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What’s in the box?

I’ve been trying to fight it, but the takeover of our home by baby stuff has begun. Recently it became apparent that I needed somewhere to put Tala during the day that wasn’t the couch, floor or bassinet. Enter The Box.

The box, or playpen as it’s known elsewhere, seems to be a Dutch baby essential. After being offered several boxes, I finally gave in and took one sight unseen. Luckily, it fits in nicely with the warm wood and eclectic style of our living room. Sigh of relief.

Confession time: despite my resistance to baby stuff outside Tala’s room and ours, I actually had fun furnishing the box.

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4 Comments
Posted on May 29, 2013
Category: Creative Projects, House & Spouse · Labels: baby, furniture, home, projects, Tala

Hanging up the duyan

A while back, I blogged about my desire for a traditional Filipino duyan, or hanging bassinet, for the baby. My mom presented me with one last Christmas, and after lots of plastic cling wrap and two plane rides, our duyan arrived safely in Amsterdam.

Plain rattan didn’t quite go with our baby room’s color scheme, so Marlon and I decided to give the traditional duyan a bit of a modern makeover. Inspired by the ombre trend, Marlon and I used leftover paint from our baby room bookshelves to create a gradient effect. We applied three shades of powdery pink, starting with the lightest shade then and blending them as we went along.

After revamping the duyan, we had to find a place for it. I wanted Tala to sleep in our room in the early months, but we didn’t have enough space to hang the duyan by the bed.

Since we had found a great deal on a second-hand Stokke Sleepi, Marlon and I decided to make that her main crib and install the duyan on the balcony instead. Luckily, our apartment’s previous owners used to hang a hammock on the balcony, and they’d left a few heavy-duty hooks in the ceiling. Marlon tapped into his inner Boy Scout to rig the rope and secure it with a few well-placed knots…

… and voila! One fully functional duyan, ready for gentle breezes and sunny days.

With the arrival of a long-delayed spring, we’re finally getting to use the duyan. We had great sunny weather last weekend, so we put the mattress and beddings from her Stokke crib in it and put her down for a nap while we enjoyed our first al fresco lunch of the season.

So many of my baby essentials are from home. The makeshift sun shade is one of our dozens of bird’s eye cloth diapers from Landmark, and it’s secured with pastel bull clips from National Bookstore. This is a Filipino baby, after all!

Now that we’ve managed to import and install a traditional Filipino duyan, I’d love to get more use out of it. If only it was as easy to bring over some Filipino sunshine!

2 Comments
Posted on April 19, 2013
Category: Creative Projects, House & Spouse · Labels: baby, DIY, duyan, furniture, home, projects, Tala

Before & after: Ikea Brimnes bed

Moving into a smaller apartment with less closet space, Marlon and I agreed that under-bed storage was a must. We looked at a couple of (mostly expensive) options until we settled on the affordable Ikea Brimnes bed, which has clean lines and huge drawers underneath.

Because our bedroom has limited space, we also bought the Brimnes headboard, which features a ledge and hidden shelving that we could use in place of bedside tables.

Confession: I wasn’t totally onboard with this purchase. I agreed the storage was practical, but I had an irrational, possibly hormonally-fueled distaste for those two rectangles on the headboard and footboard. “Can we please do something to cover them up?” I grumbled as we paid for our purchases at Ikea. “Okay,” Marlon said. Smart man—never disagree with a pregnant woman.

With Little Mango on the way, neither Marlon and I were in the mood for elaborate DIYs. Our solution? Wallpaper!

Check out our quick fix and finishing touches, after the jump!

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14 Comments
Posted on March 14, 2013
Category: House & Spouse · Labels: DIY, furniture, home, projects

Before & after: Kitchen

My last before-and-after of the week is the room that didn’t need much fixing up: our kitchen. Here’s what it looked like before we moved in…

and after.

Even though we didn’t have to do much with our kitchen, it’s become the most hardworking space in our house. We cook and eat at home a lot (and some of our meals can get pretty elaborate!), so our kitchen countertop is pretty full. We’re using this space just as I pictured it: Marlon cooking while I work at my desk by the window, the two of us spending time together even while doing different things.

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6 Comments
Posted on March 8, 2013
Category: House & Spouse · Labels: furniture, home

Before & after: Entryway

Compared to our previous apartment, our new home has a smaller entryway. I actually don’t mind; I think if we had a bigger hallway, it would just collect more junk! Here’s how the hallway looked before we moved in…

and what it looks like now.

Hallway after

For such a small space, we managed to fit in quite a few things, including some of our favorite paintings and knickknacks.

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5 Comments
Posted on March 6, 2013
Category: House & Spouse · Labels: furniture, home

Before & after: Living room

Though I had hoped Little Mango would come early, I have to admit there are quite a few pluses to her taking her sweet time. One of them is having the luxury of easing into our new home—figuring out storage, shifting furniture around, and putting some essentials into place. For a while, it seemed the configuration of our home was changing every day, but Marlon and I have finally settled into a layout that we like.

So here’s a little before-and-after to show you how we’ve traded the pristine emptiness of a new apartment…

for something a little more lived in… a little more “us.”

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9 Comments
Posted on March 5, 2013
Category: House & Spouse · Labels: color, furniture, home

Making it our own

It’s been over two weeks since Marlon and I moved into our new apartment. Every day is an opportunity to chip away at the chaos with little tasks, like buying toilet roll holders, as well as big ones, like assembling the most complicated sofa bed ever (Ikea PS 2012, I’m looking at you).

Though the list of tasks seems endless, none of it feels like a chore. Instead, they feel like the movements of our small family squirming into place—a turn here, a wiggle there, until everything fits just right. It’ll take a while, but in the meantime, every day I see our home starting to take on the little personal touches that make it ours. It’s a subtle, but wonderful satisfaction.

I loved how the previous owners decorated the place, with clean lines, a spacious feeling and minimal clutter. But as much as we wanted to do the whole minimalist Scandinavian thing, color has made its place in our home. I can’t stop it; it’s in our personality.

Books and art… can’t have a home without those. None of our paintings or prints are in their final place yet, though.

By the way… Marlon painted these!

We’re reconfiguring some things, like the old crates that used to be a TV console and are now hallway storage…

and finding new places for others. For example, my desk used to be in the guest room, but now sits between the living and dining spaces. There’s more pressure on me to keep it neat!

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4 Comments
Posted on February 1, 2013
Category: House & Spouse · Labels: color, furniture, home

From school gym to work table

At the start of the year, I decided I needed a desk. All my activities—writing for work, blogging, painting, sewing and calligraphy—took place on the dining table, and that wasn’t working for me anymore. The dining room was hard to heat in winter, so I would end up taking my laptop with me into bed… and not getting anything done! A proper desk would give me a place to build a routine around and would be great for my productivity.

I knew what I wanted: a desk of at least 1.5 meters, longer than it was deep, with space to do more than just one thing at a time. It had to have a tabletop that I wouldn’t mind staining with paint or ink, made of a warm material (no metal, no laminate). It had to have character—possibly used, preferably vintage—but clean lines. It had to be something we could repurpose as a console or buffet table if we ever needed more space. Finally, it had to be something I would want to take back with me if we ever moved back home (so no Ikea)

So I started looking around—thus the trips to Van Dijk en Ko, the IJ-Hallen flea market, and more. I constantly referred to my collection of home offices on Pinterest to keep me on track. I saw a lot of desks—too deep, too low, too short, too expensive.

Then my friend Karyn, who shares my love for old and repurposed things, drove me to the little town of Baarn, 20 minutes out of Amsterdam, to visit J. van Ijken Oude Bouwmaterialen. Oude bouwmaterialenmeans old building materials, and that was exactly what Mr. van Ijken had for sale: an entire hectare of old floors, doors, windows, tiles, tubs, gates, knobs, bricks, fireplaces, you name it. All of it reclaimed from homes, ships, churches, schools, bridges, train stations and more, waiting to be found by odd people who love old things with character. Like me.

Walking into a warehouse filled with old floorboards, I was seized by a wild thought. If I couldn’t find my perfect desk… should I just build it? These are the kinds of thoughts you have after living over a year in a country and culture where everyone does everything themselves. You hear about people building their own houses from scratch and you start to think, it can’t be that hard. Can it?

This old herringbone floor from Hungary reminded me of a beautiful herringbone desk I had seen on Pinterest, and inflamed my confidence. “Yes,” it whispered. “Just build it.”

Then I saw them: old hardwood planks from a Dutch school gym, for €60 per square meter. Pops of color. Lots of character. Perfect.

Finding the wood spurred me into action, and I bought a pair of clean, shiny chrome Vika Moliden legs from Ikea for €25 apiece. I got Marlon on board (you didn’t think I was going to build this all by myself, did you?), and we agreed to rent a car and come back for the planks.

The following weekend, the owner himself, Jan van Ijken, helped me select the pieces that had this old colorful tape. I’d hoped I could have the tabletop built there and just cart it home in the car, but he was very clear about that not being his business. “I supply the wood,” he said firmly and gruffly (but not rudely). He did help me cut the planks into my desired length of 1.5 meters, so thanks, Mr. van Ijken!

After purchasing some wood glue and a small power sander, it was time to build my work table.

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28 Comments
Posted on April 15, 2012
Category: Creative Projects · Labels: DIY, furniture, home, Marlon

Van Dijk & Ko

Be prepared for a slew of thrifting posts from me over the next few days. I’m obsessed with finding a desk for my soon-to-be home office, and since I’m on a budget, checking out second-hand sources has been my top priority. One (rare) sunny Saturday morning, my search for the perfect second-hand desk led me across the river IJ (pronounced “eye”) to Amsterdam Noord, which is 14 minutes by ferry from Centraal Station.

Amsterdam Noord is still largely industrial, but it’s considered an “up-and-coming” (i.e. increasingly livable, secretly hip) neighborhood. With wide roads, little greenery and a surfeit of warehouses, it feels like a different planet from the rest of Amsterdam.

It’s also a killer bike ride, because nothing cuts the wind, which (on the day we were there, at least) is inescapable and so very strong. I felt like 20-pound weights were hanging from my handlebars.

But my fietsje (little bike) and I forged ahead anyway. I say “little,” because my trusty baby blue cruiser who came all the way from Singapore is microscopic by Dutch standards. I feel like I get strange looks whenever I’m out biking; I’ve seen 11 year-olds riding bigger bikes than mine.

In contrast, Marlon, who bikes to work everyday, has a proper Dutch bike. They call it an oma fiets (granny bike). It’s higher, so you can fully extend your legs while biking and prevent damage to your knees. I don’t bike often enough to care about that stuff, although I should.

Anyway, there was a good reason for the killer bike ride: to explore the 2,500 square-meter second-hand wonderland known as Van Dijk en Ko.

Step inside, after the jump!

All those cliches about shining eyes and a song in your heart? That’s me entering a place like this. Imagine four times this long warehouse space, filled with old books and furniture from the Netherlands, Belgium, France…

… Romania and Hungary. You could kind of tell which pieces were from Eastern Europe: the ones that were folksier, with more pattern and color.

Another Hungarian import sold at Van Dijk en Ko: gorgeous hand-blown glassware. They are brand new, not second hand.

We have way too many glasses as it is, but I need to come back for some of these.

Old mail sacks made of linen, also from France and Hungary, are sold by the meter. I would love a classic French armchair reupholstered in this material.

Aside from books and furniture, there are also lots of old building materials and parts of houses. Iron gate as headboard, anyone?

I could have grabbed a roll of vintage wallpaper for future projects. But I have too much paper at home already.

If we hadn’t been on our bikes, I would have loved to pick up a few of these giant beakers, in arresting hues of emerald and cobalt.

More impractical but no less eye-catching: a card catalog (remember those?) and a black horse on wheels. I’d love to see someone cycling around the streets of Amsterdam on that!

Though I took my time browsing and loved doing so, I was a good girl that day. My only purchase was a jar of fountain pens (for my newest hobby) at 50 cents apiece.

Unfortunately, my desk eluded me. On to the next!

2 Comments
Posted on March 7, 2012
Category: Life in Amsterdam, Shopping & Finds · Labels: Amsterdam, bike, furniture, paper, shopping, vintage

Living room reshuffle

Beset by the winter blues and a strange restlessness during the last few weeks of January, I felt a change was in order. While leafing through Decorate by Holly Becker for inspiration, I came across a great tip for organizing spaces: check how a room “flows” by having people over and observing how they use the space during a party.

Thinking back to a a December potluck lunch I hosted at home, I realized that even with a packed dining room, people didn’t naturally “spill over” into our living room. Our old layout below was great for holing up in front of the TV (which is how we survived many a long winter night), but because the back of the daybed effectively closed off the room, it didn’t feel open and inviting to other people.

So, with my dictatorial brain and my husband’s considerable brawn, we spent one January evening moving furniture around late into the night. The goal was to open up the room without moving any of the paintings or the mirror. As renters, we can’t drill without the landlord’s consent, and taking things off the painting rails is really, really difficult!

We tried a lot of configurations that felt cramped and weird, until we realized there was just one thing that we had to do…

… and that was to rearrange our wine crates!

By reconfiguring them into a kind of wide U/V shape, we were able to put the TV in a position that everyone in the room could see, without making it the focal point of the room. This also filled up a dead corner, hid unsightly wires, and opened up the room. We ended up with this new layout.

I’m really happy with it! It seems like we have much more space now. And we’ve begun to actually use the armchair as a reading chair.

I also took my restlessness out on a tall stack of magazines that I’d been holding on to since 2005. I tore out pages with striking images and filed them into categories such as female faces, female figures, textures, travel, interiors, recipes and so on. This was all that was left after the cull: a stack of magazines less than a foot high. #winner

The finishing touch: lighting.

Dark winter nights are when I really feel how lighting can lift one’s mood. To help our linen-shaded lamps battle the dark, I repurposed old glass jars that I’d been saving into tea light holders. My lola, compulsive hoarder of Ludy’s Peanut Butter glasses, would be proud of me!