it is done – the birdhouse has been hung

Tags

bird house, birdhouse, birds, feeding birds, home improvement, irish birds

If you read my post this morning (sunny Saturday) you’ll know that I wanted to hang up my birdhouse today. It has been long overdue and the little bakery (Backerei is the German word for it) has been making me feel guilty ever since I unpacked it after my trip to Germany in August.

So now I feel very happy that when I look out of my study window I see the little birdhouse perched on the wall, waiting for some hungry sparrows, cheeky starling, sweet blue and green tits and with lots of look maybe even a robin will venture by.

But since I do live very close to town I’ll have to just wait and see if those few feathered friends I have seen in the past find this new feeding place.

sunny Saturday

Tags

birdhouse, Dublin, home improvement, quote, sunny, sunshine

Dublin seems to have decided that it is summer again, with temperatures above 18 degrees and the sun having fun high in the sky it really doesn’t feel as if October is just a few days away.

And while I should be sitting at my desk and working the sun keeps tempting me out. And since there are probably only a few days like this left in the year I think I may just be naughty and enjoy the nice weather.

So in a little while I will wander down to the garden, or maybe I’ll go to the beach, but for now I will do something I have been meaning to do for  quite some time now.

For Christmas last year I got a birdhouse, but since I was over in Germany and my suitcase was too heavy I had to leave it tucked away at my sisters. When I went over to see my siblings and other clan members in the summer I Was able to take the birdhouse back with me. And since then it has been patiently waiting for me to hang it up.

But that sounds more simple than it actually is, after all the birdhouse was designed to sit on a pole dug into the earth. My tiny back yard has no earth, no flower beds, nothing hat would allow me to dig a hole in.

So I have been trying to find a way to attach the house to the wall and the only thing I could come up with was a bracket. So I am going to give it  a go and see it it works. And hopefully, if I hang it they (the birds) will come … after all I would love to watch those feathered friends feed outside my window and entertain me.

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.

writer Maya Angelou

finding time for flowers

Tags

flowers, gardening, home improvement, mood, photos, planting flowers, psychology, psychology study, qoutes, quote, window-boxes, winter pansies, Yogi Maharishi Mahesh

This week has been extremely busy, and today is no exception. But with my summery window-boxes wilting and looking more than sad, I really want to find the time to replant them autumn.

Luckily I did find a few moments to rush in and out of my local garden center, a few winter pansies and a bag or two of spring bulbs quickly captured and paid for at the till.

Now all I need is half an hour to get my hands dirty and create a pretty sight for me to come home to and for my neighbours to hopefully enjoy.

After all, even if the sun is still out and about in Dublin this week, those dull days of autumn aren’t too far off and a few cheerfully nodding heads of pansies do help to brighten them up.

A study done in 2005 about how flowers impact on peoples moods shows that just looking at flowers can ease anxious and agitated feelings and create a sense of happiness and joy.  The study even showed that a pretty display of a few beautiful blooms increased the contact with friends and family, lessening the sense of loneliness.

So hopefully my soon prettified window-boxes will not just cheer me up when I return home or look out the window and bring beauty to the urban space I occupy, but maybe, just maybe, they’ll bring a smile to some lonely strangers face.

Happiness radiates like a fragrance from a flower and draws all good things towards you

Yogi Maharishi Mahesh

productive procrastination

Tags

home, home improvement, photos, procrastination

Deadlines looming, time relentlessly ticking on and a whole pile of work waiting, yet other things catch our eye, grab your attention, distract you from what needs to be done: our old pal Procrastination is back.

Most of us cuddle up with the big P from time to time, but some of us seem to have let him move in and disrupt our lives on a more daily basis. And while the only thing that really helps to shake procrastination off and get working is to just sit down and do it (sounds much easier than it is) but procrastination can have its benefits too.

Case in point is my recent lack of ‘bum-glue’, that magical substance that allows you to just sit down and stay there. It disperses any ants in your pants, helps your fingers dance over the keyboard and gets those creative juices flowing. But instead of letting procrastination talk me into curling up with a book and a mug of tea I have been productively procrastinating.

I dealt with all my paperwork and overdue filing, I tidied up my wardrobe, bagged clothes I no longer wear and even tackled my overflowing hoard of shoes and sorted the lesser-loved ones out.  The community garden has seen me more frequently, adding locally grown fruit and veg to my plate and my “pantry” has been reorganised, cleaned and sorted. I’ve even attempted sewing and have so far managed one patchwork pincushion for my neighbour.

But my main achievement, to my hearts delight and afternoon enjoyment, has been the creation of a bright blue bench that now thrones outside my front door.

Living so close to town in a tiny artisan cottage has many perks but one main downside: no garden. With the summer arriving in Dublin the need to sit out in the sun has knocked on my door again and I decided that I would do something about it. And since the front of my home is south facing it means that all afternoon the Dublin sun warms the path and shines in through my windows.

The idea of having a bench outside my door isn’t new, but the summer sun made it a more pressing matter and I asked a friend to help me turn the idea into reality.

So one sunny Tuesday afternoon a few weeks ago, we turned a plank of wood into a beautiful bench that I sanded down and painted a vivid blue. And since then one of my favourite spots to sit and read had become a Dublin inner-city path, surrounded by a few potted plants.

And while I have restarted this blog in a plea to kick procrastinations butt and get typing more again, I am glad that at the very least my procrastination has been somewhat productive.

applying apples

Tags

crafts, creativity, cutlery, home, home improvement, home making, painting

Yesterday evening I decided it was time to do something I have been wanting to do for ages. It was time to revamp my cutlery holder.

Many years ago my uncle made me, upon request, a wooden knives, spoon and forks holder out of wood. It has five slots and lives on my kitchen counter. But over the years the wood has become more and more stained, but not in a good way. The whole thing just looks a little unloved and tired.

before the revamp

Not wanting to wait another day I spontaneously took out my paintbrush and and a small bottle of colour and painted it green, nearly sage if the label on the tube is to be believed. But just a a plain one coloured thing is not what I wanted, so I looked around for inspiration and found it in some paper napkins.

I love these retro-graphic apples

The next step was the trickiest. I had to cut out all the little apples and apply only the top layer of the napkin onto the painted wood. Because napkins are so thin it is a little bit fiddly, but with some muttering and sighing I managed to cut out and detach enough to complete my design. I applied the apples onto the wood with paste, the kind you can get in any crafts shop.  Now, all I need is for it to dry, give it a lick of of varnish and TA-DA: a new and improved cutlery-holder!

brightening up the back-yard

Tags

back-yard, Dublin, gardening, home improvement, masonry paint, painting, plants, sore elbow, tennis elbow

I think I may have a tennis elbow, not that I have ever played any tennis but my right arm/elbow is really quite sore. However instead of improving my non-existent backhand I have been brightening up my miniscule back-yard with white masonry paint and brush.

I really only store my bike in this space but my little office looks out onto it and it is less than inspiring. So since the sun is out and  my lovely neighbour helped me anker a bike-lock to the ground in the front of the house, I decided it was time to change my view.

After a good few hours of painting (it was much harder and took much longer than anticipated, since masonry paint isn’t like other paint), a visit to a garden store and a sore elbow my back-yard is now a much happier place. All I need to perfect my view is a little birdhouse to encourage my winged neighbours to visit now and then.

My tiny yard before

The other unloved corner

And now with a lick of paint and some plants and storage.

Happy pansies

clean closet

Tags

clothes, clothing, fashion, home improvement, miscellaneous, quotes, random, style

I spent the best part of yesterday reorganising my closet. I have been meaning to do it for a while now but somehow I have never had the time or the right state of mind to dive in and declutter.

As I waded through mounds of clothes, trying on tops and pants, deciding the fate of flower and plain, I realised that I wasn’t just sorting out clothes, I was looking at lots of memories. The dress I wore to my brothers wedding, the skirt I wore on a date, the blouse I took to Egypt, the T-shirt I’ve had since I was 18. Of course these memories of happy and sometimes sad times can make it hard to sort things out, but if you take a step back and see the items for what they really are it makes it easier.

If something didn’t fit right, was too tight or too wide, if something was well past it’s wearable-in-public state, or was something just wasn’t really me, it was put aside to either bin or donate. So one big, black, donate bag filled with jumpers, cardigans, skirts and tops later my wardrobe was looking much better.

But to my surprise I actually do wear most of the things I own. I have certain items that I wear all year round, others at specific times of the year and then there are a few held back for special occasions. And I even found a jumper I have been looking for tucked away in the back, a pair of shoes I knew I had, but that where hidden away in the wrong box, and dress I forgot I had but fits beautifully.

And yes, I admit I still have way to many clothes and I did keep a handful of items I could of thrown out, but they pulled too much at my heart or reminded me of a past me. A skirt and dress I love but are a little too tight, I kept them to inspire me to lose weight and wear them in the summer again. Two tops that I have had forever and love, but have to admit I can only really wear around my home, so I decided to give them one more summer before I turn them into rags. And finally a silk blouse I bought 15 years ago in Istanbul, it doesn’t fit em anymore but I want to re-purpose it, into what I do not know yet.

This morning when I opened my clean closet I smiled, all my hard work visible dangling orderly on hangers. And with Spring not too far off I was reminded of a quote I once read by Carl Friedrich Gauss, the Prince of Mathematician who paved the way for Einstein. He said so beautifully:

Life stands before me like an eternal spring with new brilliant clothes.

decoupage finis

Tags

bedroom, crafts, decoupage, diy, home, home improvement, miscellaneous, old newspapers, random

My fingers look like a disaster zone, chipped nails, paper cuts, some stubborn paint that just won’t come off and some dirt seems to have made a permanent home under my fingernails. But my wooden box and shabby bedside table look all the better for it.

After a few late nights of painting, slicing up old newspapers (I scarified some of ad pages I had from a 1891 issue of Graphic ) gluing the pieces into place (jigsaw-style) and varnishing the whole lot I have to say I am quite proud of the outcome.

the up-dated bedside table

the side view

just a detail

I wasn’t sure about the colour when I first started painting. It said burnt caramel on the tin but I just think it looks like tea with lots of milk, not really the shade of brown I was hoping for. But with the yellowing newspaper and the black ink breaking it up, I actually have changed my mind and quite like the hue.

looks like nearly new

detail

Of course the decoupaging took much longer than I thought it would, I really did underestimate  the time I needed to chop up the newspaper and  the arranging was trickier than expected. I only gave the the pieces a second varnish this morning at 7.30am, before I sleepily hurried off to lecture. But the dark bags under my eyes and lack of sleep dulling my thoughts  is a price I am happy to pay to now own these two beautifully unique pieces, if I may say so myself.

decoupage finis

I can’t wait to put them into my freshly painted bedroom and arrange my knick-knacks and bits and bobs on top and into them. My sleeping sanctuary is really coming together and I just can’t wait to fall asleep  tonight and wake up to such a beautiful place tomorrow morning.

paint planning

Tags

agatha christie, home, home improvement, miscellaneous, painting, quotes, random

My bedroom needs a little face-lift, a lick of paint on walls and ceiling, a little bit more storage and the furniture needs to be rearranged. So this morning I spent time making a list and while I sat, sipped tea and scribbled my eye flitted around the room and I realised that the rest of my home could use a little face lift too.

As my list grew longer the morning passed and I still had so much to do. Because I knew I wouldn’t get much done today I decided to just do the shopping for all the bits and bobs today and  then designate the individual tasks to different days this week. My plan is simple but hopefully by the end of the two week I will have a sparkling new home, and I can’t wait.

But in my excitement I had a thought, why is it that I always feel better when my desk is neat, my home is tidy and I feel good about how I look? As I pondered this question I remembered a study I read many moons ago, it looked at the lives of many different people and how clutter and things affected their lives.  The owners of cluttered homes or avid collectors of everything tended to be more tired, the stuff they owned literally drained their energy and left them fatigued. But not only were the clutter-bugs tired they also had a more negative outlook on life. It was as if the stuff they owned tied them down more, made them less able to change resulting in a  feeling of hopelessness and frustration.

I also remember being amazed at the fact that people who have clean, nearly minimalistic homes tend to be wealthier. Yes the more money in the bank meant the less cluttered a home was. Maybe it is because our minds are less likely to get distracted by what surrounds us and we are freer to pursue our dreams and careers.

With my list finished and theses thoughts still fresh in my mind I am going to go and get the paint now and even-though I now I will never be a minimalist I may de-clutter and sort while I revive my home. And who knows maybe I will follow in Agatha Christie’s footsteps while I sort, paint and redecorate, after all she did say:

The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes