kingsday 2020

For the first time in history the Dutchies celebrated King's Day mainly in and around the house.

Due to the corona crisis, no traditional 'Orange' parties, no free-markets, no festivals. Most of us stayed at home and in our backyards.

The 27th of April was like a summer day in spring, probably the most beautiful weather in decades.

We raised the flag and took a short walk nearby. The roadsides are full of flowers nowadays and I picked some wild flowers.

It's the little things these days...

checkered crochet

Current crochet project.

Inspired by my favorite checkered Vans.

Besides working on improvement here and there in the house, guided by our shrinking to-do list, I keep crocheting too...

I'm doing the utmost to stay creative and try to find a bit of variety in the days that are increasingly similar.

how i miss the freedom to travel

How I miss the freedom to travel.

After staying at home for weeks now, I barely know what day it is anymore.

Besides going to my work in the market at Villa Augustus and visiting my children, days are filled with doing things in and around the house.
We feel blessed to have a garden since the quarantine started, and can spend our spare time outside during the most lovely sunny spring weather April brought us.

Yesterday we would have returned home from a week's holiday at the coast in northern Morocco. We took it lightly when we had to cancel this trip, because hey, worse things can happen...

I think a lot about traveling these days and how obvious it seemed to plan and book a trip.
All we can do now is 'daydreaming' about trips from the past, last year and trips ahead.

But here we are with at least another #stayhome month to go, so i thought i’d share this happy memory that popped up in my Instagram memories yesterday, bursting of happiness and freedom.

Dear all, stay positive and trust that everything will be okay.

photo: Marrakech - April 2018 - In the middle of the medina with a bouquet of flowers from the local market.

chevron cushion - another unfinished project done

Another unfinished project done.

The first stitches of this pillow I made last May.
This chevron pillow ended up on the pile of almost unfinished projects.

And all I actually had to do, was to buy an inner cushion and sew the seam. Having 'extra' time, somehow brings so much satisfaction.

The cushion has two different sides; one white & multicolored stripes and the other one white, lilac & yellow with smaller stripes.

Fancy to make one yourself?

You can download the chevron pillow pattern in my ETSY SHOP.

PS: All patterns in my shop are still 1 euro each and I keep donating the pattern sales proceeds to a Corona fund. Since I started the 1 euro - pattern sale on March 15th, I already sold over 350 patterns, huge thanks to everyone who contributed to this 'creative' help!

color story

Color story of the new bedroom.

And yes, my first painting made it into the bedroom!

Moreover Henk surprised me with a cool Majorelle blue table, on his side of the bed.
As agreed, we both bought 'our side of the bed' part separately.

The room is awesome, things go together so well. We hadn't really planned this in advance, but it worked out well.

easter bouquet

This morning we woke up from a huge racket in the kitchen.
It was already light outside so I dared to walk down, haha...

I immediately noticed that it was lighter in the corner of the bay window.
The huge Monstera in the kitchen corner, had toppled over because it was top-heavy...
What a mess!
The serving cart and tableware were buried under potting soil, but oddly enough, nothing was broken (thank goodness the tamegroute crockery was unharmed) and the Monstera was still intact.
Luckily it didn't happen in the middle of the night.

I've put the Monstera in a shady spot in the backyard for the time being. I looked it up and it should be possible to put the houseplant outside from May to September.

Today was my day off, but we didn't sleep long in our bedroom, because of the sudden early 'wake up call'. So we had a super early Easter breakfast in bed.

Well tomorrow I have a late shift, so another chance to sleep a little longer.

In the meantime, the 'normal life' at my workspace Villa Augustus is still going on, at least a bit. The kitchen still prepares daily room service meals for the few hotel guests, as well as the fresh antipasti and take-away pizza's, we sell in the market. And also in the bakery, they make fresh bread, cakes and cookies as usual. Only the restaurant is closed. Currently the whole interior is being refreshed, with help from the staff from all departments. Quite a special time and atmosphere.

I'm happy to be able to work in the market 3 days a week since the crisis began, so I can still make myself useful at work and don't have to stay home every day.

Matter of course we follow the guidelines of the RIVM (the National Institute for Health and Environment). Besides the regular 'market' activities, there is enough time for other stuff, like painting furniture, arranging extra flower bouquets to sell in the market shop.

For the Easter weekend I made bouquets with spring flowers from the auction.

And of course a bouquet for our kitchen table, which now has moved to replace the empty 'Monstera' space.

the new bedroom

Another corner of our new bedroom.

The workspace and television table.

The interior of our much more spacious new room is obviously 'less is more', and we love it that way!

We also reused old pieces and furniture for the decoration of this part of the room.

The table was our previous dining table (a precious 25th birthday gift from my parents) and subsequently used by Minne as a work table. The table top was given a fresh coat of white paint.

A fifteen year old white 'tiny' Sony television.

The table lamp we put together from a new face-base and a reused lampshade we once bought at Cotton & Silk in The Hague.

The bold and vibrant table book Afica Rising by Gestalten is packed with Africa's energy, inspiration, creativity and art.

The handwoven bag is from Nairobi, Kenia.

The vintage boucherouite is an October-2016-souvenir from Marrakech.

I must admit that we also bought something new;
The Panton Chair, a real design classic. The chair was designed in 1960 by Verner Panton and further developed in 1967 in collaboration with Vitra.

The challenge is to keep the room fresh and clear. The balance in the room should not be disturbed by more stuff slowly entering the room...

we booked the bedroom for easter

We booked our new bedroom for the Easter weekend.

We transformed Minne's old bedroom into our new bedroom and moved from the attic to the first floor this weekend. The wall size world map that Henk once painted has remained, but furthermore the room underwent a metamorphosis.

We have been working hard in recent weeks, cleaned thoroughly, made a panelled wall, painted the floor white (twice), finished all the unfinished details from the last 15 years.

We reused most of the furniture, dyed the duvet cover and added some sentimental treasures and art work.

We agreed to buy as little new furniture as possible and we both would style our side of the bed.

This is my side off the bed;
I chose a design classic from Kartell, the componibili as a bedside table and borrowed the H.T. Huang toucan lamp from the living room, which we once found in Palermo.

To compensate for the inescapable stay at home, we treated ourselves with a fresh spacious bedroom.

The end result is far beyond expectations, I think... and I will show you the rest of the room soon.

Happy Easter to you all!

good friday

Good Friday.

One thing is certain.
Easter weekend will be completely different this year.

No Easter brunches with family and friends, no restaurant or terrace visit, no trips...

We are blessed with a garden and being able to go outside.
The weather has been amazing for weeks now.

The sky is beautiful, crystal clear and clean air.
The stars shine brighter in the sky at night, like never before.

Nature helps us through this uncertain time.

Just before dinner we walked for only half an hour in the polder near our house. We enjoyed the beauty of nature to the fullest.

Happy Easter to you all!

painting a palette

Work in progress.

I'm painting a simple color block canvas for our new bedroom. Using the colors from Marrakech, Majorelle blue and moroccan pink. I don't have that many colors in stock, so I have to mix colors and use my imagination to fill in the remaining white blocks.

Haven't been paiting on canvas for ages, but it was great fun to work in the backyard with an improvised easel. Being creative helps me to spend these weeks in a positive way and I'm beginning to 'appreciate' the time for new projects.

I am already quite satisfied with the result so far and will finish the canvas tomorrow.

spring cleaning

Being homebound for the upcoming weeks, is bringing me also in a major spring cleaning mood.

You all know me a bit, i get bored of the same old look so i like to change things up now and then. I took spring cleaning to another level.

So I ordered some lilac fabric paint to re-use one of our 'boring' white duvet covers. I think this could be a cool combination with the moroccan pink panelled wall behind our bed in the new bedroom.

So I dyed the duvet cover and pillow cases in the washing machine. Exicting experiment.

I was curious about the result of the lilac color as it is quite a large piece of fabric, so I watched the washing program for the first 5 minutes.

Mission lilac was successful.

I will paint the wooden floor tomorrow. The white paint can dry for a few days and after the weekend we can continue with the best part, decorating our new bedroom.

and Minne called me Laa-Laa yesterday, because my outfit reminded him of the yellow teletubby...