Friday

Picture is linked.

Thursday

Pictures lead to the website of their designer.

The yearly art and crafts fair is held this weekend in the city hall.

Monday

I stumbled across this cutest web shop because they are a retailer for two Icelandic designers. I don't speak a word Dutch but the adorable green radio has a solar panel. Looks like it has a handle too doesn't it. If I understand the numbers right five hours of sunlight or one minute of turning the handle provides half an hour radio time. The pen rack is made from an old LP record.

Saturday

Paper design is my big weakness. Check these out. You can assembly many of these designs in your own way and then you can take them apart and they can be kept under the bed or behind a dresser and they don't take up any space. I like the dollhouses a lot. Many parents probably can't or won't spend a fortune on dollhouses and this one is less than 17 Euro. I'm a bit sceptical though how long the washing machine and the stove would last in our house. Our Brio stove survived a month before my son had turned it into a pile of wood.

Friday

I think it's so hard to decorate with colors and make it work. It's much easier sticking to minimalism using white making a home look stylish. Almost like cheating. This home is so cool and original. Check out the rest of the pictures here.

Thursday

These are my bedroom favourites. Click on the pictures to find out more. My bedroom is a loft with very a steep ceiling both sides so you can only stand upright in the middle of the room. The entrance is small and there's an old chimney in the middle so it's only possible to have furniture that is assembled on the spot. The room has bright red (!) flooring that I want to change preferably without having to disassemble my IKEA bed. I'm working on a solution. Has someone maybe got experience tying your bed to the ceiling?

Wednesday

Inspired by this blog I got the idea that you could transform my panic room into a sleeping nook for my son. I have a storage room that looks just like this space under the stairs that makes the most out of the space below our ceiling but doesn't really work that well for storing things since it's very deep and narrow. It's still just an idea though.
Click here to see more makeover pictures from Jessica.

Wednesday

I like people that have humor. The Icelandic economy meltdown has probably been over the news the last year. Things are really serious here. Prices have gone up 30-50% while salaries haven't and people loose their jobs. We now have fantasy mortgages on our homes and cars that we are hopelessly stuck to because no one is buying anything anymore. There was no rental market before so we're all stuck with increasing mortgages. There are people taking their children out of high school because the can't pay for books. I have a friend that had to move in with his parents because his situation changed (due to inflation) so that he could only afford to pay his car loan. He's an educated guy with a nice job and these days he needs to use most of his salary to pay for: the car loan. The government was forced to agree to take huge loans to be able to pay back the British and Dutch savers that lost their money when the Icelandic banks collapsed. Since Iceland is such a small country (just over 300.000 people) the fantasy amounts, if you split them up, is higher that what the Germans had to pay back after World War II. Luckily since we all have VISA we won't have to go shopping our food with wheelbarrows of money. When the banks went bankrupt the former prime Minister made a famous TV speech where he used the phrase God bless Iceland (gúð blessi Ísland) which really was a statement to stress the seriousness of the matter. Iceland is not a religious country and politicians here do not mention God.

To get to the point this phrase has now become a wall sticker design. Picture from our biggest paper. Available at the international airport in one of the tax free stores. It's kind of cute there was also an article about a lady that teaches cross stitching at an old people's home. She has now started to cross stitch this phrase. The old people also made cross stitching wall pieces with the slogan: helvítis fokking fokk that would translate damn fucking fuck. There was a TV comedy show where a man made a sign to use in the demonstrations outside the parliament and he couldn't really put into words a better slogan that summarized how bad things were. You feel warm inside thinking about the old people cross stitching these things.

Saturday

I love this Danish teak chair. It's from Vamo Sonderborg. You rub it with teak oil with a little steel wool and wipe any excess oil off with a dry cloth. That'll make it shiny again if it has started to look tired.

Thursday

I've blogged about her cushions before. I could buy everything. If our currency just wasn't at such an all time low.

Wednesday

I'm dying to change our computer nook. It is in our sons bedroom and also has our closets in it. Our bedroom is on the loft and it doesn't have any storage. So the room has to have good storage, without the workspace taking up the entire room and preferably it has to blend into a 2 year olds room.