Hello from Vanha Talo Suomi!

Since I last posted, summer arrived! Yeah 🙂 …then it got cold. Beating 40 year old temperature records, southern Finland experienced a pretty chilly cold spell that lasted for about 10 days. Bringing with it not only unseasonably cold weather, it also rained quite a lot making it truly a miserable time.

We spent one week shuffling around the house while the electricians wired cabling throughout the downstairs. The electric guys have been arriving about once a week this past month or so, doing odd bits as they can. They wired up the sauna area with our main electric supply and this made it possible to have a hot shower. The plumber mounted a small water heater on the wall, and we also managed to get our washing machine situated in there also which makes for clean clothes! Yippee…

We moved out the last of our belongings so that the new owners could move into our previous house the 24^th of May and have been shacking up in the rintamamiestalo ever since. Throughout the last week, the electricians phased in the rest of the downstairs cabling and installed our data connection cables Wednesday as well as a power connection upstairs.

Monday the 2^nd of June, Pete was here to hang drywall with Pekka. Between the two of them and my occasional assist, the kitchen and dining room ceilings were done in a little over 4hrs, leaving just the living room ceiling undone. Last night Pekka and I started on the kitchen walls and got one side dry-walled where the fridge, oven and dishwasher will go.

The weather has been cooperating, and it warmed up to 24c, which is quite an improvement over the 12-15c we had the last few days. It is supposed to rain later today, and that has been a nearly constant possibility every day… and has been a reality the last few days. It just starts to look like it might dry up, then another rain shower arrives.

The plants are loving it though and the property has undergone even more changes with the increased daylight of summer, all the rain, and the occasional steamy day.

Because the elevation in front of the house will need to be rectified, we decided to relocate plants and shrubs from their current locations along the front fence to other better suited locations elsewhere. What went were the two pine trees, which was a shame. I hate having to cut down spruce trees, but there was no other choice. What was salvageable though were many daffodil, crocus and other spring flowering bulbs… a whole garden worth! I created an entire new garden in the backyard from all that was relocated. We tried to move some well-established wild roses, but they’re looking pretty worse for the move. I hope they’ll recover.

There are still a number of bulbs and perennials in the section which needs to be leveled out front, so plenty more for another spot out back. I started in on another garden plot which will be just off our patio deck (to be constructed sometime in the future) There are a couple old apple trees, several cherry and other fruit trees all mashed together in a space way too small and crowded. Yet, once it gets thinned out and the trees pruned hard next spring, I hope they will rebound with vigor. Right now the soil is too dry for anything but the weeds to grow, and there were several. Of all the stuff in there, only some astilbe looked at all familiar. There are a several variety of small flowering plants growing wild everywhere. I will try to relocate some of these to this new patch and hope for the best.

I’d like to play a game of …Name that weed! We have a variety of unknown items growing around the place that we’ve no idea what they are. Some are cute and seem harmless, others appeared to be so, but quickly multiplied and invaded whole areas. (the 1st picture above shows the nearly knee high invader)

I have the intention of getting the names and type of all these plants growing on the property, but it’s gonna take some real sleuth skills on my part, since Pekka has no clue what any of them are.

I made my final selections of bathroom, laundry & sauna tile, flooring and house stain and wall paint colors, including the choices for front, back and terrace doors from the brochures. Next is to go shopping! We lucked out in having solid wood floors throughout the downstairs and will only stain the wood to a darker shade and seal. It has been covered with linoleum all these years since the house was built and looks brand new. We’ll use a wood laminate upstairs and tile there too in the bathroom.

Pekka starts his summer holiday next week, so I hope we can get a lot sorted out during that time. The kitchen appliances are coming 9 June, the cabinets are delayed one week…so we still have a little bit of time to get the kitchen in order for their installation. Now we wait for the building department to okay our building plans that were submitted on Monday. Hope they issue a permit without too much delay, so we can get started on the new construction.

So we’re taking it day by day and making slow progress.

Stay tuned… The internet connection “issue” was only resolved today when the data company came to install the ‘missing’ 20 meters of cable outside… it made a big difference getting that sorted! haha 😀 It’s all okay now finally, but I’ve got 96 emails to read and who knows what else I missed being offline for a few days.  whew! Glad to be back!

Stay cool and happy. We should have lots to share in the coming week!

All the best from Kate and Pekka ❤