Saturday, December 24, 2016

Senate Square Christmas Market.


When we arrived here a lot of people told us the Christmas Markets were a must.  This picture is taken from the top of a huge set of stairs in front of a church. This is Senate square.
The booths are all in these small buildings, brought in for the temporary markets. There are other markets that are less well housed and are open all year, with more participating in better weather. 
Some people make crafts all year for their booths. Others are filled with commercial products. 
The old fashioned Merrygoround was a hit. 
The knit hats with yarn or fur poms are very popular here. 
This is a statue of Alexander the Second, often called the good czar because he allowed the them self rule during his reign, is a permanent feature of the square. 
Here he is shown with other market features.   It was fun to see a hay wagon ride being pulled through the streets too. 

It was a great outing. 

Saturday, December 10, 2016

Copper Kettles

Old copper kettles are plentiful here. 
I love the ones with the caps on the end of the spout. 
I've picked up a few to take the raw Danish modern look off in our apartment.  They so speak of heritage. I thought the IKEA birds were a good compliment.  Did you notice this one lacks a spout?  Since most of them are 20€ and up, I loved it because it was 2€. 

Saturday, December 3, 2016

More Makeover Magic


And before you know it, we're back at the first thrift store we visited, a month ago. 
There are lots of newly made over goodies in the Plan B area. Great bench 
Interesting metal table 
Colorful chair 
Great dining set 
Perfect chairs 
Bright chest of drawers. 
Comfy chair 
Gads its plaids. 
Definitely my favorite. I'd love a lie down!  

Saturday, November 26, 2016

The Scandi-Farmhouse Begins


I got to go to an antique store here in Finland last week.
Definitely a junk store ...
Floor to ceiling ... my favorite ...
Filled with favorites like statuary ...
Yard art ...
Transferware...
Teapots...
Original art ... note the Finnish flag?
Here it is again.
Loved the water color.
This old bible from the mid 1800s
was just 12 Euros ... I'd have bought it had it been Finnish, but alas it was Swedish.
This English hutch called to me. I love leaded diamond pane glass ...
How great is this carving?

In the end this copper kettle went home with me ... yep  doing a bit of Scandi-Farmhouse!! ❤️❤️❤️

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

A Different Kind of House Tour


Yes, this is me and Mr P at the Tampere IKEA ... and me a sworn IKEA dissident, I know! The whole 'force you to walk through every inch of the store'  thing has always put me off. But alas, when you must ...
fully furnish an apartment in 3 days IKEA is a must ...
We are the Housing Missionaries here in Finland, serving our church, The Church of Jesus  Christ of Latter-day Saints.  When we have more missionaries coming than we have leaving, we rent new apartments and furnish them. 
As you see it's a fairly bare bones furnishing, which I admit is hard for me to walk away from ...
But a fun orange rug still makes me smile. I used to go garaging with a friend who loved orange. She's fun and has great style. One tender mercy for me, here, was running into a young Sister Missionary, who grew up down the street from Dyan!  I asked her if Dyan still loves orange!  YES!  
We found this amazing couch at a thrift store here. Super comfy, but hubs and two younger missionaries had to haul it up three flights of stairs because it's too tall to fit in the elevator. Oops. 
Here's the study area for a companionship of missionaries, back to back desks. 

Did you know that IKEA furniture takes an hour and a half to assemble?  Yep, neither did I, and with five kits we ended up staying a day longer than planned. Yes, Mr P is a rockstar, must have been all those erector set projects when he was a kid!! 
When we were loading our cardboard to take to a recycler, an older man in our parking garage asked if we were moving in ... he was so friendly and had a twinkle in his eye. We were a little sad to admit that the apartment was not for us. I'd would have loved to have had him as a neighbor. (This is not actually him, Finnish law prohibits publishing pics of people without their express permission) 
... and we drive away ... another first behind us!  It was a lot of hard work, but we've always loved doing projects together... and for the first time I've come to appreciate Ikea, and their meatballs!! 

Monday, November 7, 2016

Turku Castle Built From the 1200s to the 1600s.



Last week while out fulfilling our responsibilities we had a chance to see the castle in Turku, Finland. We found out that Turku used to be the 'center' of the area where Finns lived. The country itself is just 100 years old, and it has a history of belonging to both of it neighbors, Sweden and Russia, even though they've had a unique language and culture. We are excited that we will be here in 2017 to celebrate the 100th year since they declared their independence from Russia 


The castle was built in the 1200's with additions for 400 years. 

As you can see it was built on an enormous rock, we've seen many such rick formations since we've been in Finland. 

This is a closeup of the stone walls. 
Going through the entrance we were surprised to enter a town square, that was open to the sky. 
With dwellings on all sides, leading into other courtyards... the outcropping of the original rock on which the fortress was built coming up through the street. 
There are doorways and balconies. 
There's even a drawbridge. 
The windows have lead dividers, I loved them!! 
There was this walkway along one wall 
This pictures shows the opening from the second court yard into the larger town square area. 
This archway leads to two more open areas, one of which is much later ... 
You can see from this shot of  the wall that the  surrounding wall apartment structure is four and five stories high.  The footprint of the fortress is several acres. It was really a town. 
We loved our visit and will later go back and do a tour of the apartments, so we can see how people lived 700 to 800 years ago. 
Here's my last view of the amazing castle through my rain dotted window.