Kitchen progress

From 8-11am we helped friends move from their 3rd floor apt.
Then we headed over to our new apartment to keep working on these:
and these (there's the kitchen sink):
putting together things like this:
but not before dealing with a crooked and poorly constructed wall requiring 3 separate trips here so we could do something like this (level the wall with particle board):
just so in the end the frames would hang like so:
In between I put together our table which looks great in the new kitchen, as you can see here:
We got home just before 10pm. Dead tired.
There is LOTS more to do, so we'll keep you posted!

ps- here's a German mopping German style:

Ikea PS Dandelion Lamp - in person

We survived another trip to Ikea. All the final parts needed for our kitchen were in stock, thankfully. We decided to bail on our kitchen table idea since the floor sample fell apart in our hands (awkward). Lots of stuff at Ikea is great, and lots isn't, so I appreciate seeing how floor samples hold up, or in this case, don't. We picked a solid wood table and haven't decided yet on chairs. I was happy to find the new PS line on display, having seen it take the blogosphere by storm, specifically the pendant lamp that looks like a dandelion.
This thing is HUGE! I couldn't find dimensions online earlier, so when we saw it in person last night I was floored. It's the size of an extra large balance ball that you'd use for Pilates, etc. I had actually thought about putting this over our dining room table, but there's no way the room or table is big enough to balance out something of this size! It had a small crowd of people looking at and touching it. Of course I had to touch it too, and it felt cheap and unstable. The little bursts at the end are all paper and easy to crinkle and the little wires they're perched on are wimpy. I thought right away this thing must be a nightmare to assemble. Moving along, I checked out the August bench that had looked so cool....online.
I couldn't get a picture myself, but this piece is really weensy. I imagined it would be more like this piece which has fascinated me for years, but who am I kidding? Again, no dimensions were posted on the website. It's something you could perch on to lace your shoes, certainly nothing to stretch out on for a nap or get comfy on. Disappointing, but at 400 euros we were never going to buy it anyhow. We left with the kitchen remnants, more wooden hangers and some cute napkins.

The Underground Gym

It's decor related, and it's about stuff you can buy in Germany, but it's for a basement in the American Mid-West. A very unfinished basement with a ping pong table, a coi fish named Fuji, and lots of really random stuff. The goal is to clear a large area for the home gym and to de-creepify the basement. It's just the unfinished basement, it's just to go work out it in, but it needs some cheer and needs to be cheap.
I'm not going to post a 'before' picture until an 'after' is available. But the inspiration board is fun enough. I'm suggesting to push the random stuff off to one side and hang fabric panels via the Ikea curtain wire/clip system. This would hide the piles of random stuff, unfinished walls, and delineate the gym corner. It could be a lot of fabric, so sandwiching a hanging white twin sheet between two patterned panels would keep it fresh enough avoid the 'wall of hanging sheets' look you'd get if you didn't have some punchy fabric. I recommend picking one of the two fabrics above for their large, graphic prints.

I like the Ikea PS metal cabinets for their locker look and gym vibe and they come in white and red, depending on how much bright cheer you want to inject. They'll also hold DVDs, towels, small free weights, and be a place to perch the TV. The taller white Aneboda cabinet is an affordable way to house larger items like mats and foam blocks. Track lighting is already installed and a double-padded floor is also ready. All that needs to happen now is making sure a certain three people get a move on!

Cleaning up

The wall mounted wet wipe holder was it's own anomaly. The assistance bar was dated and looking none-too-pretty. We considered leaving the assistance bar, but decided to put a new one in if needed. We thought a family member would want it, but it seems unnecessary now.
Once removed we of course had tons of holes in the tapete wallpaper stuff. Stefan repaired them and we painted. We were able to salvage one of the holes for our own tp holder. I'm glad to be rid of the old one - I am continually annoyed by those metal cover things!
As we've been painting the apartment we've discovered that this layer of tapete is on it's last legs. After we move out, or if we stay for a reeeeealy long time, it will all need to be torn down and redone. The worst walls are the ones we actually decided to paint, which I think is good as the color of the paint detracts from the tapete's patched areas. If we ever have to put tapete up - moving into a place or when we reside in a place, here is where I'd be buying it from!

Elephannie love

I have always liked the vinyl wall 'stickers' and fad though they may be, they don't seem to be going away. They're also a fun way to doll up the walls and are renter-friendly. That said, I've never taken the leap thanks to this crazy tapete (bumpy wallpaper) you have on all walls in Germany. How could vinyl stick to such a surface and still look good? Would it stick if I had latex paint? What about rooms where we're leaving the typical German white non-latex paint? I wasn't about to make a purchase not knowing these answers. Enter Etsyian Elephannie. I showed her a picture of this nutty wall surface and asked her what she thought. She'd also never seen such a texture and offered to send a free sample for me to try out.
I then sent her my German address thinking it would take forever, or not even get sent - overseas, extra postage = extra work. No, she must've sent it out right away! I mentioned I'd just snip the sample in half to try on the different paint surfaces, and she actually sent me two samples! Cute birds at that! Awesome! The timing was perfect because her letter arrived in my mailbox just as I was leaving for the new apartment to wait for hours for the kitchen to be delivered. Now I had something to do while I waited.
The little blue bird is perched on my latex 'Grapefruit' room's doorframe. Her instructions were easy to follow and I had it up in about 4 minutes.
Zooming in you can see it looks pretty smooth despite the surface. On some edges it looks not totally stuck on. I thought I did a pretty good job rubbing it onto the wall. We'll see how it looks after a week or so.
The black one I put just over the light switch in Stefan's office. He loves bird watching, so he was all surprised and happy when he came in to see it! He's hoping it sticks for good. This wall surface is the typical German white paint (not latex). It tends to be a little powdery or something, and I really rubbed this guy on the wall hard! I think I had more pressure and thorough-ness on this one than the orange wall one. I think if I had done as much pressure on the orange wall it wouldn't have those gappy edges.
Zooming in, he actually looks way better stuck down that the one on the latex paint wall. But you can also see the bumpy wall texture more here. Both are dark surfaces, so I don't think it's a light-reflecting issue - in terms of seeing the bumps that is.

I'll leave these little birds here as long as they stick. I'll check them periodically over the next couple of weeks as we slowly move in. I'm trying not to touch them as I think touching may encourage them to come off...?? Not sure. Better safe than sorry at this point. I want my experiment to last for a while!

Kudos and many thanks to Elephannie for great customer service! She has some great designs for sale, so maybe we'll see one on our walls in the future!

Monday's child brings

Ikea. 80-some odd kitchen parts in varying amounts arrive at the new apartment tomorrow afternoon at the most inopportune time possible. There will be some logistic issues between me getting there, Stefan getting there after school, and me getting to where I'm supposed to be Monday afternoon. I'll be interested to see how that goes.

We're done painting. After 3 days it felt like it would never end, but it's over for now. I say for now because that painted slant in the bedroom is annoying and the fact that the 'yellow' room seriously makes you need sunglasses is another problem. However when 1 gallon of latex paint (~5 liters) runs you nearly 50 euro (that's almost $70 US), you can bet we're going to try to live with it for awhile.

Most German paint isn't latex, it's some other flat stuff. It's not that much cheaper and the quality is pretty poor - at least where I've seen it. It's super-matte, when I like a bit of gloss on walls, not a lot, but a little. It can rub it's color off, even white, on your things, and it ages pretty fast (darkening around the edges). We don't want to have to repaint every 3-4 years. The flip side is that the latex paint they DO sell is high gloss. So I have high gloss walls, which is weird to me. High gloss is something I normally would only see or put on on trim. You can't have it all.

Green and grapefruit

So we painted the bedroom the same green as what we currently have. It's looking minty here, but it's the same shade as what we currently have in real life. Since we painted the slant, we ran out of paint doing the bathroom. We basically wish we hadn't painted the slant. But it's too much work to paint it white again. At least right now. So it's staying green.

So we drove across town to Obi again for more green paint to finish the bathroom, since it was only two-thirds finished. So annoying. The bathroom is really green in these pictures. It's not so strong in real life.

Then we did the little bedroom. We decided to be crazy and picked the color 'grapefruit'. I got creative while waiting for Stefan to finish with the large roller.

Then came grapefruit. Which looks more orange than it's true yellow base in this picture. We're still not sure how we're feeling about this. Of course we ran out of paint here too, which is why it looks like this.
Tomorrow morning we'll have to do another trip to Obi before returning to finish the job. Annoying. Then I'll be doing touch-ups all day with the tiny brush and mini-roller. I keep telling Stefan that most of our walls will be covered in closets and cupboards. In the grapefruit room we'll be doing all white everything, except for my desk.

It's Blue

We painted the kitchen and the dining/living room today. It's very blue. We like it. Since the kitchen will be all white cabinets, etc and all our living room storage, tables, and lamps are white, it will look nice against the blue walls. Oddly enough the photos make the blue look the same as the blue we have now, but it's definitely darker and grayer - which we like! I particularly like how it plays against the wood tones in the apartment.

It does feel like a LOT of blue right now, but most of it will actually be covered up with cabinets and shelves.

We had fun painting today and sure enough, Herr Tille downstairs came up and rang the bell to see 'how we were'. We are total entertainment for these two! He was very interested in the fact that we were painting a color. Most older Germans just can't fathom painting walls anything other than white, so it's always a little fun to watch the shock factor. After three trips up to bring us little random things that might help us, he said he and his wife would like to invite us to Kaffeetrinken (afternoon tea) at 4pm if we were available. We said yes. Stefan was so impressed they invited us into their home - definitely NOT typical German behavior with new people!

It was a blast, they had two different kinds of homemade cake, even a Profeten cake "because Stefan studied Theology" - so sweet! They were all pleased that we came down and chatted for an hour over a pot of tea and treats. Stefan and I kept exchanging glances, like "Seriously, nice neighbors?!? Are we dreaming?!" Herr Tille has basically insisted on helping us build the kitchen in the next two weeks, which is awesome. He's pretty handy and has a whole workshop of tools in the basement. So this is great. He also said we should feel free to ask the landlord for new skylight windows after our first year there. Good tip. I can't believe how nice our neighbors are - they get a kick out of the 'kids upstairs', ha ha! We invited them up to see the paint job and they were so impressed that we invited them up. She hadn't been up there for years, since her elderly parents had lived up there. They really liked the blue, really. I doubt they would do such a thing, but they were visibly impressed with it, which was fun to see.

We're happy with it too. Tomorrow comes green. And a surprise in the little bedroom!

Color, take 2

We're going to buy paint today! So excited to get a move on again! I've decided to paint the kitchen the same as the living room/dining room - a dusty slate blue-gray. Looks like this, but more greenish, and a bit lighter.
It should really make the wood ceilings in the LR/DR light up since they have so much yellow to them. I like the idea of it in the kitchen too to keep a color flow going between the two rooms. It'll look nice with the new floor in the kitchen. All the oranges were just making the new floor too orangey or something for my taste.

We're painting our new bedroom the same as our old bedroom. We just like it too much to leave it. There should be enough extra paint to do the little toilet half bath - hey, how about I just say powder room? No. Nobody really powders in there and it'll just confuse the Germans. I just hate saying TOILET all the time. icky to my American ears. Our current toilet room has a yellow Post-It on the door that says WC. That's to help guests know which door of the 7 in the front hall leads to the toilet.
I have no idea what to do in the little bedroom. My desk will go in there. A twin futon bed will eventually go in there. The floor is hideous and I can use either one of the round red rugs in there, or my small green rug from our current bedroom. Neither of which are really large or appropriate for the floor size or my rolling desk chair. One suggestion is to go as eclectic as I want in there since it will be primarily my space. Not that I now have ideas.

I do know this apartment will have a spray painted chandelier. I've wanted one for a while now. We'll need to buy a couple more overhead lighting options for a few spots in the new apartment and there's a shop in town that has 14 euro chandeliers, so that's my plan and I'm sticking to it. It'll either hang in the little bedroom or over the kitchen eating nook.
Other color yet to be infused is also related to the kitchen table. It's nothing fancy, but it's there. The chairs are less than thrilling and they're plastic, but sturdy. I really want to make some cute little short-skirted slipcovers to perk them up a bit. I think something with a lot of yellow in it. Look over to the right and you'll see my Etsy favorites. I'm collecting some fabric inspiration over there. First step would be, ahem, getting a sewing machine...

Zap that

The electrician came and made a big mess.

Then he cleaned it up and we had plugs and cables where we need them.

I'm a little shocked that it took 4hrs to do all this, but he was measuring, cutting, drilling, etc the whole time, so it's not like we got ripped off. But I forgot to ask him about how we could go about switching our lightswitch covers ourselves. Neither of us is particularly fond of these guys that are all around the apartment:

Most of them are sticking somehow and don't go smoothly anymore. I saw these a few hours later at the grocery store and looking at them makes me think we'd have to get under that dang tapete wallpaper stuff...? I don't know. It can't be that difficult can it?! I'll have to ask at Obi next time I'm there.

Color

Yes, this issue again. Now that the floor is down in the kitchen I feel like I can really think about the color/no color issue. Not that I took a huge break or anything, it's just now that I have a floor scrap I seem to be dragging it around like a security blanket and trying out the paint chips to see what I think. It's sort of silly:

Blues?


or yellows?
(that solitary green will be in our bedroom, hands down, we're recreating the current room we already love to bits)

Reading this post on color choices makes me pretty sure I want to do a blue, or - if Stefan (mr. i hate pink and all things remotely pink) permits - lavender. Wouldn't it be funny if I actually ended up with lavender? I've actually been wanting lavender in the little toilet room (gosh, it's not a half bath, b/c the shower-tub room doesn't have a toilet, so we have then 2 half baths...??) because it's such a sad little room. Lavender would also work with the sage/wedgewood blue towels we already have. But if I did a lavender in the toilet room and then also in the kitchen, would that be wierd? I kind of think so. By the way, that IS a wall mounted wet wipe holder and I am DEFINITELY going to try to pry that sucker off. The bar will stay though for visiting family members who need assistance.

Maybe I can use my leftover paint from the bedroom and have the toilet room be the same springy green. I'll have to see how that looks with the towels. I'm not buying new towels for a room that's not painted yet.

I think that article has made me abandon yellow in the kitchen. That room doesn't seem isolated enough to jump off the blue wagon the rest of the apartment seems to be on. And I've always wanted to paint the tiny bedroom yellow. I hope it will one day be a nursery and I'd like my child to have a yellow nursery like I did. (sans green shag rug, ha ha)

Hmmmm....

The Floor. Oh Wow.

I'm in awe of how much the new floor has already transformed this room.



It's amazing.
I didn't expect linoleum to ever look this good!



It was worth every penny.
Even the walk-in pantry looks 100 times better!

I took a beach chair and the laptop over this morning, proceeded to sweep the last few corners of the apartment, and camped out. It's so much easier to talk in German to other non-native speakers. They really know how to simplify the language if you don't get something. One of the guys was from Yugoslavia, the other from Russia. Very nice and friendly. I wish I'd had a snack to offer them, they did such a good job and were so nice explaining things when I didn't understand a few vocab words.

I'm also so glad we decided to go cheap and not pay for new baseboards. The old plastic brown strips actually match way better than anything in the store did, and they don't look yucky anymore now that they match the floor!

Mops

This is so dumb, but it's true: It will cost me 20 euro to get a mop in Germany that is remotely akin to something I've used before. I really hate mopping floors, but when I have to, I like the kind where you put the mop head in the bucket, soak it, and then push a handle down to squeeze out the excess water. Then you mop the floor and repeat. It might even have a little scrubby brush on the end for tough spots. They don't sell those here. Anywhere. This is what they do sell:The reason I've only encountered this issue now, after living here nearly 2 years, is that Stefan and I have a deal: he mops the floors, clears the shower drain, kills the fat spiders/things, and does the mowing. I do all the other cleaning. So he bought himself a German mop thing when we moved here. It has a short bristled brush, a pail, and a rag. You have to drape the wet rag over the bristle and up the handle and then push that around the floor. Then you remove the rag with your hands, swish it in the bucket, and do it again. I actually have tried this, but the rag never stays put and falls off completely 2 seconds later and it just makes me mad.

The other system they sell is 20 euro with a snap-on cloth head that will fold to rinse in a bucket, which I was about to buy today and use to go over and wash the old floor before the new one gets laid tomorrow - but then I saw the label telling me I had to wash it's little cloth cover first before using it - which I had no time for a 2hr washing machine cycle followed by an air dry and then go there and mop - all before Stefan would get home, need dinner, and then we show the apartment. Bah. So he'll have to mop the floor tonight at the new apartment. I feel really bad, so I spent 2 euro on another mop/broom handle so at least while he's mopping I can screw on the broom head and get the rest of the apartment floors de-junked. (and they are bad)

Gekauft

It is purchased.
It took nearly 4 hours of sitting on stools

and figuring things out.

But the first big step is behind us. It will arrive in lots of packages in a little over a week. Providential timing allowed us to get zero percent financing as well as acquiring 300 euro in Ikea gift cards (which will go towards handles, some interior fittings, table/chairs, and a few other things). Considering what we'd seen at other kitchen shops, I'd call this 3,300 purchase a minor miracle in the course of life. We even upgraded our appliances to the upper/mid-grade level.

MAJOR kudos to the Ikea worker who skipped his breaks and ate a late dinner to stick with us until the end. He showed us little tricks to save money and added a few details that will make it a much nicer space to work/live in. We also felt that we had the most competent man for the job as other coworkers kept coming over to ask his advice (and inform him a few times that he was due for a break and they could take over). I'm so glad he stuck with us - so many customers would lose their Ikea worker to a 'break' and then have to re-explain everything to the next person. Stefan insisted on giving him a 10 euro tip- had to shove it in his shirt pocket to make it stay! - and honestly, he deserved it and then some. He went above and beyond and that was the best customer service I've seen in all my nearly 2 years of living in this country. The sad thing is he probably makes peanuts at that job.

Now we just have to figure out how to put this thing together. There seems to be a trick to basic assistance, where you assemble all the cabinets yourself, which would be sufficient except they refuse to help you hang the wall cabinets. They'll just do the lower cabs, countertop, and hook up the sink and appliances. If you want help with the wall cabs you have to do 'full' assistance at a hefty price tag. But then they'll assemble every little thing for you, no matter how long it takes.
Our concern is that Stefan is totally swamped between now and our move-in date with having to juggle homerooming two classes, dealing with parents calling us non-stop, exams, papers, grading, etc. Oh yeah, and he has to take apart all our closets and storage cabinets, move them, and reassemble them at the new place. Most all of this (dis)assembling is 2-person work, otherwise I'd just go at it myself. Stefan's hoping to get the main office of the montage crew to cut him a deal. He'll have to try that tomorrow. He's away on a field trip today.