prefer white!

A Photo an Hour: 17 November 2018

Believe it or not, I was actually up before 8 a.m. on Saturday! One of Jan’s choirs was having rehearsals over the weekend so a girl from the choir who lives in Geneva was staying out our place… although Jan isn’t even here right now (he’s in the US doing a three-week orientation for his new job). Obviously I couldn’t leave her to breakfast alone, so I was up. I don’t have photographic evidence of that fact though because I had forgotten it was photo an hour day until I went on Twitter at quarter to ten. So my daily photos start with 10 a.m….

10 a.m. Shower time.

11 a.m. Opening my post. Surprise, surprise… I received a book. I also received something much better than a book (yes, such things exist) but that will be addressed in a separate post.

12 noon. Boots on, off out.

1 p.m. In town buying some stuff. It was colder than I expected.

2 p.m. On the bus home. Weird photo, but I couldn’t think what else to do. People kept looking at me!

3 p.m. Jan asked me to scan something for him and this seemed like a good time to do it.

4 p.m. Time for a nice, hot cup of tea.

5 p.m. We recently (finally!) got some desperately needed furniture for my “office” and I’ve been gradually filling it up. At this point I was sorting out some craft stuff.

6 p.m. The desk slowly getting there. No, I don’t want to discuss how bad it looked before I started sorting it. *Shame* The stack of papers on the left is Jan’s though… I refuse to take responsibility for that!

7 p.m. Back in town. The choir had finished its practice and I was meeting my guest for pizza.

I didn’t take any more photos after that… it would have seemed a little rude. Luckily I had an even number 😉 We ate, came home, had a long conversation about books triggered by me trying and failing to fit the ones I had picked up from the public bookcase in the afternoon on my to-read shelves. I lent her a book she’d been wanting to read. Then we went to bed.

A fairly typical Saturday really. Except for once I didn’t have loads of housework to do because I had spent my evenings cleaning in anticipation of having someone to stay.

How was your Saturday?

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On an entirely unrelated note, a couple of days after I came out of hospital, I noticed that some of the leaves on the previously green tree outside our building had started changing colour. I know autumn had technically started over a week earlier, but to me it felt somehow significant… I lost my babies right when the season started to change. Yesterday, it started snowing. I’m not sure I’m ready for another change of season yet. It’s all going so fast!
Tomorrow is our work Christmas meal (the only day between now and Christmas that nobody is off), so I’ll be travelling to Germany in the morning and working there for the day. The last time I was in the office was the day I told my colleagues I was pregnant. The next time I was supposed to be there was the day before I lost the babies. Going there tomorrow, no longer pregnant, is going to be surreal. It has to be done sometime though.

Foxy, foxy

On Friday, I received post from the lovely and talented Alison, aka fatdormouse who blogs over at View from the Teapot, so today I would like to introduce you to Mr Fox.

Mr Fox 1

I am told he is a piece of Zantangle Inspired Artwork. If you don’t know what that means, Alison has a great guide to Zantangles and zentangling right here on her blog.

I went and bought a frame yesterday, so here is Mr Fox all established in his new home:

Mr Fox2

Apologies for the weird shadows and things – he’s hanging in the corridor, which has no natural light (well, a tiny bit from other windows if we leave all the doors open) and that’s just the way the ceiling lamps shine on him. We thought he would fit nicely there because we already have another animal picture in the corridor (drawn by my dad’s partner’s dad – how complicated is that!) and also he’s now one of the first things anyone who comes in the door to our flat will see.

Thank you very much Alison. He is wonderful and I love him!

A corner of my world

Ages and ages ago Kezzie wrote a post in which she showcased a corner of her house (if you don’t read her blog you really should!). I loved the idea of showing a tiny piece of your life and resolved to do it as well, as soon as I found a corner worth photographing. I finally settled on the corner of the living room by the bookcases, since what could sum up my life more accurately than the place the books live (plus the only other non-boring corner contains a photo of me and Jan, and he doesn’t want his photo on the blog!). I have called my post “a corner of my world” since we don’t live in a whole house and “a corner of my flat” didn’t sound good.

corner

So, what do we see here? The bookcase, of course. It’s one of four, actually – you can just see the second one beside it. Disorganised books, some in double rows, because despite having four bookcases I have more books than space!

The top of the bookcase is cut off a little, so here’s a closer look:

top-shelf

The sheep is really a doorstop, but he’s currently holding up books. His name is Sidney (nothing to do with me – that was the name on is label). I received the card on the left for my birthday a few years ago and it’s too cute to put away in a box! It’s from my godson and his parents.

You may have spotted something in front of the books on the second shelf down, so here’s another close-up:

bookshelf

The hedgehog in the middle is called Quilly (again, nothing to do with me!). The other two don’t have names – unless the Me to You Bear has one that I’m unaware of? Pigs are lucky in Germany – you give them out at New Year. Often they’re made of marzipan.

The bags on the floor belong to Jan… they contain sheet music for the various choirs he’s in.

The keyboard is also Jan’s (of course – I am clearly not the musical one in this relationship). The stand where you’re supposed to put your music holds various posts and flyers for concerts he has sung in since we moved to Basel.

The rug under the keyboard belongs to Jan as well. It’s old and worn, and one day it shall be replaced with something nicer.

Above the keyboard hangs Paddington – my favourite bear! I always loved him more than Winnie the Pooh (although I obviously enjoyed Winnie’s adventures, too). It’s one of those posters that is made up of the text from the book. Behold:

The close-up photo of the text is a bit blurry – it’s difficult to photograph with the light shining off the glass!

And that’s it. Tell me about one of your corners!

Friday letters (October already?!)

Apparantly my company is one of very few that isn’t closed for the bridge day today… at least judging by how empty my train to work was. It’s been a while since I’ve seen so many free seats! Half of my colleagues were off work, too, but my English colleague wanted to go away for the weekend and I need to save the rest of my holiday for Christmas so it’s business as usual for me…

Walking Past Nice Post Boxes
Pretty post boxes (Photo credit: Urban Combing (Ultrastar175g))

Dear October. I think I’ve said this to every month since July, but how is it you’re here already?! I’m not ready for the tenth month!

Dear Trier. After wanting to visit for about two years, I will finally be seeing you tomorrow. Hurrah!

Dear quiz team. First place… we rock! Same again next month? 😉

Dear boyfriend. I hope we can book a hotel for Austria tonight. 1 November isn’t all that far away…

Dear weather. You’ve been reasonable all week… thanks for sending rain just in time for the weekend!

Dear flat. I like the new arrangement of furniture in the living room. It looks much less crowded! We are also making tentative plans for the spare bedroom and corridor. Exciting stuff 😉

Happy weekend everyone! I hope it’s a good one and the weather is slightly better in your part of the world!

Photobucket

Buying things for the flat makes me happy

Close to Schwetzingen, there is a huge furniture store called Höffner. As we were leaving Schwetzingen on Saturday, Jan suggested for drop by there to see if we could find any of the bits we still need for the flat (I love that I have a boyfriend who’s not only willing to shop for furniture with me but actually suggests it himself!). When I agreed to stay I told him that I wanted to get back to sorting out the flat this year, and he obviously took it to heart.

Here’s what we got:

A cupboard to go under the bathroom sink. Jan had to saw its back legs off so it could go on the raised ledge thing that runs the length of the bathroom.

Bathroom cupboard
Bathroom cupboard

I love how neat the bathroom looks now that our toilertries are inside the cupboard and not lined up along the entire length of the ledge!

I wanted something to store wrapping paper in, so we ended up taking this:

Giant vase? Nah... gift wrap holder!
Giant vase? Nah… gift wrap holder!

I saw a beautiful umbrella stand that would have worked just as well, but I refused to pay €75 for something I planned to store wrapping paper in. (I wouldn’t have paid that if I was going to use it for its intended purpose either!)

This basket now holds all my self-help books:

Basket for books
Basket for books

They were previously stacked up under the bedside table, partly because there’s no room left on the bookcase for them but also because I don’t think every visitor to our house needs to know I have those books. It was difficult to move the pile when I wanted to hoover… now I can just pull out the basket.

A gorgeous table runner, or more fuel for my obession with owls:

Owl table runner
Owl table runner

They had bedding with the same owl on, but only in single bed size which is no goo to us.

Jan also got a frame for a poster of his that refused to stay up with simple blu-tack. It looks much nicer framed anyway!

Not a bad haul for a couple of hours shopping.

Thank god for this beautiful view

As I mentioned in my last post, I decided to work from home yesterday to give my colleagues a break from my coughing and myself a chance to recover.

At work, I regularly share a room with one colleague (there is also a spare computer in our room, which is occasionally used by interns and the like, but usually there are two of us). My colleague has the window seat, while I sit by the door. Occasionally I will look away from whatever translation I’m working on to try to give my eyes a break from the computer screen. Naturally, my gaze tends to be drawn towards the window on these occasions but, being so far away, I can’t really see much – just the top of the building next door. Not that I would anything more interesting if my desk was closer to the window. Our office looks out on a concrete courtyard which is usually full of cars. And because our room is almost the last one in our corridor, we tend not to get much sun in either. In fact, at this time of year we need the light on pretty much all day. So, while working from home, it was quite nice to have something else to look at than the various postcards I’ve stuck above my desk at work. Here is what I currently see outside the window when I look over to it from the computer desk in our spare room:

At that point in time, the sky was completely white with clouds, although there had been some blue sky early in the day. But despite the clouds, there is some sun coming from a place I can’t see, causing the trees to light up in all their autumn glory. The desk in our spare room is also at the opposite side of the room from the window, but the trees are tall enough to be seen from over there. And actually, if I was to go over to the window, the view would consist of a road and tram tracks (plus some grass a little further away), so it may, in fact, be a good thing that the desk is so far away from the window. This way, I only get the nice view (plus, if I am working from home, I’m less likely to be distracted by people watching opportunities. Unless someone starts walking along the roof of the building opposite there aren’t really any people to watch!). Despite the fact that my cough was annoying me a lot, I actually managed to gain some pleasure from gazing out at the pretty coloured trees (during my lunch break, obviously. I did get some work done as well 😉 ).

Have I mentioned recently that I love my flat? 🙂

By the way, the title of this blog is a line from possibly my favourite Tina Dico song, A Room With A View. Here’s the YouTube link for you:

Where’s the magic housework fairy when I need her?

I really am a terrible housekeeper. I can just about manage to keep on top of the worst of it when Jan’s not around, but the minute he goes away somewhere I drop all pretence of being any sort of housekeeper and let the poor flat go to the dogs. Take this week as a case in point. Jan left for America on Friday. Since then I’ve:

– Failed to wash a dish
– Left all our CDs stacked in four messy piles on the living room rug (they usually live on the shelf that fell down)
– Left several tin cans standing around on the kitchen bench because I “didn’t get round to” putting a new ben liner in the bin
-Failed to hoover, despite the fact that the kitchen floor is crunchy and there appears of be dusty/gravelly stuff all over the flat from when I went out to a dusty place on Sunday
– Kept adding more stuff to the pile on the spare bed instead of clearing it ready for people to sleep in it this weekend

Life Is Short
Photo credit: Christina Saint Marche

In fact, the only thing I have done is take down the evil, smelly Biomüll – and I had no choice there. It really was that or be smothered in my sleep by some unsavoury creature. I’ve been meaning to do some cleaning all week, but I was out on Monday and Tuesday, and last night I feel asleep instead. So here I am, it’s Thursday night, I’m meeting some friends after work tomorrow and on Saturday both Jan and (hopefully) some guests are arriving. This is my last chance to get the flat looking semi-reasonable. So what am I doing? Writing a blog post. About housework. But I don’t have a problem with procrastination. Oh no, not me…

All fall down…

I arrived home from work to find my boyfriend (who is home for one day only before flying to America for a week tomorrow) hoovering up soil from our sofa. The shelf we have above the sofa fell down, for no reason whatsoever that we can figure out. Jan says he was in the bedroom at the time, so obviously he had nothing to do with it. As you’ve probably guessed, the sehlf contained (among other things) a plant – hence the soil all over the sofa…. and the rug Naturally the cross stitch I’ve been working on was also on the sofa, and has now been soiled (quite literally!). And the fabric I’m stitching on is, of course, white. I suppose this is a lesson to me about finding a place to keep cross stutch projects that are in progress rather than just leaving them wherever I was working on them last! *sigh* I’m just glad nobody was sitting on the sofa at the time… and that it didn’t happen while I was here alone. If I’d been in bed at the time I would definitely have freaked out! Loud cracks/bangs from the living room from a flat that’s supposed to be empty never bode any good! The boyfriend is currently trying to figure out why the shelf decided to come loose from its attachments, and hopefully put it back, so I’ll go and make us some food. Hopefully whatever he’s doing now will make the shelf stay up at least until he comes home again!