Chez Larsson

A book by moi!?

Dear friends,

My mind has been racing since Friday as you can imagine.  Again, thank you all so much for all the cheers and well wishes. It's now official at work and it feels so good that it's out in the open. Yay!

I have thought about it all weekend and actually decided to really pursue the idea of writing a book! If you would have asked me six months ago if I thought I'd ever write one I'd say nooooooooooo.  You guys have made me believe that I can actually do it! Love, love, love you!!!

Here's thing. I will be contacting international publishers with a book proposal and I have the general idea in my head but I'd love though to hear from you which subject you think I should lay my focus on. Should I focus on organizing? On decorating? On DIY? Maybe on something else entirely? Renovating a sinking boat? Nonexisting cooking skills? Any suggestions are more than welcome :). Really!

Basically, which is the book you would love to read authored and styled by me but can't (yet) find in your local book shop or online? I would love to hear your thoughts!

~Benita

Home office how-to

A couple of days ago I had a request for the how-to of our home office so here you have it.

 

 

Our house is from the 1930’s and nothing is perfectly square so when we build anything larger we build it step by step in situ instead of building the whole thing somewhere else and the placing it in the spot we want it. Sometimes this means the finished unit is not perfectly square, but it looks better on the spot and lines up with what’s next to it, in this case a door frame.

 

 

The unit is built using 18 mm (3/4”) MDF, wood plugs and wood glue.

 

Tools used are a circular saw, electric plane, mouse sander, electric drill, hammer, tape measure, plug marking tool, spirit level and some clamps. Also remember to wear saftety goggles, ear plugs and a mask.

 

The different pieces of the unit are assembled by using the marking tool to mark where the holes go, drilling the holes, gluing and hammering in wood plugs and pressing the pieces together with clamps until the glue has dried.

 

As each piece is cut and drilled it’s also planed and sanded. This way the whole unit is ready for painting after it’s been assembled and there’s no need for sanding in situ. You can get away without a plane but the edges of MDF are sometimes a little tricky to get smooth so a couple of strokes with the plane really help.

 

• Start off by deciding on the depth and height of the plinth. We went for 45 mm (1 ¾”) because this way we could use the baseboard as support at the back for the bottom shelf and let the unit be flush against the wall. Cut two sides and a front piece for the plinth. The depth 40 cm (16") we determined by measuring the file boxes that we wanted to place inside.

• Add the bottom shelf. It looks nice if it butts out a little.

• Decide on the height of where you want your work top. Ours is at 1 meter (3´3”) from the floor as we work there standing.

• Cut two pieces for the sides and two shelves to go in between. Attach the sides to the base.  We use a spare strip of wood nailed to the tops of the sides to temporarily hold the sides upright.

• Now you can decide at which height you want your bottom shelves. We adjusted ours to the height of magazine holders and file boxes. The narrow shelf is for trays containing pens etc. Mark where you want the shelves to go, drill holes accordingly and assemble.

• For a chunkier feel and to make the work top a little more substantial we glued together two pieces of MDF. We made the work top a little wider than the sides and 7.5 cm (3”) deeper. Attach the work top to your base and you’re half way there J.

• Determine how tall you want your finished unit to be. We decided on 210 cm (7 feet) which is the same height as the tops of the window- and door frames.

• Cut the pieces for the top sides. We made ours 30 cm (12”) deep which is less than at the bottom because we wanted a slimmer look at the top and it also allows you to get a clear view of the work top from above.

• Cut the very top shelf. Again it looks nice if it butts out a tiny bit at the front and side.

• Decide on how tall you want your work space. We use a lap top there so we checked the height of it opened up and stood at it to make sure we could see the screen properly without a shelf above being in the way. The height of our workspace turned out to be 40 cm (16”).

• Figure out what kind of things you want to place on the top shelves. I knew I wanted a cube look so I just went from there. Cut the horisonal shelves, attach them and then add the vertical pieces.

 

 

I have a problem with bits of paper trailing everywhere so I added some dividers to one of the cubes. It’s basically thinner MDF pieces. Martin, Wille and I each have a slot and there’s one for bills to be paid.

 

 

After priming and painting the unit I covered a piece of cut to size foam bord with linen fabric and attatched it to the wall at the back of the unit with strong double sided tape (the kind used for laying carpet).nThe little halogen light is from IKEA.

 

Hey presto – Home office!

 

Oh, and please again be aware that the the metric measurements are correct ones and the inch measurements are approximate translations.  

Weeds

I love weeding. Both the variety that grows unwanted in my garden and the kind I did today.

Our house is pretty small. We do have adequate storage because I made it a priority to have a place for everything and everything in it's place but sometimes stuff just accumulates and it's time to get rid of some.

This weekend I tried to put away some things in my craft area and they wouldn't fit in the drawers so I figured it was time to do a bit of sorting and weeding again.

 

There are many good ways of getting rid of stuff without throwing it in the trash. I buy from the Red Cross charity shop and I pass on to them some things that I no longer have use for. This weekend some books, egg cups and kids cartoon mugs went their way.

Another good way it to pass on to friends. That's where some of my craft supplies are going. I get so many samples from work and will not ever be able to use them all so I'm passing on some to my friend Anne and her daugther Märtha and to my friend Sanna who loves to craft too.

Wille has four year old twin cousins and they will get books we've grown out of. Still love them but they will be read and loved over at their house too.

The bag above contains some of Wille´s grown out clothes and we have a neighbor boy who is just behind Wille in size so we pass on the good stuff to him.

If you want more organizing and weeding tips you can check out the post I contributed to at Apartment Therapy a while back if you haven't read it already. It's funny though. I was supposed to write ten and there are only nine... That's how organized I really am...

Scritch Scratch

Thank you all so much for all the good wishes after yesterdays post. I'm still excited and very smiley :) Earlier today I went through comments and questions which you have asked since I started blogging in May to make sure I've answered them and I came across this one which I realise I hadn't.

It's about finding a good scratching/clawing device for cats. The reason I haven't really answered it is because...

 

... Mini and Bonus are pretty good cats. They don't claw or scratch at our furniture (that much).

 

Bonus actually prefers clawing at the oak tree just outside our house...

...while Mini sometimes does claw at the store bought corner scratch post which we wedged between the window sill and floor.

Mini is actually more of a floor scratcher although we got her to scratch the post for this photo.  She likes to claw at the few carpets in our home like the sisal ones by the front and back doors.  In this photo there's a bath towel covering the sisal carpet at the back door because it helps keep the living room cleaner when Mini and Bonus jump in from the kitty flap in that door.

When occasionally there are claw marks on the furniture Mini is usually the culprit... A very cute culprit though so we usually just go "oh, now Mini, why did you do that you cute, pretty and very naughty cat?" In very soft sweet voices... Hmmm. Not very efficient. I so wonder why.

 

What a day!

Some days have more content than others. I don't know how to otherwise describe this day. 

 

As I went to work this morning I was a 5-day a week office worker. By lunch time I was a 4-day office worker/1-day self employed person. Imagine that!

The reason for this turn of events was that there were other changes occurring at work and the opportunity came up for me to tell my boss that I had plans to cut down. Suddenly it all made so much sense and it was so easy to say it out loud.

I won't actually start working four days a week until after the new year, but the knowledge that I will have more time for other projects is so uplifting. I was on cloud nine all afternoon! Still am as a matter of fact!

It is a bit scary, I will need to make up for the loss of income somehow, but tonight I'm just over the moon and will think about it tomorrow! And I'm not a procrastinator, so I will really think abut it tomorrow. It's on my to-do list! Tonight I'll celebrate with a glass of wine and slowly fall a asleep in my armchair.

Besides all this excitement I had some horrible Christmas campaign samples arriving which needed to be dealt with. I absolutely hate that part of my office job (see, I'm already accustomed to the idea that I have two jobs :). I also had an office work related (see, I'm really getting used to it now) meeting in the city in the afternoon and in between accompanied Wille to a photo shoot. My cute, sweet, darling teenager earns his own pocket money modeling. This time around it was for a cell phone operator. So far he's paid a large chunk on his state of the arts games computer, his iPhone and still has money in the bank to get a game or something else entirely should he wish to :) He's the best, my boy!

To top this weird day off, the little Red Cross charity shop "Kupan" was open on our way home from the subway. In the photo you can see my lucky finds. Love the little glass dishes (ash trays?). Love the little egg cups. Martin claims the orange one is his. The egg holders are going in the fridge. Love them too :)

Have a great Friday night! I know I will :)

Ps. I'm so smiley tonight, you wouldn't believe it,. Maybe I WILL write a book!