And Sledgehammer of course.

So yesterday I decided that I wanted to show her how they are made.

I have never made one but thought that the easiest way to explain must be to make a short simple version.

So we took some photos of her flipping through 1-2-3 and then we animated them via Gickr.com

It was quite fun, and I am pretty sure Viola will be wanting to make more of them in the future.

After they have taken their kids to school and daycare, in the morning, they return home, make themselves a cup of coffee and go downstairs to the studio basement and start working. And of course the dog Arne tags along to the cool basement where he has his own little nest. The basement, however, will not be covered by this slideshow, I will post it in a separate slide.

The house is built in 1937, designed by Edvin Engström. This family moved in 2004 to find the house in very good shape. The person living there before them was actually the daughter of the original builder of the house. Underneath the linoleum carpet they found beautiful wooden flooring in perfect condition. All the walls got a fresh coat of white and the kitchen was left untouched. The bathroom, however, got redone and the garden needed  a loving hand.

Like myself this couple like to buy a lot of toys for themselves, not only for the kids. They seem to love Tim Burton, who´s characters are found all over the house.
But best of all is this family´s passion to create and build things and that is seen all over this house.

Like the customized i phone docking station that Rikard made out of an old transistor radio. Or the wooden R2D2 or the amazing tree house in the garden. I was so inspired by this creative couple and I think you will be to.
Enjoy!

Click the image below for the whole slideshow or the small thumbnails for single photos.
Related posts: CharlieCharlie´s dollhouse click here! Rikard´s brother and family´s visit AprillAprill click here! And Studio-basement sooon here!

So tune in again tomorrow for more on this home…

Good Night

Hello everybody.

I am working on a new visit for you. The home of the family behind the company Charlie Charlie.  They live and work in a really nice house outside of Stockholm. Going through the photos I found the family´s dollhouse and decided it deserved a post of it´s own. So here it is.

Now our goal is to redo part of the house and make it warmer for the cold winters
but we havn’t decided on when this is going to happen.

We havn’t made up our minds for the past years.

This year I simply couldn’t stand the brown, dirty- feeling of a kitchen
so I put in 2 days of work and about 800 kronor (100 dollares) worth of material.

The result you can see below.

I painted the cabinets in one of my favourite colors. Alcro Ad Isglass.
It has this 50′ feel about it. Not blue, not green, not grey but like beautiful eyes -all of them together.

The other walls got my favourite shade of pink. A dirty kind of pink.
Matchable with every color I like. A true beauty!
NCS: S2010-r10b

On top of the old vinyl flooring which was used as protection from the water (stänkskydd), I simply
attached dotted oil cloth (oh chocking - oil cloth an dots!  Very inventive Isabelle).
I just used some white small nails to attach it which blended with the dots.

Then I ran around the house for some odd paintings and a beautiful mirror.
I still have to find a good carpet to cover up the ugly vinyl flooring.

One of the paintings my kids cousin made.
A stencil from this photo. He is 13 and was testing stuff out. I love it.
Beppes T-shirt comes from Jennys store - you can buy it here. (click, click).

Ciao, ciao from the Swedish woods!

Remember - just a little bit of color and effort can change a lot!

Beppe enjoys his first summer.

Typical for midsummer is strange weather. Still june. Hot and cold. And always rain and sun.
The big midsummer issue is always - if to set the table outside or inside?
Mostly we run in and out. With the food, tables, chairs, decoration and everything else.
Quite a funny picture. Swedish people carrying things inside outside then inside again.
And looking up to the sky praying to the weather God to behave.
We celebrate summer who not always care to show up.

These are some of the things we carried outside… Enjoying a couple of hours chill time in the sun.
Before the rain.

In the afternoon we went to the festivities of the village next to ours.
It starts with loads of strong men raising the decorated pole.

We are celebrating in
Leksand. Leksand has a slogan - The capital of midsummer.
It is very traditional and beautiful.
Just look at these dresses.

Next year I have to try it!

When the pole is in position it is dancing time.

Here I am doing the dance:
The small frogs are funny to watch. (It is true - this is what we sing).
Another one is called three little ladys are going to the market.
(Strange enough this is before everyone gets pissed)

Sun and rain it is.
At midnight the day had a perfect endning with pink and a rainbow!

Now all the sweedes can talk about is that we are heading towards darker times again…

This morning I woke up of the sun flooding trough my window.
I thought that maybe not all of you know that swedish summertime equals sun aorund the clock!

At 04.45 this morning this is what it looked like.

That’s summer night time in Sweden for you foks’!

Well nother moring maybe I cn get my ass out of the house and take even nicer snaps for you all!
xxx

They are 150×150cm.
So I made the back out of black and white dotted oilcloth
(the same as for the Stokke chair cushions) from Ikea.
Since I don’t really know if it washable (I realised it to late)
I would recomend to make it white some you know you can wash.

(Ok, I couldn’t fint the oil cloth at Ikeas homepage but one of our readers did (thank you!)
The fabric is  called Lialotta and supposedly washable in 40 degrees.
The thing is that I made another pacifier string to Beppe with some leftover oil cloth and
it just happened to get washed by accident
- I found that a lot of the black color dissapeared in the wash.
But lets cross fingers that it will not with this blanket!)

The fabric on top is made by Lotta Khulhorn for Ikea (fabric is called Malena - very cheap).

I made it as a classic bed sheet so you can tke out the blanket inside and wash the sheet.
It ws cheaper to buy two of Ikeas blankets as a filling blanket then to buy cotton wool/wadding!