Chez Larsson

Hallelujah!

I love Fiskars scissors. They are undoubtedly the best scissors around but so far they've almost exclusively been available in their signature orange. Nothing wrong with orange but I've always wished they came in white.

A couple of years or so ago I read somewhere online that they were indeed going to be made in white and they've since been on my wish list. Problem though that the white version was nowhere to be found. I searched high and low, on line and in store but nothing. In the end I honestly thought I'd dreamed up the idea of the white Fiskars!

 

 

Then last week I went to the hardware store to pick up something else entirely and there they were! Hallelujah! You will not believe the excitement I felt when seeing MY scissors!!! It's ridiculous, but I was honestly thinking I'd gone a bit mad imagining the white Fiskars...

 

 

So my white Fiskars made it home and have since made friends with its orange relatives. And THEY WILL live happily together ever after!

 

This was based on a true story and was in no way sponsored by the best scissors in the whole wide world.

Ps. Yes, please do send me a (big) box of (white) samples, Fiskars!

Sold!

 

As most of you probably guessed last week we sold our house! I wanted to wait until the deposit was paid before I did my happy dance here on the blog which is why I didn’t post about it immediately.

The 10% deposit has now been paid and the selling price was 5 million SEK / USD ~715 000, just over the asking price at 4.9 million. I’m really pleased because it’s what I expected to get and a fair price.

The new family moving in is super nice. They have a seven month baby boy and are looking forward to living in a house for the first time.

I on the other hand am now looking forward to tackling all those things on my to-do list which have been on hold until the deposit was paid. Lots of things to arrange and lots to order!

Our House Listing is Up!

 
 

So, our listing us up in Hemnet. So exciting!  You can either click on the Hemnet link and click your way further from there or go straight to our realtor Bjurfors' website to see it all.

For those of you who are not familiar with Swedish kronor, 4 900 000 translates into roughly US$700 000. Oh and our next door neighbor at number 5 sold just the other day. 5.4 million kronor... That's A LOT of money.

Purchase Contract Signed!

Wohoo!!!

So early on Friday morning I posted my list of house hunting frustrations. By Friday afternoon I was actually well on the way to having signed and confirmed a contract on the house (above) which we viewed last Sunday. I couldn't mention it in the comments because I still had to talk to the building inspector (the deal could fall through in case anything regarding the inspection was iffy) and she didn’t call until late on Friday evening and I also had to put our current house up for sale and meet with our realtor about that (more on our sale tomorrow!)

Wille and I are super excited!

Let’s see how our new place does based on my priority list:

Top Priorities

* Safe surroundings for Mini and Bonus. No heavy traffic right next to the house and preferably some woodsy area or similar nearby. No woodsy area but a park just behind the garden. Check!

* Walking distance to the west bound “green” subway line so Wille can get to school fairly easily and get to his friends easily too. A 3 minute walk to the nearest stop along the green line. Check!

* Not further out than Vällingby, which is 3-4 more stops on the subway from where we are now. It’s in Vällingby. Check!

* A house we own rather than a condominium type of home. We’ll own it. Check!

 

Other than that we’d like

* 70 square meters (750 square feet) or larger (our current house is 82 square meters + basement). It’s a two story row house with a basement and the total size is actually a bit bigger than our current house. 99 square meters (1065 square feet) of living space and 53 square meters (570 square feet) of basement. Check!

* Large room for Wille so he can easily have friends over who can stay the night. Larger than now ideally. Check!

* A garden. I’d prefer smaller than currently (which is already small at 450 square meters / 4800 square feet). It’s tiny at 216 square meters ( 2325 square feet) so check!

* Proximity to a grocery store. A three minute walk to a giant super market. Yay! (We don’t have a good food store nearby right now) Check!

 

If I could pick and choose but still be realistic I’d like for the new place to

* Be built pre 1970 or after 1990. Ideally 30’s through 50’s or earlier than 1930’s. It’s from 1954. Check!

* Be around 100 square meters. 99 is close enough, don’t you think? Check!

* Have had major renovations done already such as electricity and roofing. It’s a fixer upper from 1954 and it’s been in the same family since it was built. It’s been vacant for almost two years. The roof was re-laid fairy recently (Check!) but I need to get a contracter, plumber and electrician in to see if the whole place needs rewiring and for some bathroom and kitchen work. There’s also a huge amount of cosmetic work that needs doing. Can’t wait!

* Be open plan or the have possibility to make it into open plan. It’s got a lot of potential, so check!

* Have a bathroom with a window. Happy dance!!! Check!

* Have nice neighbors who like cats. Haven’t met them yet so fingers crossed!
EDIT: Turns out a reader, Sarah, lives just across the street (How fun!!!) and it's a very cat friendly neighborhood. CHEEEECK!

I’m pretty amazed at how everything has fallen into place so quickly. I would never have guessed that we’d find, fall in love so quickly AND be the winning bidder.

So when are we moving? Our preliminary date for getting full access to the house is April 29. The house is empty so we could move in sooner but need to sell our current house first and we hope to have the new people in here by mid May. That leaves us a couple of weeks to get workers in and to do a bit of painting ourselves before bringing our stuff there. 

The great thing is that because the house is empty we’ll get keys as soon as our down payment has been transferred to the sellers. We can’t actually start any renovations but we can bring contractors in for estimates and we can take measurements and plan our layout etc.

Yay!

Plaza Magazine

 
I think it's way cool that I'm getting a little bit of attention on my own turf nowadays. Being a Swedish blogger writing in English kind of makes me not really "belong" anywhere. Lately I've been given a fair amount of attention from Swedish press such as in the Amelia article, one in Swedish Cosmopolitan and also one yet to be published in Expressen Söndag.

 
 This Plaza Interiör article is about home bloggers "taking over Sweden". Lo and behold I'm mentioned already in the second paragraph!

 
 And there I am in my grey T-shirt. If you need a bigger dose of Swedish blogs than I can provide the others mentioned in the article are: Lotta Agaton, Trendenser, Husligheter, Design & Inredningsbloggen, Emmas Designblogg and Snusans Inredningsblogg.