Surreal Georgia

Sofa-Parade

The upholsterer is ready for renovating a lot of our old furniture: There are 6 chairs, 2 sofas, 3 big wing chairs, a modern couch of elements and a stool to be made.

This is the oldest piece of furniture that has to be upholstered, a kitchen sofa from the time my granny married, but maybe it is older. I think that it is about 1900. It is still completely original and it is a shame to remove the fabric, but it has to be done, because there are vermins in the old upholstery. So everything has to be renovated. The upholsterer can do it the same way it was common in 1900, same techniques. But we can't get a similar fabric with the rose garlands. So we have to find another solution that does not destroy the old design.

This is the sofa with the original fabric

I made a pic with similar sofas I found in the internet for showing the upholsterer what I want and what would be the ultimative horror for me:

On the left side of the line there is the "department of horror", on the right side there are examples I like.

This was my idea, but I am very unsure:

I'm no photoshop artist, so my little pic is VERY bad. The idea was using some oliv green fabric, maybe velour, in combination with this fabric for imitating the former garlands:

But I am very afraid that it will look like one of the horror-examples. So maybe I should chose an olive colored velour or velvet or some fabric with stripes like these two examples here:

Velour/velvet

Glossy striped fabric

What do you think? Any ideas?

Life in Wethen

I don't know what there is the matter with me, but I feel totally stressed out, although it actually is a quiet week: Anna is in England for an excursion to famous English gardens, the barn-library-living room is done, the house is clean and tidied up, even the laundry is done and the graves at the cemetery already have got their summer planting yesterday. So I should be content and relaxed.

But it is just the opposite with me. I feel totally stressed out after two days with exams of my pupils. I can't sleep at the moment and my stomach is growling. Maybe I've got some summer desease or ate something wrong. All in all I'm feeling not well at the moment and there are more than 9 weeks ahead until summer break, filled with an immense amount of work in my job. I hope to get some relaxation this weekend, when there is Whitsun. At least I haven't planned anything for these 4 days off.

The weather is cold and rainy, but yesterday evening I found some opportunity for sitting in the sun for a few minutes. I'm planning the last two rooms of thehouse, Anna's kitchen and Anna's dining/living room. As you can see I chose the colors for the rooms: The kitchen is white and blue, the living/dining room in a light beige combined with orange and green tones as accent colors. I'm going to start in two weeks and this time it will go quickly, because the rooms are in good condition and only have to be painted. OK, also new carpets.... The kitchen furniture are already delivered and waiting for being assembled, which will this time be made by a joiner. For next Tuesday I ordered some big trash containers and then I have to dump the old kitchen furniture and a lot of stuff more. For dumping I have planned 4 - 5 days. It will be hard work hauling all the furniture downstairs to the containers.

 

I love the bench in front of our house! It's awesome enjoying the evening sun there.

The weather is cold and rainy at the moment. Not very May-like... There are only short sunny periods.

Cold sunset without red color tones and very tempestuous clouds.

It Has Been A Long Journey

Yes, a long journey, which challenged me in my sknills, force and staying power. But we are on the home straight now.

After a lot of very hard days that made me believe I would never get this project to an end, which made me despaired, which made my bones aching, I finally managed to make a comfortable living room and library out of the barn, which has been used as a storage room for more than two years. I totally underestimated the amount of work that had to be done. The room was full with furniture and stuff and to paint somewhere I always first had to move a lot of stuff. Especially the books, I think they weigh more than one ton, had to be moved 5 or 6 times until I could get them to their final place in the big bookcase.

But now it is done. OK, the curtains at the door leading to the garden are still not there (they have to be sent directly from the UK. The company only sent the curtains for the big window, which once was the barn door.). Also two big wing chairs in Biedermeier style made of cherry wood are still missing, because they are at the upholsterer to get a new upholstery. And a TV is missing, which we are going to buy at our local shop next week. But the rest is done.

Here is an interactive panorama. Click on it and move with your mouse for moving around in the room:

 

Interactive panorama

 

Formerly the barn was a dark room although there is a really wide glass front where there once was the barn door. It has also got another glass door leading to the garden. My parents chose dark colors like dark green and red and brown. Now the room looks totally different with the light cream tones combined with all sorts of light pink color tones. And it looks two times bigger, because we furnished it with only half of the furniture. The glass front is pointing to the south, so there is bright light all the day. 

View from the garden door

The door leading to the garden with my great grandfather's desk from about 1880. The curtains are still not complete. I'm waiting for the cream drapes from the UK.

The big book case (you can't believe how many books are stored in this gigantic book case!) and the sofa taken when I was sitting in my favortite wing chair.

Old sofa from my grandfather

Some wall decoration. The porcelain box was painted by me about 8 years ago when I took part in a porcelain painting class. 

Sideboard with the big old shell my grandparents gave me from time to time, because I wanted to hear hte whispering of the waves of the sea when I took it to my ear. Sweet memories!

One of four showcases with the bird collection of my father

Sofa corner

This is the place for another two wing chairs to complete the sofa. Show case with colored and hand cut glass and some procelain.

This is MY PLACE! The wing chair is gigantic and you need no bed, because it is an excellent place to sleep in. It is perfect for taking a nap! It once was my father's chair. Give me a pot of coffee and I can sit there for hours!

The fireplace!

Again the sofa.

The lamps on the window sill are 43 years old and they look pretty with their new cream silk lamp shades. Formerly they had red lamp shades.

I love crystal lusters...

We can't wait until we buy a new TV. This corner of the room will be perfect for some family time.

The mighty book case....

Painting from my Granny's brother Karl Albracht. In our family are a lot of artists, mostly painters, but also musicians and writers.

Detail of the wallpaper, which directly comes from Cleveland/Ohio.

Statue of Empress Sisi (Elisabeth) of Austria

OK, now the room looks fine, but I am at the end of my tether. My right arm is aching like hell and does not let me sleep of pain. My back is hurting. Yesterday I did not know how to get into my car, how to get out of it again, how to get up the stairs, how to get into my bed and so on. So today there had to be a break! After buying our groceries I decided to have my cup of coffee outside on our new bench in front of the house:

Only a short pleasure, because there was a thunderstorm coming and I went inside helping Anna packing for her England trip, which starts tomorrow.

Anna will come back next Weekend, when there is Whitsun. We both will have a break from renovating until then. But the next weekend after Whitsun I'm going to get started with the last two rooms in the house, with Anna's living room and her kitchen. Yesterday they already delivered the kitchen furniture. So everything is ready for the home straight.

New Project: From the Barn to a Library

Well, one day off and I can't resist starting a new project on our house. This time: The former barn.

Loooong ago: My grandfather in the barn when the house was still a farm. The floor was made of bricks.

Barn after my father made a living room out of it; 1990ies

Three pics of the room how it looked liked shortly after Mom passed away and we started with our house project. The room has been a storage room since then.

I have been already working a full weekend and today on the room and now I proudly present the result. Fanfare!

Hahaha! It looks worse than ever. Like the flat of a person with Compulsive Hoarding Syndrome, in German we call such people "Messies". I'm really proud of my work, what you can fully undestand, can't you!? No, I'm no Messie, it is just because all the stuff that is normally in the wardrobes is stored somewhere and I don't have any space to store it elsewhere. so I have to put it from one edge of the room to another while I am renovating the rooms. The walls and the ceiling are already nearly done and it was the worst work ever, because the ceiling is such high, that I am very afraid standing on the high ladder. Formerly a waggon with hay could drive into this room and the hay could be moved by a pulley through a hole in the ceiling up to the attic from here.

OK, I promise: Next week you hopefully see a progress...

At least I found this old oven door, which will get an extra place:

My Internet Connection Hates Me

There are two stories in our house. In the first story there is a router near the front door. From there we get the signal to the upper story by wireless Lan to a repeater. Our computers in the upper story are connected to the repeater by Lan cables. Everything has been working properly for two years now and is still working perfectly.

The problem is in the first story, in the room directly near the router: Anna's computer is connected to the router via Lan cable. But she mostly can't get any internet connection. First we used another Lan cable, nothing went better. Then we fetched another two computers and tested if the problem is caused by Anna's computer. Nope. Every computer has got the same problem although it is running properly in the upper story. This morning I changed the router and hoped this would be the solution, because the old router once got a full load of gypsum dust 1 1/2 year ago and I thought it might be busted somehow. Nope! Same problem: although we have internet in the upper story at the same time Anna's computer says that the DNS-server wouldn't answer.

Then I tested to connect to the internet via Wlan from Anna's PC, which is only about 4 meters near the router. Same problem: Sometimes she can connect to the internet, sometimes not. It is the same Wlan-signal we use in the upper story with our repeater and while Anna can't connect via this signal we can properly connect in the upper story. We tried it with two different computers, same result.

I don't understand this any more. I don't know what to do.

Is Anna's study bewitched??? Some bad internet-spell? This problem doesn't make any sense.

Any Suggestions?

I sold my other house last October. The buyer bought it after only one tour through the house with my realtor. The second tour was already with his banker to fix the credit as far as I know. He pushed me to get the keys as fast as possible. I emptied the house within only 3 weeks and after handing out the keys by the end of November his clan came from all sides out of the bushes before I could get my feet out of the property.

Now it is April. This was 18 or 19 weeks ago. He still did not move into the house. The rollershutters are always down, nothing has changed apart a hole above the entrance with a cable maybe for a new lamp above the entrance door. The house looks neglected, a bit like a ramshackle hut.

What might have happened? I don't know.

• Maybe he hasn't got enough money for this project and can't move in, because he can't renovate anything? But how can he afford the rent for his flat and the repayment for the house credit? He is not a high earner and only a bit older than Anna. So he could save a lot of money by moving in, even if he furnishes only one or two rooms.
• Maybe he has been totally out in his calculations and has to sell the house again? But there aren't any offers so far. At least I found nothing.
• Maybe he did not buy oil for the heating in time, so all tubes were busted in December?
• Any other suggestions?

Well, I wouldn't care even if he would burn down the house. I never loved this house and I am happy that I could get rid of it and move into our old family home. But I wonder why nobody moves in and I can't think of a plausible explanation. 18 or 19 weeks for 7 rooms is more time you need for moving in when you can save the rent for your flat.

Settling down

Nearly a week now in our new rooms and it still feels VERY new to us. But the normal daily routine and work goes on. New habits must be formed to find everything quickly, but at the moment we still have to think about where something could be stored until we can do anything. I guess this will quickly change within a few days when work is starting again after two weeks of Easter break.

Today there is a lot of paperwork to be done, so I'm working in my new study for the first time. After my computer is moved the day before yesterday I don't have any excuse for not doing paperwork (I hate paperwork) any more. 

At least I have a good coffee to sweeten the work: Look, my coffee pot! And look the letter from a dear friend I found yesterday evening in my mail box! It feels good to be loved.

OK, I think there is no excuse any more for not starting now with my work. Sigh...

Quiet Easter Day

I know, I have been very quiet the last days... It was for several reasons. There was so much work in my job, that I couldn't afford any time for taking pictures or for writing anything. There was a lot of work in my house, too, because we had the goal moving out of our construction camp on Easter. And last but not least I have been sick for about 5 weeks with flu and when I started to feel better I had a surgery last Monday. You see: There happened a lot of things, mostly not too pleasant and partly extremely unpleasant. I'm still recovering from the surgery, but I am doing better from day to day.

Last weekend I started to get some things done in the house. The Easter break started and I felt, that my health grew worse, so I decided to strengthen the wooden floor of tha hallway in the upper story by scewwing another layer of wooden planks on it and layed the last carpet so far there on last Sunday although I already was in a lot of pain. We could get the hallway in the upper story done with the show cases for our mineral collection and pictures and decoration.

But On Monday the pain was unbearable, so I had to see a doctor. After a surgery I came home in the late afternoon. Luckily I had help with putting up the kitchen furniture. A friend was very busy all the day so most of the kitchen furniture were on their place when I came home. Actually it was planned that we both would put up the furniture, but for the rest of the week I was too sick to help, so the friend put them up all alone. He needed nearly four days!

On Friday I was a little better, so Anna and I put in all the kitchen things into the cupboards, cleaned and decorated the kitchen, cleaned the house, moved my bed out of the construction camp, and so on. Yesterday evening we finally reached our goal: We moved out of our construction camp into our new rooms and there are only three rooms left that have to be renovated until summer. We already forgot about how it feels living in several rooms and not always looking for our things between piles of stuff. We already forgot about how good it feels having a dishwasher! Everything is new and we still must practice finding our stuff at once in the right drawer or cupboard, but it feels great!

Happy Easter! Everything is getting better now! Anna has got her Bachelor degree, we moved into our new house, the old house is sold, we are on a really good way! And last but not least my wound is healing!

This morning I went through the house and took a lot of pictures to remember this great moment when we moved into our new rooms:

   

Anna's bedroom:private living room             Anna's bedroom: upholstered bed

   

Upper hallway: old bench                              My bedroom: upholstered bed

   

My bedroom: private living room                 Ree's room (guest room)

   

Bathroom upper story                                  My study

   

Blue parlor                                                     Dining room

   

Anna's hallway, first story                            Anna's study

   

Bathroom first story: bath area...              and toilet area

Hallway first story

(Laundry, garden hallway, Anna's hallway upper story and Anna's bathroom and toilet room are missing)

 

But now I proudly present the kitchen!!!! Fanfare!

Our muscles, our bones are aching. Saturday morning it still looked as if a bomb explodedshortly before, but we managed to get everything done in time. Anna slaved at tidying up everything because I was only partly able to help and needed a lot of breaks.

Because we both couldn't move any more after all this work we decided to have our Easter dinner in a restaurant. It was a good choice. We had lamb fillet with pink pepper sauce, french beans wrapped in bacon, croquettes and vanilla icecream with strawberry sauce for dessert. The restaurant was nicely decorated with Easter eggs and candles, but I wouldn't have been very astonished if they had decorated it with Christmas trees, because the weather is colder than in January and it is snowing all the time. We are all waiting for spring:

Poor little sparrow in the snow!

Daffodils that do not bloom.

New bench we bought when there were two warm days in March. When will we sit on it for the first time?

No matter:

Happy Easter!

Some Spring Impressions Of Last Week

Anna took ome pics of blooming crocuses and snow drops in our garden.The sundlight warmed us so much that we could sit outside for a few valuable hours. 

 

Update:

It just started to snow. I hate winter!

Getting Slowly Better

It has been a long time since I updated my blog. Anna ans I were terribly sick with the real flu. Although I was back to work last week I actually was too sick to work. But somehow the week ended and I could have a little rest this weekend. This doesn't mean that I don't have anything to do: My pupil's tests are piling up to the ceiling and I have to correct as many as possible today. But at least I can do it after my own rhythm and need not always fight against the clock as it is when I am at my working place.

Anna has finished her research project. She did an awesome job with a lot of research, writing all down and making a lot of wonderful maps - about 120 pages since Christmas! She was busy like a bee.

Also the house quickly changes. There is only one room left that hasn't got a carpet at the moment. But this is because I first have to strengthen the wooden floor planks the next two weeks. All other rooms are nearly done and cleaned. They are ready for another milestone in our house history: The big move out of our construction camp into all the new rooms is planned on Easter! But before we can move the kitchen has to be installed first! It will be deliverd by next week and hopefully we can get it installed the week before Easter. It is time to close the kitchen in the upper story near our construction camp down. It is exactely 43 years old and the electric devices are of the same age.

This is a quick sketch of the new kitchen. OK, it's in German, but I think you can understand it, though. The kitchen will get an L-shape.

Yesterday I layed the last LAN-cables, so Anna's study also got an internet connection.

Enjoy some pics of the house as it looks like now:

I proudly present Anna's upholstered bed I made all by myself!

Anna's secretary

Anna's bedroom, cozy chair

Hallway upper story

My bedroom still without upholstered bed

My bedroom, sofa-corner

My bedroom, secretary

Guest bedroom with carpet

Guest bedroom, old wardrobe

Last week we ordered a new garden bench. We need a place to sit in front of our house. It's the south side and therefore it is pretty warm and sunny there. The perfect place for enjoying the first spring sun. But we were too optimistic. After it seemed as if spring would be there, another week of severe cold and frost and snow lies ahead. So assembling the new bench and planting some flowers must wait until this period of winter weather is gone.