Midsummer finds

When ever I'm in Finland for mid summer festivities, I want to enjoy pancakes and coffee in the early morning at the local market place near our summerhouse. As always, the place was buzzing already at 8 am, so I hurried to get the right kind of potatoes that go well with Baltic herring and salmon and summer's first fresh strawberries.

On my way back to sea shore I popped in to a local flea market and made some interesting finds with just few euros; An old Fortuna board game and a white vase that had similar pattern painted on it as one of my old treasures.

The turquoise smaller one was painted by my great grandmother in 1954. The fortuna game is really in bad shape, but I love the pale greenish paint on the edges and the tiny crooked nails look adorable. I wonder how many exciting games some kids might have played with it in the old days?

I remembered my greenish vase had triangles painted on it, nut this was a surprise to find out they are so similar when I placed them next to each other. I guess they're from the same era.

At the minute I laid my eyes on that Fortuna I knew what it is going to be doubling as: A jewelry display!

I'm not sure if it's "chic", but it's definitely shabby!

Bringing Zen to my living room

I live in a late 1950's building and tend to choose 50's items and  style also in my home decoration. I like the simplicity of mid-century design but I'm not too strict with decades or styles, as long as everything looks and feels good.

Most of the furniture in my home is either inherited or bought used. Living so close to IKEA I haven't been able to avoid having something new as well. I try to keep the amount of stuff to a minimum, it's easier to clean and I think vintage furniture looks better with some space around them. I've recently developed a growing interest on minimalism and started a never ending project of decluttering the apartment.

My latest interior design project (apart from throwing stuff away) is a little zen garden/beach to the living room coffee table. I love to doodle and the fine sand makes a nice surface to draw with a stick. A zen garden is a fun alternative for coffee table books or flowers. I didn't place any plants in my mini beach since I want to be able to put the dish away to a cupboard from time to time.

I've brought the sea shells as souvenirs from my trips to Australia, Africa and India. I like to have them somewhere so I can look at them during the long cold winters and think about the warm sand on the beach.

The decoration sand I bought from a candle shop, the dish was made by my mother. The chair shown in second picture is Danish design from 1957 and the table is from local flea market, can't really tell the decade, I'm guessing it's from early 60's.