Chez Larsson

Reorganizing Wille's Expedit II

 So yesterday you saw the shelving bit of Wille's Expedit. Today you'll get to see what's lurking in those bottom basket drawers.

 

Down there is all the ugly stuff. All the paraphenlia that goes with computers and game consols. Games, boxes etc.

 

One basket is devoted to joysticks and control pads and the like. Another contains lots of ziploc bags. Each bag holds things like ethernet cables in one, spare mice in another etc.

Here's one of the bags. This one holds camera cables, cell phone to computer cables etc. They are marked so we'll know which one belongs to what.

 

The last of the baskets holds the boxes that we want to hold on to for some reason. Usually where "left over" cables with instructions and/or discs are involved. I used to keep instructions and discs in folders and the cables separate but this is better because I know that the box marked Gigabyte S-series holds everything to do with Wille's computer; mouse, keyboard, speakers and screen. This was VERY handy the other week when all of a sudden his computer went silent and the problem was bigger than just the sound card gone bad and we had to reinstall EVERYTHING. I just picked up the box and there it was, all that was needed.

Wille just got back from school and I'm now waiting for Martin to get home and am dying to get my hands on a glass of Friday wine. I hope you have a lovely weekend!

Oh, have you seen that Aby has a new workshop which starts Tuesday next week? It's called How To Achieve your Goals and Create a Life You Love. I love the title, isn't that what we all want but have problems doing because we don't know where to begin?!

Reorganizing Wille's Expedit I

 

Yesterday in the comments I was asked where the Egyptian temple I showed you is stored. Well, you can see it in the photo above. The reason I took it down and decided to post about it was that it needed dusting. Actually the whole Expedit bookcase needed rearranging to better accomodate Wille's interests. A lot of Manga books are taken into storage in the basement and more room was made for dvd's.

 

Here's one section of the Expedit. Harry Potter books in English, Harry Potter books in Swedish, Tales of Beadle the Bard, comedy dvd's, Friends dvd's, action and adventure dvd's etc etc...

 

Some manga books are still up and so is the robot collection, cd player and cd's and some other books and knick knacks.

 

Magazines are in magazine holders and to make the most out of the tall cubbies we made shelf raisers of out foam core board. Can't remember if I already showed you those but they are great for doubling up the space.

 

Another great thing are these chocolate boxes. They are clear, come with a clear lid and no stickers! And the chocolates are almost too delcious. Here one is used for slim dvd's...

 

 

...and here as a podium for one of Wille's little Mini's.

 

I love the Expedit. Would definitely consider having more of them around the house. Would love one to store craft supplies like Yvonne does but there's just no space in our house.

Do you have an Expedit? Do you store books or other things in it?

   

Egyptian Temple

And now to something completely different.

When Wille turned nine, almost six years ago, we went to Egypt, partly to celebrate his birthday. He was really into all things Egyptian at the time and we thought it would be fun and educational to see some of the sights IRL.

Before leaving to go there we made a pact not to bring home a zillion little souvenir trinkets because no matter how cool they look in the shop they are mostly just clutter when you get home. Wille was a bit of a shopaholic when it come to "cool stuff" at the time (no longer so) so I could sort of see all things Egyptian invading our home on returning.

The deal we made was that Martin and Wille would build an Egyptian temple after we got back and only artefacts worthy of being in the temple could be bought. It was great fun being in those little shops and discussing whether or not an item was temple worthy.

 

After we returned home Anubis, Horus and the rest of the gang soon found their home in this MDF replica of a Valley of the Kings temple and have lived there happily ever after. The End.

Ice Lantern How-To

Today is a skushy day but during the weekend it was cold. On Saturday as I was rummaging in the garage I found some plastic buckets and containers and realised how perfect they are for making ice lanterns!

Here's how:

 

One large container and one small filled up about 3/4 of water.

I don't think the lid is necessary but it helped keep the small container somewhat more in place under the criss cross pattern of masking tape. The idea is to float the small container in the center of the large one.

 

Place outside in the cold. The kit stayed outside for about 24 hours. Made the mistake of putting it where there happened to be sun for a while or it would have been quicker.

 

Back in the kitchen. Remove the small container. It wasn't really cold enough to freeze everything solid so there was still some water in both containers.

 

The large bucket did yield a lantern! Here's Wille's helping me remove it.

 

And here it is outside on the front steps. As you can see the fairy lights are still up. It's just too dark to take them down.

 

Wille enjoyed the thin ice disk from the small container too. Poured water on it to see how thin he could make the rim before it broke.

 

He even came up with smoothing out the edges and thinning it down even more by running warm water and using the tap... Then it broke.  Cheap thrills, huh!? :)

How to Put on a Duvet Cover

   

First, pleeeeease excuuuuuuse Martin's extremely creased polo shirt in the photos you are about to see. If you can't stand creased clothing (or similarily creased duvet covers for that matter) please look away and come back another day. These photos were taken on Saturday morning and this is the wrinkled state we are all in on the weekends.

I have been meaning to post about how to best put on a duvet cover for a long time and Jacueline's question the other day prompted me to finally take some photos of how I do it.

I learned this method in 1985 when I was working on a cruise ship/ferry between Sweden and Finland. I did odd jobs there during one summer and continued on until fall just before I started working at IKEA. One of the jobs I had was as cabin attendant which meant I showed passengers to their cabins and then after they left the ship the next morning I took the sheets off the beds and put new ones on. I have made my fair share of beds you see and this method really is so simple and quick.

Step 1

Launder your duvet covers inside out. This is the key to put them on quickly!

Step 2

Stick arms inside the bottom opening of duvet cover and grab the top corners with your hands.

 

Step 3

Pick up your duvet with hands still inside cover and hold on to those corners to.

 

Step 4

Flip the whole package right way out and shake ( Shake it Martin, shake it!!!) and the cover will slide over the duvet like magic.

 

Step 5

Almost there. If these were cruise ship covers you'd be done by now because the opening on them was from side to side at the bottom without stitching on the sides. Ours have stitiching to prevent everything from sliding out at the bottom as we want ours to stay on for more than one night usually.

 

Step 6

Let go of the top of the duvet and cover and instead pick up one of the bottom corners, cover in left hand and duvet in right  and put the duvet corner in place inside of the cover corner. Repeat on other side. I usually toss the whole thing on the bed at this point but as Martin models this works too.

Step 7

Tadaaaaaa!!!

That's Mini you're spotting down at the bottom in some of the shots by the way. She helped. A lot.

Edit: Here's a tutorial on how to paint the pattern. Thanks Courtney!