soft glow

 

You might have seen these images before, but I do tend to come back to the favourite things when looking for inspiration. The marble and the copper here are a wink to the common trend, the mint Mutto E27 lamps - to my wishlist.

I have to admit that this blog has not become what I wanted it to be - a small virtual place for me and my mom to share the interior and design ideas. She quickly opted out, i.e. never really remembered where is that damn 'publish' button, and probably forgotten the password to her Google account anyways. But no hard feelings - I'll carry on, so don't forget to check OftenStrangers'Places, mommy!

So why is the old blog project being rebooted now? I'm looking for a new home, hoping to move as soon as possible and with it came the desire to talk about other things than new shoes (never underestimating the power of the new shoes to heal the hurts, of course).

I'd like to show you how the empty flat gets refurbished, how things take shape and slowly grow into something personal. I think that people's interiors say as much about them as the clothes they wear, the books they read, and possibly even more. At home we hide things or tend to neglect them sometimes, everyone has a long drawer and even the tidiest person doesn't make the bed at times, but on Pinterest everything is oh-so-pretty. I don't know what I am yet, but I always preferred the 'pretty' to the 'lived-in', and it's totally my cup of tea when the earphones on the table match the lemon squeezers on the kitchen counter. Look and learn!

 

colour codes

Someone up there forgot to turn the heating off! But today I praise the rain with shutters finally up and a window wide open to let the cool air softly fill the room. Nordic blood! And there's nothing more cozy than a smell of rain on hot tar roads.
All of the above makes a perfect weather for choosing the new colour for my couch. I'm inspired by the muted hues of green, blue, grey and natural linen and blond wood, but I'm sure I want to get a little bit of texture in there.

 

I'm a fan of this HAY selection by Bloesem - it's soft and pure. But looking at a vintage avocado-green sofa doesn't set me off either and it seems to go perfectly with mint, grey, yellow and metallics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to the fold

I may introduce the Nine Inch Nails referenced titles, but in reality all is so pretty and bright at my place, the troubled youth is long by gone.
Before we set off to someone else’s home journey, I’d like to show you a bit of mine, well at least the more or less tidy bit. Trouble is that the apartment is full of boxes and things upside down. Boxes are to pack and move in September to the new place, and things upside down are of my homemade upholstery initiative - I’ve decided to make a new cover for the Ikea armchair and so far it’s been a struggle, and even though my boyfriend says that it’s much more successful than my recent attempt to make polymer clay jewelry, I’m still not convinced… and come on, I like my baked Fimo beads!
 

Carnival every day

So let me spread some love for the blog that has inspired all this! Every time I open Weekday Carnival, I’m in awe for the amazing styling, photography and DIY projects that just do not see an end.
How can one be so handy with things, replacing the boring cheap Ikea tabletop with a concrete one and making the table worth a million… or painting a wall in candy-coloured geometrical shapes. And then entertaining the planet with detailed tutorials so we can all make a geo-ball…or two, tying up some neon string around it to give a lonely plant a home while the green buddies are basking in the sun of a pure light-flooded interior.
Please, adopt me! I want to live in this children’s room!

The hexagon-shaped me

I’m refreshing the webpage by minute because the delivery in stores is expected by the end of July. I know we are not at the end of July yet! But Sylvain Willenz designed some amazing mirrors for HAY and I have hearts for the small hexagon one. Isn’t it funny how design things are hexagon-shaped in the early teens of the 21st century?

 

Just to tease your curiosity - spot the hexagon:
La Fabrika
The Broken Arm

ready...steady...go!

Somehow when I think of interior blogs I get an uncanny feeling that we are all some sort of peeping-Toms into eachother’s lives. This stranger’s place and that stranger’s place and here’s my new lamp - that’s how it usually goes - I’m not criticizing, on the contrary, I’m jumping onto the bandwagon, waving my hands and screaming: “I wanna be an interior blogger too! Fashion blogging has bored the living daylights out of me!"

Well, we are all prone to some sort of discrepancies and here’s mine: Often Strangers’ Places. I hope to make it as cozy as it is melancholic, DIYing geo-balls and self-made upholstery, choosing bookshelves and craving for HAY’s hexagon-shaped mirror - it’s just a passion, nothing more!