Home: Living Room Snapshots

I wanted to do a sort-of house tour at some point when I felt that we'd finished decorating. We're now about 6 months in to living here, and I still feel like it's unfinished. I still have photos I haven't put up, and things I'd like to arrange differently (even if we already did a little re-arrange pre- and post-Christmas tree) or things I'd like to get. Maybe this is how it always is.

I took a few photos of our living room one Saturday ages ago now, after I'd tidied up and it was looking quite nice. Despite the fact that it's been months and we've had some additions and changes since I took the photos, I still wanted to share them. A little snapshot into our little home!

Don't be fooled by the "bright light" coming through the window. Being absolutely minuscule, the window let very little light in and the flat is actually a bit like a cave.

My boyfriend despairs over what he calls my pillow hoarding. I haven't bought any new ones since I filled the sofa, so I really don't know what he complains about.

The sofa is like a sample of the colours I wanted for the living room: grey, yellow, turquoise. Now also with little touches of copper, consisting of a lantern and the inside of our IKEA ceiling light (this one, which actually looks much nicer in real life). And an unhung picture frame.

My friend got me this beautiful Orla Kiely flower vase as a birthday present. She knows me so well.

The copper lantern!

Hope you enjoyed these little snapshots into our home.

Home: Living Room Inspiration

Since we now have a flat sorted out and the move is just over a month away, I'm spending more and more time daydreaming about decorating my first home. As we will just be renting for now, I wanted the flat to be a blank canvas (i.e. unfurnished) that I can decorate the way I want. While I was dreaming of white walls and no carpets while starting the flat search, I knew it was probably too much to ask (but it's my biggest pet-peeve in UK homes!). And it was. But I was willing to sacrifice my dreams of wooden floors and location nearer Oxford for the otherwise perfect flat in right in the centre of a town which I admit has almost everything you need in terms of everyday life. There is also the added benefit of considerably smaller rent prices than Oxford, which meant we could afford the two bedrooms we had wanted. Oxford is still just 20 minutes away by car, and therefore easily reached when I want to pop in for more variety of shops and cultural activities.

But back to decorating, or rather, dreaming of it! My boyfriend has given me complete freedom when it comes to decorating the flat, so my imagination has run wild. While I like to talk with him about my ideas, he seems interest seems to be restricted to the actual furniture (colour scheme of sofa cushions is of no interest haha). He seems to be happy with everything I suggest though, and I suppose my taste is not too overwhelmingly "girly". There will be no hearts, ditsy florals or butterflies, because as much as I love looking at the shabby chic style on Instagram and the like, it's not me. While the romance of English countryside appeals to me on some level, the minimalistic Scandinavian style resonates with me a lot more. While I don't want to recreate the style of Almost Every Single Home in Finland, there's a lot of elements in the aesthetic 'back home' that appeals to me. Perhaps even more now that I'm here in the UK.

I thought I'd begin a little series of home inspiration posts, starting with the living room (as I'm currently obsessed with it).

As you can probably tell, I'm currently obsessed with yellow and turquoise! We're planning on having most of our furniture quite plain and in neutral colours, allowing us to redecorate easily if we feel like changing the colours at some point in the future. Throws and cushions are great for pops of colour, and I'm particularly liking this throw and this pillow (£35, £12, both from Next). Geometric patterns are a favourite, as you can probably tell. Shops seem to be full of them now too, as well as my chosen colours, which works well for me. The yellow print cushion (£7.99) is from H&M and the chevron one (£11.50 and up) is from PureHomeAccents via Etsy.

H&M Home has some lovely pieces at the moment, such as this cute wooden bowl (£6.99) and flower vase (£19.99). I'm also big fan of Debenhams when it comes to homewares — and they're not disappointing with their selection of turquoise and yellow pieces, or geometric shapes. The now-sold-out framed art work and the chevron picture frame are my favourites (think I'll make a trip to my local Debenhams to see if they have them in store!). I also love the trio of little vases (no longer in stock) and the white jar (was £8, now £6.40), perfect for storage of little bits and bobs!

Moving into a new home is expensive though, particularly when you have no furniture. As I'm still an unemployed student, 2 weeks away from graduation, we are not exactly swimming in cash — but we still want a nice looking flat that feels like home. I've been looking for some furniture on sites such as Freegle and Freecycle, as well as local furniture charity shops. So far, I've got us a free bedframe and spotted a cheap dining table and chairs that we might pick up this week. We're also planning a visit to IKEA, which I admit to be quite excited about.

IKEA is great for some basics, such as the white BILLY bookcases (£25) and KALLAX shelving unit (£45). We're looking to get a large grey sofa, such as IKEA's KIVIK (£810) — though we will probably try to find a similar looking sofa bed, so that we can have friends and family stay over.

While we do have carpets, I think a couple of nice rugs around the house would not hurt. IKEA has a lot of beautiful printed rugs that won't break the bank, such as the little round VIRRING rug (£10). I'm also in love with the yellow Stockholm rug (£160).

My absolute dream is this beautiful Garston love seat from Made.com (£699). While not necessary at the moment (and slightly pricey!), I'm determined that it will one day take its place in our living room as my reading chair.

If you'd like to see more of my homeware favourites (and lots of other things), make sure to follow me on Pinterest!

Moomins and things

So last week, I flew to Finland. It had been over 7 months since my last visit, and I was beyond ecstatic to spend 6 days gorging myself with Karelian pies, blueberry soup, salmiakki and my mum's cooking and baking.

Usually when I go to Finland, I don't really look forward to it that much, besides the prospect of seeing my friends. I do it out of necessity, a sense of duty: I need to see my family, because I know they miss me. I never seem to miss them. I know this sounds cruel. It's not that I dislike my family, I just tend to be quite busy with my own life, and content to see them when I go back twice a year. But this summer, I've really missed Finland, and Helsinki in particular. It was obviously nice to see my family, and I missed my friends, but what I really missed was my home country.

I set roots in the UK pretty much immediately when I moved to Aberdeen. I never had any intentions of moving back to Finland, and UK felt like home. Or home enough (I think it's complicated word). My needs for all things Finnish were satisfied with my biannual visits. This time however, I felt absolute joy at going back.

I didn't take time to blog while I was away, since I only had 6 days to spend with my friends and family and my schedule was packed. But I took a lot of photos with my brand-new iPhone 5S, so I thought I'd share those with you. Some were posted on my Instagram (here, if you're interested!) already, so you might have seen them already.

I went to Tove Jansson art exhibition at Ateneum. It would have been her 100th birthday this year, and there are events all over the world to commemorate her. I'm a massive Moomin fan, and I absolutely love her illustrations and artwork, so it was an incredibly inspiring visit for me. I wish I'd had a notebook to do sketches, as no photos were allowed. I did buy this tote bag as a little souvenier though!

I also managed to get my hands on the Finnish edition of The Hobbit, illustrated by Tove Jansson. So happy. I'm a big Tolkien fan as well, so it was lovely to finally get this edition. Even if I prefer the books in English. ;)

I also visited the Moomin mug exhibition at Arabia Gallery. As a Moomin mug collector, I was quite excited about this, despite it literally just being a room filled with mugs. ;) 

I managed restrain myself and only bought a single Moomin mug and two candleholders at the Arabia-Iittala shop. And they were all on sale too! The Moomin mug and the red candleholder (which is called Kivi, aka 'stone', by the way) were both half price or under so definitely bargains, and the blueish Kivi was a dye-experiment outside the normal colour charts so it was only 6 euros (the blue shades are normally about 15 euros each at full price).

As three out of seven in my group of friends from high school celebrated birthdays in August (myself included), we decided to go and have some cake. At Kakkugalleria's cake buffet. That's right, a cake buffet. We all managed about 6 slices (we shared some, thus the photos of more than 6 slices).
Cake > Lunch. Considering that I had just visited a cafe at a nearby department store where a slice of cheesecake was 8eur a piece, the 11.90eur we paid for the buffet (including a massive cup of tea or coffee) was a downright bargain!

Apart from adding more homeware to my collection and indulging my Moomin obsession, I also filled my suitcase with tea from all my favourite tea shops (but the best one will always be théhuone, pictured above), a lot of yarn, ryebread and Finnish confectionary. You know, the important stuff.

Sorry for the very text heavy post, I hope it wasn't too boring!

Until next time,
Jenni

Obsessed: Moomins

I have a confession to make... I am obsessed with Moomins.

£8, Primark

 I found this insanely cute pair of Moomin pyjamas in Primark a while ago and I just had to buy it.

I'd seen Moomin pyjamas in Primark and Topshop before, but I haven't liked them much so they've been left in the shop after the initial excitement. This pair, however, is perfect. It features a print made of the original comic strips and is perfect for summer with the sweet tank top and shorts combo.

As some of you might know, Moomins come from Finland. They were created by Tove Jansson, and originally started as comic strips. Jansson also wrote books (which I love), and since her original creations, there has been a couple of tv series, movies, plays and so on. I grew up with Moomins, as in Finland they are considered as something of a national treasure. I've watched all the episodes (multiple times), read the books, comics and visited the Moominvalley theme park when I was a kid.

As I approached adulthood, my interest in Moomins didn't wane, but took a new, rather material, direction. I started collecting Moomin dishwear! My current mug collection alone consists of 39 mugs (I only have a few with me at the moment, due to space and constant moving — student life!). If I'm honest, there might be one or two more, as I didn't update my inventory sheet last time I was in Finland (when I inevitably bought the new Christmas mug, the Tove 100 anniversary mug and possibly the Moominmamma mug that was being discontinued...), where most of my collection still resides. And you know, just the fact that I have an inventory sheet probably tells you enough.

All of my dishwear are made by Finnish brands Arabia and Iittala.

In addition to the mugs, I also have a pile of bowls, a stack of glasses and a salad bowl, a jug, a plate, a tray, spoons and possibly something else too. Most of this is currently hiding in my mother's cellar in Finland waiting for me to take permanent residence somewhere in the UK.

Close-up of my glasses | Some examples of Moomin towels by Finnish home textiles brand, Finlayson

My collective habits do not stop at dishwear. I also own two bedding sets (my favourite one pictured below), kitchen towels, oven glove (pictured below) and pot holders, a sizeable stack of bath- and handtowels, t-shirt, a massive pile of postcards, a pile of Topshop Moomin underwear and a Moominmamma soft toy (which my 6- and 8-year-old sisters gifted me as they didn't want it, haha). And of course books, comic books and other little trinkets (people like to buy me Moomin things for birthdays and Christmases — it usually works pretty well). I also always buy the new Moomin academic calendar for the upcoming year when I am in Finland during the summer. I only go to Finland twice a year now, for just a week or two at a time, so having little things like this make me feel still connected to my home country. :)

(Photos by Finlayson)

Moomin rotary candle holder that I got as a gift last Christmas. It's so fragile!

Postcards, which I keep meaning to put up on my walls — but I think I will end up waiting until I move out of student accomodation and I can put them into frames.

Moomins are of course not the only thing I have fallen in love with over the years: Disney and Harry Potter have just as firm hold of my heart. It is however only Moomins that have managed to secure such a physical manifestation in my life. The few Disney soft toys and things I own do not quite compare to the extent of my Moomin dish- and homeware collection.

I am unapologetically a Moomin fanatic. I love them to bits, and enjoying food and drink out of my brightly coloured cute little dishwear makes gloomy days a little bit brighter here in Aberdeen.

Here are some links to UK websites that sell Moomin products:
The Moomin Shop
(43 Covent Garden Market, London, WC2E 8RF)
John Lewis
Cloudberry Living
Shannon

43 Covent Garden Market London WC2E 8RF

43 Covent Garden Market London WC2E 8RF

43 Covent Garden Market London WC2E 8RF

43 Covent Garden Market London WC2E 8RF

43 Covent Garden Market London WC2E 8RF

Do you collect anything?

Until next time,

Jenni