Slipcovers

I posted in March 2015 about Bemz, a company that makes custom covers for new and discontinued IKEA furniture in a wide range of colours and fabrics. Here, for example, is our old standby Kramfors sofa in shocking pink. (Don't worry, we're not getting pink.)

When we were at the house last, we both thought our couch was looking a bit tired. I visited the Bemz website and ordered a few fabric swatches in different colours and fabrics.

We will take a look over the summer and see what looks best. I wouldn't mind some colour, but Sooz thinks we have enough already. We will see who wins that debate! (Hint: It's going to be Sooz.)

Barkeeper's Friend

"Barkeeper's Friend" sounds like a punchline to a joke, I suppose. But it's also the name of a cleaning product we brought along with us to Aspö on our last trip. Why, you might ask? Aren't there plenty of cleaning products on the Kingdom of Sweden?

A valid question, indeed. We brought along our barkeeper's friend as it contains oxalic acid as one of its ingredients. Oxalic acid turns out to be very good at removing stains in wooden furniture.

One of the things we have to get used to with our new deck is that our table is much more exposed to the elements out there. Up until now, it's been tucked next to the house. We left a couple of heavy metal tea light holders out on the table in an overnight drizzle, and the next day, we had a nice dark stain on our otherwise pristine wood.

Although I don't have a photo of our stain, the one shown here is pretty similar. What happens is that water, containing iron, interacts with the tannins in the wood, causing a kind of rust stain. The fact that we had a nice iron candle-holder in the rain simply made the staining process more efficient!

This photo is from a website I found addressing the problem (as well as an array of other little projects, too.) I thought it worth a try, hence the can in our baggage from Texas.

I'm happy to report the treatment worked perfectly! After just two applications, we were able to get the stain completely out. I may even see if I can use it to deal with a few remaining jarn vitriol spots on the house. After all, it's an iron oxide, itself. I promise to take pictures next time.

Further IKEA Progress

I posted a little while ago about trying to sort out getting our (hopefully) last sizable IKEA order. I did end up ordering the corner cabinet here in the UK and had it delivered to me for £92, which is about 1000kr, a lot cheaper than the 1790kr quoted for the same thing delivered to Stavsnäs.

Rutger stopped by on Sunday when he was in town on business, and he carried back half of the cabinet yesterday. I'll check the other half as baggage when we go in a couple of weeks. It does seem odd, though, carrying an IKEA cabinet into Sweden!

As for the remainder of our order, Marcia and her friend Ursula went to IKEA and successfully bought everything else. They good-naturedly sent a few photos of the whole mass they purchased on my behalf. (I owe Ursula coffee and a bullar on our deck this summer!) Marcia will keep all this stuff in their garage; I'm sure Rutger will be grumpy, but it won't be there for long.

I've also decided to get a taxi boat for ourselves when we go out on the Thursday. We have a lot of stuff already, and Rutger is lending us his car, so we're going to load it up as much as we can. Sooz and I will stop at the ICA grocery store in Gustavsberg on the way down to stock up on bulky stuff and perishables. I also want to buy a big ladder of our own, too.

Hopefully, when we show up for our midsummer holiday, all we'll need is the clothes on our back and a few coolers full of fresh food.

Sunday shopping

After an entertaining evening of the first round of the Melodifestival, we dragged Marcia, Rutger, and Camille along on a festival of shopping today. I think we made good progress on deciding everything but the bathroom, there are just too many final choices to make over tiles and fixtures, etc. But we've gained lots of good ideas so we hope we can get further along tomorrow when we're at the house.

Tommy also plans to see us when we're there so that should help the decision-making too. Janne won't be on the island but he's asked us to draw up our ideas for the steps; we will have the pleasure of seeing him, and Margaret, on Tuesday.

There's a lot of snow at Marcia & Rutger's house but apparently none on the island; that's Sandhamn this evening in the webcam photo above. I've started a new webgallery and I will update it over the next couple of days. Now I must sign off for Marcia's dinner of Brazilian coconut shrimp, which is bubbling on the stove as I type...!

Ready to leave

The well-documented weather here in London has given us an interesting week. It's ironic there's no snow in Stockholm while there's a good 6 inches of the fresh stuff out our window!

We should be OK with the weather tomorrow for our flight to Sweden, Marcia is gong to pick us up. I'll report back on Sunday after our arrival and day's shopping.

A sleeper sofa?

We've been thinking that the house really needs more beds. We'll have at least 7 guests over midsummer (and I suspect that number will rise).

We plan to sleep 4 kids in Grant's room (2 up, 2 down), and at least two more in the guest house. A sleeper sofa will give us a couple more beds, which will come in handy.

The problem with a sleeper is that they're a lot more massive. I kind of like the look of the Kramfors instead of this one (the Månstad) but practicality is important, probably more important than design...?

Another Possibility

This is from a company called The Living Store. This particular model is a little large, but we saw lots of different types in their shop. Their website is unfortunately sketchy, as we saw many more in person.

One interesting thing about this company is that they apparently are not a chain, and they are very close to Margaret's in the funky neighborhood of St. Eriksplan. As much as I love IKEA, perhaps I should add a bit of design diversity? 

We'll be sure to visit them in February.

Here's one possibility

IKEA, as you could probably guess, makes a zillion types of space-efficient and stylish lounging solutions. The one pictured here is from a group called Kramfors.

There are a lot of different pieces that can be mixed and matched. Sooz likes this black/white fabric as the pattern won't show too much dirt and it's color-neutral. (She wants to add her color with rugs and pillows, etc.)

It's also pretty inexpensive; remember, this isn't a year-round couch so we don't need anything too hard-wearing. It would be nice to have a sofa bed but we haven't seen one that we like the look of yet.

We'll look more in February but our goal is to have whatever we choose delivered in Easter when we're there for a week.

Furniture

We've been looking at various ideas for furnishing the living area of the house. When we start applyiing our measurements, we're always reminded that we have a pretty small place! We want to leave the corner windows open, so we have about a 3 by 2 meter space to play with, on the wall between the door and the tall window.

The image here is a section of the house plan and the grey L-shaped blob represents a corner couch of about the right dimensions. (The round blob I'll get to in a later post). Sooz wants something as sectional as possible so we can move things around as needed.

There a lot of possibilities out there. Stay tuned.