Now With Pictures

I took some pictures of the rearranged room yesterday. They are in the flat photo album.

This is much much better arrangement than the previous one. Although there is the exact same amount of bare walls as previously, it feels that there's less. Even when you look towards the bed, it doesn't feel as barren as it seems, judging by the photo.

There is a downside to this arrangement, though. The window next to the bed is mighty drafty. I've taped around it as far as I could reach with masking tape and put a roll of wool fabric on the windowssill. That only reduced the draft to almost tolerable levels.

The problem is that the windows are triple glazed and insulated with rubber strips, but it doesn't seem to work. I haven't dared to open that window because last (and first) time I did, one of the handles came off. I've tried to shove it more shut, but that hasn't had any effect either.

What's so weird about the windows is that the ones in the kitchen and bathroom are tight and quiet. The ones in the room are not. Guess where I spend most of the time?

Having cigarette smoke come in from the street is not my idea of fresh air, especially early in the morning while I'm waking up. Do I have to open the windows to do something about the draft or is there some other way I can get through the winter without freezing every night? Have you guys any ideas? I'm stumped.

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Playing With Furniture

...aaand I rearranged the furniture.

I was playing with Floor Planner that I'd found via Apartment Therapy: Home Tech yesterday. The end result looked so nice that I couldn't resist trying it out so I spent the whole evening emptying the bookshelves and moving things around.

This is how I want it to look when I'm done. In general terms. The colors and details could (probably will) change, but I'm happy with the placement of the big bits. Tor now. That's subject to change too.

I've decided not to get a TV. Flatscreen or not, it's not pretty to look at. Yes there are solutions to hide it while not in use, but that's a waste of space. Instead, I'll get a projector, Xbox 360 with HDMI output and a good surround sound system to complete the home cinema.

I've dreamed of home cinema for 10 years and it's time to make that dream come true. With a ceiling mounted screen the whole system takes much less visual space while not in use than any TV. In fact, it should be practically unnoticeable.

It'll take months, if not a year to get there, but I will. The electronics that I want to get are not cheap and neither is the furniture. I still need to replace the couch with one that could convert to a bed, get a real bed for myself, some rugs, pillows and plants and...

...and when I'm done I can change the textiles to get a whole new look. The fun of decorating and re-decorating never ends.

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I am thankful for...

I am thankful for...

...everything.

I am thankful for my whole situation. I have my family, my friends and my cats. I have a good job, a home I can tinker with and enough money to do so. I have tickets to go to Estonia to spend Christmas with my family and a catsitter to take care of Ursus and Mao while I'm gone.

I also have you, my readers, to be thankful for. Thank you for reading and comenting, your words have helped me tremendously. Thank you for being there when I needed your support.

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The Flat

I've made a new photo album with the pictures of the flat. The link will stay on the sidebar and I'll add pictures as I change things. I missed the daylight for taking pictures because the batteries were dead on Saturday and it takes a while to reload.

As I was taking pictures and looking at them it came to me that it is so boring. And empty. Barren, really. In dire need of some textiles and art on the walls. I forgot to light the candles too...

Anyhow, I am still happy with the flat, I'm just not happy with the flow of the room. I've been playing around with the layout and moving things around in La-Z-Boy (shudder, what a name!) Design Center. I must say, regardless of the name, that tool is worth looking into if you want to remodel or rearrange furniture. It's in Imperial measurements only, though.

I think I've found a better layout with clearly defined zones. I feel a mighty urge to rearrange the furniture just to see if will look better that way even if I don't have all the final pieces. I will have to empty the bookshelves and sideboard to move them, but that's not a big deal. I know how I want the bookshelves to look and I need to organize the sideboard anyway.

Why zones? Well, I only have one room for sleeping, crafting, computing, reading and entertaining and I'd like to separate these activities somewhat. Right now everything is spread out in the room and is a mish-mash. Of course some of them will (and should) overlap like reading and entertaining, but I'd like a definite border between for example, crafting and sleeping. Pins and mattresses may be a match made in heaven, but pins and my bum is not.

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This and That

I love, love, love my apartment! It is what I'd thought it would be and more. I can't stop thinking how to decorate it, what to do with the kitchen and which things would be best in the hall.

I must curb these urges so I don't run out and buy myself silly. So I've decided to do a Project of the Month type thing where I'd make/fix/buy one thing for one room in one month. Sets are counted as one thing, for example I'm allowed to make two pillowcases because there are two pillows to cover. I'll begin in January because December is for making things for family.

I've found the camera and I'm planning to take photos of the apartment in the weekend when it's light outside. I've kept you in the dark long enough.

The scales showed 78.6 kilos this morning. I've broken the 79 kilos barrier. Woo!

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Winter Is Here

The weather has turned into winter. It snowed two days straight and now it's icy. With the winter has come the understanding that I don't have any winter gear. What I had before moving to Ireland does not fit anymore and in Ireland there were no winters, just a prolonged autumn. So I need to go shopping for winter boots.

Another problem is that I've seem to have misplaced all my wool socks, scarves and hats. In the worst case I threw them away by mistake, otherwise they are somewhere in the attic. I probably did throw them away because I can't remember even seeing them while I was unpacking. Bummer. I could use some gloves right now.

On the bright side, I get to knit new stuff. Whee!

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I can finally take it easy

The furniture is assembled, the stuff has been put away and the family has visited.

Of course that doesn't mean that the apartment is finished or that everything is organized, there are still things left to do. The hall needs a mirror, for example and I don't have a dining table for the kitchen. Those things can wait. The most important thing is that I have a place to sleep, a place to sit and a place for books.

I tried to reconfigure the router yesterday with the result that it stopped responding and I gave up. I'll get a long cable and try to hide that as best as I can.

We went to Ikea on Saturday. My brother and his wife wanted a floor lamp, I wanted a divider for a drawer and Mum wanted to look around. They also had decided to buy me a set of dishes as a birthday present. In the end they got the lamp they wanted, I got the birthday present (the drawer divider didn't suit the purpose I'd wanted it for) and Mum got the cutest breakfast bowl. We all got a few more things, as is usual for an Ikea visit.

We were completely tired once we got back home, ate some lunch and crashed. Later we decided to go out for the birthday dinner and chose an excellent Chinese restaurant nearby. On Sunday we went shopping in the City Centre and had a long lunch in a Greek restaurant.

After I'd taken them to the Arlanda Express train, I went home thinking I could configure the router. When that failed I thought I'd knit a bit. I fell asleep in the rocking chair instead, decided to call it a day and went to bed.

The cats are fine, they are racing all over the apartment and are enjoying themselves. At five o'clock in the morning, naturally. There's no point in mock fighting and galloping up and down over the furniture when the human is awake, now is there?

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... years ago today

Twenty years ago today (1987) I was 15, in school and history was happening all around me.

That year there were the first public protests against Soviet rule in my memory. The "Phosphor War", IME and protests where Estonian flag was flown. IME was an acronym for Isemajandav Eesti (Estonia with autonomous economy). This was a proposal to Soviet government and if it had happened, would have meant semi-freedom from Soviet rule. No-one actually believed that the miracle ('ime' means miracle in Estonian) would actually happen and Estonia would be wholly independent.

Fifteen years ago today (1992) I was working in an animated film studio.

Estonia had been independent for a year and had exchanged rubles for kroon, our own money. there was lack of food and basic supplies. We had food coupons and one of the coldest winters I can remember. We endured.

Ten years ago today (1997) I was learning as much as I could about databases. I'd gotten a good job as a database administrator and had fallen in love with databases, data warehouses, etc. Anything to do with organizing data, basically. A love affair that continues to this day.

Estonia was developing fast, economy improved in leaps a bounds. I got paid twice the national average so I got a credit card to buy books from Amazon. I still have only one and I've kept it through all of my moves to different countries. It has helped me through tight situations more than once.

Five years ago today (2002) I wanted to be at an event. I'd discovered SCA* the year before and had found my kind of people. People who shared the same interests I had and who didn't think I was weird. Well, not weirder than anyone else, but that's beside the point.

Estonia was... um... doing well, I think. Both politically and economically. I was involved in my hobbies and nothing remarkable happened. History had been made and now it was everyday life.

*SCA -- Society for Creative Anachronism

One year ago today I was miserable in Ireland and I was looking for work in Stockholm.

In my opinion we all have at least three fasets to our life: official, work and private. Official is interacting with government (taxes), public services (transport) and healthcare. Work is interacting with your employer, their human resources policies, your manager and your job tasks. Private is family, friends, hobbies, anything one does to relax.

If two out of three of those fasets suck, life sucks. At least for me.

I loved our household with friends, I loved to travel to different SCA events in Isles, I loved the landscape and Irish summers, and my manager was the best I'd ever had. I hated the public transport, the stupidity of banks, the confusing healthcare system and the horrible atmosphere at work.

If work had been better, or Irish systems worked better, things might have been different. Two out of three ain't bad... but one is not enough.

Today is my 35th birthday. I've found an excellent job and have moved back to Stockholm where I had lived for 1½ years after moving in with R and before moving to Dublin. In that short time I'd found my 'place' on Earth. Don't mistake me, I love Tallinn, I love Estonia and I will be an Estonian till I die, but Stockholm is where I belong.

R left me shortly after we had moved back home from Ireland this summer and the less said about that, the better.

Now I have my own apartment, a very good job, two adorable cats, friends near and far, and my family is close to visit whenever I want to. Life is looking up, for the first time in past three years.

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Ikea again

While unpacking I came to a realisation that I'd neglected to buy a few pieces of furniture. Mainly because I couldn't find anything I liked that had a reasonable price when I was looking. Well, the price probably was reasonable, but I could not afford it right now and I'd tought that it can wait. I was wrong.

I solved the problem of 'need a nightstand right now' vs. 'get it some time in the future' by going back to Ikea website and seeing if I could build what I needed from parts. Fortunately I'd chosen Bestå bookshelves and the answer was yes. I found all the bits and pieces to build a nightstand, a sideboard and a thing on wheels to keep my sewing needles/notions/small supplies in.

Of course that meant that I needed to go back to Ikea to buy all the pieces and have them delivered today. If I'd ordered everything on the web, they would have been delivered at the beginning of December. That in itself is not a bad thing if I had had the time, but I'd like to present the apartment at least semi-furnished to my family this coming weekend.

The books are unpacked, but some are waiting for shelves. The clothes, bathroom stuff and most of the kitchen is unpacked. The fabric and yarn are waiting for a storage system I also bought yesterday. I hadn't planned that purchase, but one of the built in wardrobes does not have any shelves so I needed to buy some.

After I've unpacked the SCA gear, fabric and yarn I need to take my luggage and camping gear to the attic and I'm done.

Well, I need to clean the place and get some flowers and arrange candles and ... but the big, heavy stuff that requires tools will be done.

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And it is done!

Thank you all for your support and comments!

We began moving things over at 9 o'clock on Saturday morning. The lorry (which turned out to be a van) was delayed a bit and we decided that we can walk over with ordinary luggage because that can take the rain.

We did that, then the van was there and we began packing it. It took two trips to take everything over and I decided that I have way, way too much stuff, got to get rid of some. While the last load was being carried in I went to fetch the cats. R came to help because carrying both cats at the same time would have been too heavy for me.

My plan to shut them to the bathroom didn't work because the helpers got to the apartment first and Ursus hid under the couch. I shoved Mao into the bathroom with food and fresh water so he wouldn't explore where he shouldn't. Ursus was totally spooked by the goings on and we had a very hard time getting him to the carrier. I lost count after three tries.

At the new apartment he refused to come out of the carrier for an hour and then disappeared under a couch. He came out at night to check on me, I hope he ate and drank a bit too. On Sunday he was under the couch most of the day, but came out eventually and fled back when any noise spooked him.

Mao, on the other hand was a little skittish in the beginning, but settled in very quickly. He took full advantage of new surroundings to examine everything he could climb or jump on.

I said I was not going to do anything on Sunday and I'd planned to go to Syfestivalen, but I was too tired to go out and I wanted to keep an eye on the cats. The pile of paper bags started to bother me after breakfast and I spent the rest of the day organizing the books while listening to Terry Pratchett Discworld audiobooks.

In the evening I unpacked some dishes, took advantage of my new fancy dishwasher and washed a load.

Right now there are full and empty paper bags everywhere, but the pile in the kitchen is significantly reduced. I couldn't find my camera otherwise I'd taken a picture. I'm planning to toss/donate/give away at least a third of the remaining stuff. Fabrics, yarn and other crafting supplies, mostly.

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T minus 1 day

Everything went very well at the bank yesterday. I got the keyes and am now officially the owner of the apartment.

The furniture came last night, the apartment is fantastic and I didn't get the wireless Internet to work.

I gave up yesterday because I was tired, had a horrific headache, didn't have the IP address to the router and it could wait.

Today some friends will help me to assemble the furniture today and tomorrow is the big day of moving.

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T minus 2 days

Today I'll get the keyes. Woo!

The loan contract was signed yesterday and I bought the furniture. At least some of it. They didn't have the extra shelves for the bookshelf system, or the bedside table, or the table leg that I wanted. So I had to make some on-the-fly descisions.

I will have to wait for the shelves and make do meanwhile. They might be in next week, or maybe the week after next. Perhaps. There's nothing I can do but wait.

I've been eyeing another bedside table from Mio, I'll buy that instead.

I ditched the whole idea of the table that I'd had in mind and bought 4 simple legs and 75x75 cm table top. It'll be big enough for my laptop, keyboard, mouse and a lamp. If/when I'll buy a gaming PC the tower can live under the table.

I also changed my mind about the bed. When I went to scout in Ikea I decided not to get the four-poster because it was quite wobbly. Cats + wobbly posts = not good. I chose another bed (140 cm wide), but I can't afford it right now because I need to buy the frame, slats, the mattress and it all adds adds up. The mattress is the most expensive item and the reason why I must wait.

The bed has given me the most trouble. I weighed the choices (don't buy a bed at all, buy a temporary bed, do something else) and decided to buy the kitchen sofa/daybed instead. I can use it as a bed until I get a real one and then move it to the kitchen. This way I can use up one of my 90x200 cm mattresses as well.

I also bought a minimum set of lamps yesterday. I'll live in the apartment for couple of weeks to see what lamps are necessary and where before finalising the light design.

I'll put up some of the lamps today and see if I can make the wireless Internet work while waiting for the furniture.

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