Copenhagen - In Denmark, You Really Need a Candleholder

On February 24, 2016, Jonathan and I made the move to Denmark. 

Jonathan was offered a fantastic position at the same firm wherein he spent his final internship. It took awhile to work through, but we decided that the life we aspired towards was waiting for us in a foreign country. We sold everything in our place to cover the cost of moving, and flew out to start a new life in Copenhagen. Here are the realities of our aspirations so far, in delightful list form.

The Aspiration: We're going to live the healthy Danish Lifestyle! Denmark is known for happiness and healthiness.  One of the big selling points for this European move was the idea of biking or taking transit everywhere. I had actually wanted to live car-free for awhile and we certainly weren't going to ship my Ford Focus across the Atlantic. Since we found shipping a bike on a plane was cheaper than buying a new one on arrival, we packed up the two we already owned and boarded them with our high ideas.

The Reality: In our first week here we had my mother-in-law visiting to help us settle in. We took the train everywhere during her visit, so we are fairly familiar with the lay of transit land. Sadly, the transit costs here are some of the highest in the world. Biking is easy in this flat country, but limits our search distance from work while finding housing. Neither of us was a bike commuter in Seattle, so it took awhile to get our asses used to bike seats. I've crashed twice so far, skinning my hands and bruising my legs and ego. At least we have amazing healthcare.

The Aspiration: The food will be better for us! Jonathan and I were genuinely excited to move to a country with a food pyramid based on science instead of lobbying. Having greater access to cheap, fresh food also made us feel dietary warm and fuzzies. With groceries on every corner, we'd never want for fresh veggies.

The Reality: I don't believe I've ever spent so much time in a grocery store. No preservatives means our produce doesn't last very long. Biking necessitates the need for small loads of groceries. Our current living situation leaves us without a freezer in our apartment. (We are borrowing the chest freezer in the hall for ice cream.) Everyday, I am in a convenience store, bodega, market or grocer, sometimes several if I can't find and ingredient; often twice a day if I run out of something I didn't realize I was low on.

The Aspiration: We'll be minimalists...  I have a real hatred of being told I have too much stuff, which has led to some admittedly unhealthy household purging. This move was the absolute coup de gras against American consumerism.  We arrived at the airport with 5 bags, 2 bikes and one rabbit. A few of our smaller items are due to arrive with traveling friends, but all our furniture, appliances, dishes were left behind. This has obviously created some interesting situations.

So far, we've stayed in places that are furnished. Once we find our own place, we are going to need some basics. My whole idea of basics has shifted since we landed. In Denmark, you really need a candle holder. The weather is shit, so everyone makes houses more comfortable via candles. We now own two tiny house-shaped candle holders. I must admit, it has improved our feelings about not having an actual house quite a lot. Other items of import since we landed include:

• water filter pitcher
• apple vinegar
• lotion
• cardboard
• yarn
• a screwdriver

I refuse to explain any of these items.

The Aspiration: ...in a tiny house! Anyone who knows me knows I love Tiny Houses. Life in 100 square feet might be ridiculous for 2 adults and a rabbit, but we were doing quite well in 800, even with a roommate. As such, Jonathan and I were more than ready to move into a studio or share a 2 bedroom to keep the rent as low as possible. There is just one problem.

The Reality: There is no housing. I'm not saying there is no nice housing, nor am I saying there is no housing of a certain number of rooms, lacking insects or in a fancy neighborhood. I'm saying there is next to nothing of any size or quality available anywhere in the city or its outskirts.

There is a major housing shortage in Copenhagen. People who post rentals are instantly inundated with requests, closing the availability within several hours of making the home available. There are several reasons for this, including a strong sellers' market, and influx of people and, ironically, really good laws that protect tenants from sub-par housing and slumlords. There are no relatively low-cost rentals that can be cleaned up by a responsible tenant, as we found in Seattle; there is very little chance that we would be evicted if we were able to get into a home, even without paying rent for several months.

That's second point is the most inversely productive; because of the difficulty of evicting for non-payment, the deposits for move in are anywhere for 3-6 months, plus the initial month. We are finding apartments that might work for two adults, maybe with a spare room we could rent to another person, which have deposits in the same price range as a brand new Kia Sorrento. What we can afford by the month we can not afford at the time of move in. Thank God for the next point, or we'd be homeless right now.

The Aspiration: We will be in a country of kind people, the kind of people we want to be.

The Reality: This one we got right. The people here are insanely kind. Even at the government offices, the employees go out of their way to make everything as comfortable as possible. Could you imagine getting free coffee at the DMV? This country offers 5 years of free language lessons, healthcare, integration services for spouses, even cultural companions who can provide social interaction to newcomers.

As soon as we landed, we had a short-term rental via a lady who took pity on us for her Air BnB. We lived in a room meant for a single person for about a month, then moved into a guest house that one of the local Danes was kind enough to secure for us through a neighbor. (Tak, Mikela og Jonas!)

So here we are, in a beautiful country with the kindest of strangers. I think we are going to be just fine.

One Massive Curtain Rod for Less than $7.00

What to do when you have an 8 foot window to cover, and don't want to spend $60+ dollars on a rod.  I admit that the idea to use a conduit rod came from another DIY site. However, I believe my take on finials is worthy of a post. 

Meet THE HANDY BOX.

 

These are the utility boxes that are made to work with the conduit to hold switches and wires. I was able to get the conduit cut to the right length before I purchased the piece.

Gold spray paint that we already had.

After painting on two coats.

It's a good match for the antique wall-hanging we have in the living room.

I used a tap to knock out the appropriate bits.

The spacing of the screw holes in the handy box matched the old curtain hanger holes perfectly. No need to fill or drill. TIP: If you use this method, be sure to get the rod cut just a bit short so you can wiggle it into place. I had to undo the top screw on one box to get the pole in.  Rubber bands affixed to the pole, inside the box, keep it from sliding around.

The box with the cover plate on it. It's a blank slate. You could do anything with that plate to make it your own, custom thing. 

8 feet of curtain rod!

My Walden-esque Accounting:

1/2" Electrical Conduit, 10 ft.  $2.48

Handy Box, Metal $1.64x2=$3.28

Handy Box Cover, Metal $.55x2=$1.10

Total Cost =$6.86

I made the curtains and matching pillows as well.

The Shining Chair

This is going to be a long post. My room mate. April, asked if I could recover this amazing antique chair that she purchased from an estate sale. There were a lot of pieces to this project, but it's probably my best furniture work to date. I bring you:

THE SHINING (Chair)

Here's the chair. Cat for scale. That's Audun. 

Here's the inspiration. This is a hallway scene from the hotel in Kubrick's "The Shining".

April ordered this custom print faux suede by Salg, from Spoonflower.

Here's the removal of the rear panel on the back. Note the tacking strips and actual nails instead of staples. There's a bit of cardboard in there for stiffening, and it's in great shape.

Spanish moss. This dates the chair to sometime between 1890 and 1960.

Here's the naked chair. We're thinking around 1930, Spanish Colonial from the scrollwork, nails and moss. 

This fabric is basically a stripe, so I'm treating it as such in aligning it.

The center is pinned so I can align front to back. I cut this panel first, then the upper panel. I wanted the illusion of the hexes joining from seat to back. This took a bit of work, since I had to compensate for the width of the seat cushion.

I didn't take pictures of the tacking of the bottom, but it works the same as the back. I tacked the bottom of the fabric on the front, lining up the edges of the hexagons, then pulled the fabric evenly around the batting to the back.

The corners are folded and carefully molded to form a single crease on the side. I cut away the excess fabric to get the edges to lay flat. Here, I'm aligning the remaining fabric to create the back panel. I ran a thread for alignment to make the pattern wrap to the back of the chair. There's a generous seam allowance tucked underneath.

There was piping on the back of the back, which I replaced with new fabric. I cut out a bias strip from the remaining fabric. I reused the cord from the original piping to get the length. Piping must be cut on the bias (45 degree angle) or it won't be flexible.

I finally noticed my backward sewing. I pin along the seam, instead of perpendicular, usually upside down, and sew to the wrong side. It makes pin removal impossible, and working with wide fabric a pain. Still, I can't break the habit.

Here's the finished piping, being added to the chair back. I started at the bottom center, and tacked inside the piping seam for a close fit to the cord.

Corners are clipped and turned thusly.

The piping can hide some variation at the corner, if you are careful about tacking the two layers smoothly.

At the join, I stitched the two ends together. I would have simply layered on over the other, but the cord was a bit short for that method. The strongest thread I had was grey, so I just dabbed it with a black marker when I was done.

Once the piping was in, I tacked in the back panel that I cut previously. The alignment thread is flush against the piping cord. I used a tacking strip in the top edge.

Here is the aligned fabric. I lifted it up for this picture, to show how the hexes align even after the piping was installed.

The rear panel couldn't be tacked in, so it had to be sewn instead. A curved needle made the job so much easier. I passed it behind the piping and through the seam allowance of the panel, pulling the panel taught over the batting. The center stripe had to stay aligned during the process.

Here it is, completely installed.

And from the front.

Not quite diamonds on the soles of her shoes.

My brand new shoes turned out to not be great for actually walking around. The laser cut leather was cute, but tended to peel in layers if anything scuffed the toe or heel. As the soles are still comfortable, I wanted to repair the surface somehow. Bring on the trusty gilding kit!

Taped front toe on the first shoe as an experiment.

There's the kit. The toe is painted with adhesive size and allowed to dry.

Adding the gold leaf to the prepared heel.

Toe following the application of leaf. It was difficult to get a clean edge, so I decided to allow it to be rough.

Finished toe and heal. There's already a scuff on the toe, but I just slapped another piece of leaf on it to repair it. 

Now that the toes and heels are done, I've coated them with sealer, and look forward to seeing how they look as they wear. I won't consider the look finished until I've got some scuffing pattern to dim up the brightness a bit. However, I'm glad these are once again fit to wear with nice outfits.

Central Space Unit 5

Okay, time for an apartment update!

You may remember the updates to our previous apartment:

Dear GOD, what is that YELLOW!

Oh, so clean! Refinished cabinets? WOW!

Crazy repainting, refinishing amazingness in Every. Single. Room.

We have moved...

...across the courtyard!

The larger corner apartment came available and with less than 700 square feet in our current place, we were tempted.

After doing all of the work on our #11, it was hard to leave. There was a lot of damage in the new unit and we'd need to paint again, but there was a lot more space for us and the pets.


CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

Above the window, the wall board is bulging out. Note the yellow. Holy CRAP, the yellow.

The living room wall, after knocking out a bulge in the wall board. More on this below.

One kitchen wall, complete with funky plaster. This is how all of the wallboard bulges looked before, hence our hesitation.

Not only did we need to deal with the weird wavy walls, but we had odd sections of mis-matched paint to touch up. And that ceiling was FILTHY.

As you can see, once we filled. primed and painted, the walls were not only smooth, but the holes were completely indiscernible.

Check out above the window. Also, behind the couch. See anything? No? Yeah, we did that. 

I'll have a few more before/after photos in the next few days. We're still in process with the bathroom and kitchen, but that photo with the red couch? It was taken the day after we moved in. Feel free to gape at our awesomeness.

Special thanks to my AMAZING mother-in-law for her help with the painting.

Cat Bib

I was going to post about changes to our new apartment, but this is far more hilarious. After one too many birds and rats, we decided to try a kitty bib. It's basically a piece of thick fabric attached to the break-away collar. The idea is that the cat can move properly, but not pounce as easily, giving the prey time to escape. We used a scrap of neoprene, but leather or thick vinyl would also have worked.

An internet pattern.

Neoprene and a ruler.

A surprisingly calm cat. 

Iris is okay with this. She didn't seem to pay the bib any attention, and is moving normally throughout the house. We haven't swept the house yet to see if any carnage arrived during the night, but we are ever hopeful.

No more "presents", Iris.

Sweet Stakmore

 Here's a sweet little Stakmore Urn back folding chair that we also found near the dumpster. Man, people, have you never heard of Goodwill? Well, your loss is our beautiful find!

Cute.

Oh! It folds! Wow!

The frame was actually in great condition, just a few loose bolts. The cover...

GROSS.

A little staple removal, pad rinsing, a shellac touch-up, a bit of brocade, et viola:

Beautiful...

...and clever.

We listed this beauty on Craigslist, along with the magazine rack. It will be hard to see her go.

I have a really hard time letting furniture go...

Oh, Watchmaker's Desk. I'm so glad we kept you. <3

Yeah.