Today, it left me..

..the antique wood stove that has been sitting in the kitchen of the old house ever since 1909.
It was too old to run and I needed the space in the kitchen. I can tell you it was heavy to move through the house and on to the terrace door where it was fork truck lifted by Mats - my ever so helpful brother-in-law. The fundament where ithe EBE-stove had been sitting for such along time was unspeakable. At first I figured the stove had been placed on an insulated carpet of some kind until I discovered the layers of decades of fine compact dust that could be picked up in one full piece..like a carpet..
I hurt my heart to see it go after such a long time of serving the family members that used to live here. I had of course checked with a few antique dealers in Gotland before making the decision and it turned out that there is no market for these sturdy pieces any more - at least not in my part of the world..

Vouge 1893-1963

In the 80´s, I lived in Harare, Zimbabwe. Many people had just fled the country after Mugabe seized power in the in Rhodesia and renamed "his" country Zimbabwe ( the house of stone) and they left in a hurry and left a lot of their things behind. Among them: heaps of valuable books,to heavy to carry along on this journey into the unknown future..
In Borrowdale shopping centre in the northern part of town, however, there was an old white haired lady - a "Rhodesian" as white people were then called, too old to go and who stayed on in the new Zimbabwe. She was a total book freak and was running a secondhand bookstore with plenty of old and valuable hardbacks - a true Aladin´s cave for a book worm like me. In her dark and book covered store ( where one hardly could make her out among the tall stacks of books) I found this marvellous book: Vouge 1893-1963, an anthology on seventy years of bound volumes of Vouge in which the photographs by the world´s most famous and successful photographers are represented. I present you below with a few (haphazardly chosen )of these pictures from this heavy volume that I really treasure. They all represent a spicy time color and spirit of their era - each and every one..And..They simply have to be shared!.

When the snow is knee high outside your window..

....it is high time for the gardening books! So now I am reading the impressive "Story of Gardening" by Penelope Hobhouse, an engaging tale of the development of garden design, "The Story of Gardening" brims with glorious full-color photographs, intriguing timelines and evocative narratives charting the history of individual plants. These are some of the pictures from the lovely book:
The history of gardening extends across at least 4,000 years of human civilization. Egyptiantomb paintings of the 1500s BC are some of the earliest physical evidence of ornamental horticulture and landscape design; they depict lotus ponds surrounded by symmetrical rows of acacias and palms. Another ancient gardening tradition is of Persia: Darius the Great was said to have had a "paradise garden" and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were renowned as a Wonder of the World. Persian gardens were also organized symmetrically, along a center line known as an axis.

Persian influences extended to post-Alexander's Greece: around 350 BC there were gardens at the Academy of Athens, and Theophrastus, who wrote on botany, was supposed to have inherited a garden from Aristotle. Epicurus also had a garden where he walked and taught, and bequeathed it to Hermarchus of Mytilene. Alciphron also mentions private gardens.

The most influential ancient gardens in the western world were the Ptolemy's gardens at Alexandria and the gardening tradition brought to Rome by Lucullus. Wall paintings in Pompeiitopiary and cultivated roses and shaded arcades. Archeological evidence survives at sites such as Hadrian's Villa. The wealthiest Romans built extensive villa gardens with water features,

Byzantium and Moorish Spain kept garden traditions alive after the 4th century AD and the fall of Rome. By this time a separate gardening tradition had arisen in China, which was transmitted to Japan, where it developed into aristocratic miniature landscapes centered on ponds and separately into the severe Zen gardens of temples.

In Europe, gardening revived in Languedoc and the Ile-de-France in the 13th century, and in the Italian villa gardens of the early Renaissance. French parterres developed at the end of the 16th century and reached high development under Andre le Notre. English landscape gardens opened a new perspective in the 18th century. The 19th century saw a welter of historical revivals and Romantic cottage-inspired gardening.

In England, William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll were strong proponents of the wild garden and the perennial garden respectively. Andrew Jackson Downing and Frederick Law Olmsted adapted European styles for North America, especially influencing public parks, campuses and suburban landscapes. Olmsted's influence extended well into the 20th century.

The 20th century also saw the influence of modernism in the garden: from Thomas Church's kidney-shaped swimming pool to the bold colors and forms of Roberto Burle-Marx. A strong environmental consciousness is driving new considerations in gardening today.

(Text: Wikipedia)

I found an inspiring ..

..blog for interior decoration:
Mrs Howard´s Personal Shopper.
A bit "American" in style - but nevertheless inspiring with a great deal of creative thinking! Check it out if you crave for new ideas on interior decoration for the moment!

I am in the news! (You can too!)

Improvements!

The new staircase! Finally! I can now run upstairs and downstairs without risking to fall on my nose! This is indeed some great improvement!
So I will dash off to Visby for some "paint-over" with a white, transparent color today. I was told yesterday that some of the steps were made of wood produced on this farm since the old owner had a bit of a lumberyard (in this barn below - view from my bathroom window) and had equipment to plane the boards himself from trees of this very ground .This is quite a good feeling to know when you climb the stairs to your cosy bedroom on second floor.

The old "easy-to-fall-on-the-nose" staircase...How happy I am to get rid of you! You filled your function over 100 years now. So take a break!

100-years of layers of wallpapers..

The old house desperately needed a new staircase leading to the upper floor. (See why - photo below). So Bosse and Erik came today and brought in a new and definitely more practical one. (See below). When we were tearing down the old one, Bosse showed me the examples of various wallpapers he found in the house of the staircase.. I think I counted at least 10 layers of various wallpapers, qualities and patterns from about 1918 and onwards. I will save a few and hand over to the Gotland museum.. Pattern tresures hidden in the wall..

Leafing through the decades..

Changing tastes and fashions..

The Art Nouveau/jugend era personified!

A modern staircase arrives Monday morning..Yipee!

The old stairs..

My jolly carpenters, Erik and Bosse on the early Monday morning starting their daunting task..

Happy, happy Valentine´s..

..with a rose for you - for every month of the year..

There are quite a few antique features..

..around this old house I have now moved into. Part of the house was built in the 1880´s and has hardly been touched at all. Today I came down with a cold and spend most of my day in bed dying of boredom..So I amused myself by taking the time to document some of these features with my camera. I have grown quite fond of them over the past months and I assure you that I´ll will keep them all - as long as they functions are reasonably workable..