Tags
ARCHITECTURE, Danish Antique, Finland, Finnish archipelago, French Antique, Gustavian, Houses in the Finnish archipelago, Interior Decorating, Island, Island living, Living in Finland, Living on an island, Swedish Antique
!How to transform a barren piece of land on an island in the middle of the Finnish archipelago into an easy living outdoorsy summer compound? A place that can also withstand winter storms off the frozen Baltic sea, snow, and marauding moose?
Because we are so incredibly impatient, and couldn’t wait another summer for a building team, we decided to go with a kit house. I love the Finnish sensibility, how buildings should be simple and functional, natural materials, and as green as possible. The house was put up in 6 days, and finishing took another 3 months. Now, furnishing it, on the other hand, will take a lifetime!
Work on the Sauna house begins. The two wonderful Finnish builders that built the Sauna house, all by themselves, in two days, by working through the night without breaks…..now that’s good work ethics!
I’ve decided I’d rather turn the bedroom in the sauna house into a spa room, with glass fronted cupboards filled with every lotion, potion and scented candle known to man. There will be a fireplace in the room, and I’m upholstering the beds with loose towelling covers, so they will be more like chaises you can lounge on after you’ve had your sauna and are scrubbing yourself and have a hair mask on, relaxing in front of the fire with fragranced candles lit! Then I can just put sheets on the beds if we have to use it as a bedroom – I mean, realistically, how often are we going to have 8 people staying? So my spa room it’ll be! Now, I’m working on M to add a deck behind the sauna house with an outside bathroom – meaning: free-standing tub! We have the hot tub beneath the house, but that’s turned out to be rather a lot of work, pumping water up from the sea and then spending HOURS heating it – a bit of a white elephant, if you ask me – but I WANTED it, should’ve know better. At least it looks nice. I think a bathtub standing outside, hidden behind a screen and with a big ol mirror leaning against a wall, outside fireplace, and dare I say it, even a chandelier in the tree, sounds like my idea of heaven. Obviously, M’s not that keen – all that nonsense about not interfering with nature – gmff – but I can be persistent if I have to (or, the term better known by men around the world, NAG), so we’ll see if I can win this battle! You will get to see the end result later!