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A new blue rug.

2013-05-13T17:29:11Z

So on Saturday, the new rug for the dining room arrived. The packaging was torn open a bit - just so you could see the pattern - and the postwoman remarked how beautiful it was. I put it down in the dining room and two minutes later all of the cats were lounging on it. The husband came in, took a look and instantly stated that he really likes it (he hates rugs so this is huge!).

Of course, I myself was just not quite sure about it.

Seriously, sometimes I am so annoyed with my indecisiveness. Dear God, woman! A rug is a rug is a rug.

So I made an executive decision to like it. I adore the pattern, even if it´s a smaller scale than I´d hoped, and I think the color is very nice. The rug is very soft but sturdy and seems to be a good quality. I am still not sure whether it is too matchy matchy in this greyish dining room, especially together with the cabinet in Down Pipe, but you know, EXECUTIVE DECISION.

In other news, I cleaned all of my windows downstairs over the weekend. It is rather surprising we bought his house with its huge windows considering how much I despise cleaning my windows. Anyway, look at the light! I swear it has changed. So worth it.

Oh, in case you wonder, the rug is from Urbanara. They have the most amazing things, and I want them all, and no I am not getting paid to say this.

All fenced in.

2013-05-05T19:29:47Z

The fence is up! Hooray. After much contemplation and even more saving up (fences are super expensive!), we decided on this model which is made from sweet chestnut and is quite typical for rural areas in Germany. It will turn greyish with age and blend more into the landscape. Traditionally, this kind of fence is much lower and the gaps are wider, but we have this little dog of ours which is of a breed that is known for escaping.

And rightly so, because five minutes after I took this picture, Ludwig escaped by jumping in the little stream that runs through our garden and basically diving under the fence to the other side. The only tiny space we had not secured yet! Little monster.

We have this gate at the rear end of our land so that a car or a truck can deliver things - which will happen eventually because this part is the vegetable garden. I love how it looks. I´m very happy with the fence in general as well - the sense of space is competely different now and somehow, it feels much more "ours" all of a sudden. Also, this was one of the projects that I´ve dreaded endlessly and then it went so much quicker and easier than assumed. My favorite kind of project!

Happy Monday!

Busy being busy.

2013-04-29T19:37:14Z

Heavens, it´s almost May already. How did that happen? Time is flying! I did not intend to stay away from this blog for so long, but we´re really, really busy. Spring is finally here and now everything needs to be done at once. Getting the plants and seeds in the soil, building the fence, keeping Ludwig entertained, trying to keep the house at least somewhat clean (mud season combined with 5 pets, ugh) and and and...

Anyway! Here are a few pictures. Above is Emma taking a nap in the dining room. By the way the bare boards are growing on me but I still ordered a rug recently. It will be delivered in a few weeks and I will ask you about your opinion then.

There are things blooming in the walled garden. What a joy. In the darkest moments of The Terrible Winter I seriously thought every single perennial had frozen to death. I am happy to report that this is not the case. Now I only have to get another threat under control. A hole digging, red devil kind of threat.

Which brings us to this guy. Who can be a little terrorist but mostly is pure joy. We love him lots. I mean, look at those eyes? Oh Ludwig.

Tomato plants for the vegetable garden, which is coming along so nicely. I had a visit from an old lady from the village yesterday, who "wanted to check on our garden" and asked me in detail what I was growing here and there and why and when... and then nodded her approval and told me to keep going. Success! I feel I have basically reached the knighthood of gardening. Or, well, garden planning. Let´s see what we´ll get out of this!

I´ll show you more pictures soon, and a progress report on the fence which will hopefully be up by the end of this week. Fingers crossed! Ludwig needs more space to dig holes after all. Happy week everybody!

Back soon.

2013-04-17T18:31:45Z

So sorry for the radio silence. Turns out it is true what they say, a puppy *is* like a child; and between sweet Ludwig and a busy work schedule and a million projects in the garden that need to be done now that it´s finally warming up - there just are not enough hours in the day.

As for the picture above, my neighbor brought us eggs from her hens the other day, complete with that little flower bouquet and everything. I am a lucky lady.

I´ll be back soon, if Ludwig lets me. Fingers crossed!

My kitchen shelves on Remodelista.

2013-04-12T13:16:10Z

I´ve been so busy with Ludwig and work and a business trip that I didn´t get around to tell you that Remodelista featured my kitchen shelves the other day. Thank you so much Justine! And for all the new readers who came to this blog via Remodelista, welcome! I hope you like what you see.

Happy weekend everybody!

More about Ludwig.

2013-04-08T06:25:04Z

Thank you for all your happy comments about Ludwig - I had no idea I have so many dog loving readers! Ludwig´s been with us for more than a week now. We are very much in love with him, but I am not going to lie, it´s been a bit of an adjustment having a puppy in the house. He needs a lot of attention and also needs to learn some, ahem, basic good behavior... Like, remember the fact that human beings aren´t made for chewing. (Sharp puppy teeth - ouch!)

Surprisingly, the cats are quite relaxed about the new addition to the family. Actually they are super interested in him - there´s a lot of sniffing going on especially when he is asleep. Ludwig himself would love to play with the cats (he misses his siblings!) but they aren´t sure about that just yet. All in all, this is going much better than expected. Phew!

He seems to love our garden. So much to explore! I am looking forward to having the fence up so that he can run free and be with us when we are gardening.

Also, he has huge paws. Love.

Easter 2013.

2013-04-02T05:48:50Z

Easter is my very favorite holiday. I do not believe in any God but I totally believe in celebrating spring and new beginnings. The thing about this Easter though... it didn´t feel like Easter at all. For one thing, we brought home little Ludwig, who is so very cute and mischievous and easily scared and all in all just needs a lot of attention. I´ll write more about him soon.

Also, it´s not helping that there´s in fact no spring to celebrate. When the masters of ceremony lit the annual Easter fire, it wouldn´t burn at first. Because that huge, carefully built pile of wood was frozen to the core. Yep. Anyway it did burn in the end and it was a lovely evening. (Here´s last years Easter fire with a bit more of information and pictures. It´s a wonderful tradition.)

In my defense, I did manage to dye eggs (I always use natural dye) and bake some Easter bread! But we kind of ran out of everything else so Easter 2013 was a great success even from the culinary point of view (we had pizza on Sunday, ahem). Oh well. There´s always next year, right?

The puppy and the dining room.

2013-03-26T07:49:02Z

This Friday, we´ll drive a few hours East and bring home a little Irish Setter puppy. We wanted a dog for ages, and now that I work from home it´s finally possible. So for the past few weeks we´ve been preparing ourselves and our home for his impending arrival.. Reading books about puppy education (oh my) and realizing that we can not possibly have these cream white rugs in the dining room any longer. They can go in the washing machine which is why I bought them in the first place, but with four cats and a puppy, I guess they´d have to be washed every other day.

So obviously there are two choices now - to buy a new rug which is a bit more hard wearing (jute, probably) or to have no rug at all in the dining room. As always, I can´t seem to make up my mind, so please help me make a decision? The thing is, in the view above - from the kitchen - I think the dining room looks very much naked without a rug.

However in this view from the hallway, I really like the bare floor boards. What do you think? Help?

It´s still cold out there.

2013-03-24T15:59:53Z

I would really like this picture if it was taken in December. At the end of March, not so much.

I kind of hate when people complain about the weather all the time. But still I have to say, this winter really wore me out. Still is, actually. This morning I checked the weather report online, and it said the we´d have a "relatively mild Easter" but we´re "still not done with winter" because "there will be another cold front after Easter". And then, my dear readers, I totally lost it. I started sobbing uncontrollably and only stopped because a very concerned cat hopped on my lap. Congratulations winter of 2012/13, because of you I am now a crazy woman sobbing over the weather report.

Anyway. The good thing about this weather is, we´re getting things done. This weekend and the one before, the husband cleared out all the old and sick trees we have in the garden. Today, he felled the fir tree in our walled garden. We never really liked it, and it is blocking the view from the kitchen and the library. We´ll get something not as tall to replace it, most likely a cherry tree. (Other suggestions?).

Lutz supervised the scene. He was not happy about one tree less in our garden.

And this was my weekend project. I painted the front part of the library. The color is Dove Tale by Farrow & Ball and I love it. The library is a kind of weird large room at the back of our house. It used to be two separate rooms and is really hard to photograph, but you can get an idea of the layout here. The library part of the room is painted Down Pipe, and the other half of the room needed a color that is strong enough to complement that but something not as dark. I think Dove Tale does the trick. We´ll have a little sitting room in here soon. Unless we all freeze to death that is...

A new chair in the living room.

2013-03-19T09:37:51Z

Hi. How are you? Let´s not talk about how I am, because 3 words: Lots. of. snow. So sick of it.

Anyway! If spring will never come, I´ll have at least something cozy to sit on. I bought this wingback chair on Ebay ages ago. Somewhen in summer last year? It was 50 bucks including delivery. I think that´s a pretty good deal for a very cute green velvet wingback chair in pristine condition. I was going to find him a chair friend and then use the both of them in my library. Thing is just, it isn´t easy to find a chair in a similar style for not a lot of money. Seems like this was a once in a lifetime thing. So I decided to try this one in the living room since we always run out of seats when having company over.

The rocker is now on the other side and I think it looks so fabulous here! I´m not a fan of overcrowding rooms, but it doesn´t feel like that at all, just more "complete" if that makes sense.

Here´s adorable chair again. These four buttons are killing me! The cushion is only temporary until I find something as adorable as chair. Suggestions?

So having chair here in here means we need to source two more (affordable) chairs for the library. We´ll hopefully have a new wood stove in there soon but as of yet, nothing to sit on. I´ve been searching around like crazy but it´s not easy to find something that both the husband and I like. We need to make a decision soon tough because who wants to get a divorce because they "couldn´t agree on chairs?". Not me.

Happy snowy week. That´s an oxymoron, right? I have a university degree in literature so I know these things.