Literary

I used to read copious amounts of books before I had my kids. After they were born I still tried to read but I could rarely relax long enough to really get into it again.

Since they’re bigger now I am trying again to be able to lose myself in a book and I have found a few that have really let me do that.

Ben Aaronovitch has written a series of books about PC Peter Grant. A police series set in London with both very realistic and supernatural elements. PC Grant has wonderfully sarcastic commentary on police procedure and the human nature and I devoured the firt three books when I found them this summer.

Broken Homes is the fourth book in the series and I have only gotten a few pages in yet so I can’t say if I like it or not.

The other two books are written by Laini Taylor. I read the first of them, Daughter of Smoke and Bone on my Kindle app first and loved it. I didn’t realise until the very last page that it was the first in a planned trilogy and I wept when I saw the planned release date being months away.

But finally, the day has come and I got the second in the series this week. I decided to re-read the first because it has been a while and I needed a refresher.

I also decided to get the first book in paper back as well because while the Kindle is convenient in that I can carry lots of books with me, nothing beats the feel of a well-read paper back book.

I’m one third through the re-read and I can’t wait to get to the second one – but then I want to get started on PC Grant too … Gah! So many books. So little time.

More attic work

It’s been a bit quiet here lately. I’ve been off work this week and you’d think I would have had time to update but quite the contrary.

I’ve spent all week elbow deep in plaster and putty in our attic.

My dad came to help out and with his help, Rickard and I have the entire attic floor plastered. We’re waiting for it to dry over night so Rickard can sand it tomorrow.

I love the floorplan we came up with and the girls are very happy that we are doing it all for them. There has been no complaints about us not being able to go places together.

We’ve tried tomplan movie nights and shorter outings together but it’s been very much a staycation for us all this summer. Not counting Greece in June – although that was before the building started.

I’m looking forward to having the sanding done. No matter how we try to contain it the dust gets in everywhere.

Once the sanding is done we can vacuum and have most of it gone. Then we get to the fun part. Painting, floors and furnishing.

It’s all going according to plan. No big hold ups yet.

Since I’ve not just stood on the sidelines for this part there are not a lot of pictures. And even if there were they would all mostly be dust-grey.

Daily Dinner

Tonight I made a kick-ass dinner for us.

I had a chilled puff pstry in the fridge that I used to line a shallow pie dish. In retrospect I should have pre-baked it for a few minutes. Do that. Don’t be like me.

I sliced up three onions, two yellow and one red onion in thin half-slices. Cook them in a skillet with butter until they are brown and caramelised and yummy.

I seasoned it with salt and pepper, about a tbsp of brown sugar and one or two tbsp of light soy sauce. Let it reduce then transfer the onions to the pie.

Top it with frozen green asparagus stems in a fancy pattern if you like or just one ext to the other like I did.

Whisk up 2 eggs with about 1 cup of milk (or half and half or heavy cream all depending on how naughty you feel like being). Then add some pepper and a nice helping of grated parmesan or pecorino cheese and stick it in a 225C oven for 20 or so minutes.

I had planned to have this or dinner with Rickard an let the girlies eat the panckes they asked for. But we ended up sharing because the girls thought it looked yummy.

Enjoy!!

Stand still

The attic work has hit a stand still since Rickard (and I) is back at work. We took time off on Monday night to have a fika in town then another break yesterday for dinner and a movie.

Both girls are at their grandparents’ so we have a whole week to ourselves.

Tonight I need to go to the shops and start on Isabel’s back-to-school tunic that I promised her I’d have finished. I would like to get a dress made for Sofia but she declared that she was going to wear her white Pinwheel dress and tunic for her first day of school so I may be off the hook.

Maybe just something new for picture day … Although – she does have a new School Photo dress that I haven’t let her wear.

I have taken the week off next week to pick them up early from school and to patch and sand the attic walls with my father.

We also need to put up the drywall in the ceiling but I think Rickard plans to do that with his dad this weekend.

I plan to take a trip down south with the girls on Saturday to visit Kåseberga and Kivik. We currently have a visitor that I want to take with me.

We have a hit a wall – in a good way

Yesterday the dividing wall between the girls’ rooms went up. Rickard and his dad began the morning with going to the hardware store and get insulation for the wall.

After a break for coffee they went up and started on the final construction. They quit working by 2 pm and by then the wall was done.

I won’t be able to get good pictures now. The dividing wall makes it hard to get a good angle.

The nicest part now is that we aren’t particularly dependent on any hired workmen. The plumber will need to come back here to connect the radiators, but if he should be a day or two later than we had hoped it’s not a big deal. Same with the electrician.

This week the girls are off at Camp Grandmapa and we are a bit undecided on how to proceed. We could patch and sand the walls (a huge job), or we could try and put up the ceiling drywall together in the evenings since we are now both back at work.

Or we could just take a break for the week. Go see a movie, fika och go out to dinner. We haven’t decided.

Next week the girls start school and I have a week off. The plan is that my dad and I will do the patching and sanding then. But it would have been nice to have the ceiling done .. we’ll see.

#attic2013 – update

Well, once the drywall sheets were inside on Tuesday, Rickard and FIL started putting them up on the walls.

Both slanted walls were done on Tuesday night and when I arrived home last night (Wednesday) both bedroom nooks were finished

Sofia’s lower wall is put up as well, and her room is pretty much done.

Isabel’s room will take a little longer because we can’t really get any further until the Plumber Guy has been there to connect the pipes for the radiators.

They will run inside the wall all along her wall and around to the gable where the radiators will be mounted underneath each window.

The dividing wall can’t go up until the pipes are in so we’re waiting to hear back from the Plumber Guy. We were hoping he would show today but we don’t know.

There is plenty of other stuff to do though. The hatches can be put in on Sofia’s side and the stair well needs insulation and drywall.

I’m super impressed with how quickly they have come to this point. While I know there is far to go and we are only about half way it almost feels like we’re pretty much done.

Drywall delivery

This morning we had a delivery of drywall sheets. Like I said before our stairs are too narrow to take the sheets up that way so we hired a truck to lift them up to the attic windows.

I know Rickard’s been pretty nervous about it. We both have. But all went well. The rain we thought would come veered north and the sheets came inside dry and ready to be used.

Here’s another view from upstairs. The truck parked on our neighbours’ driveway and the 25 m long arm stretched across their yard and up to our windows.

Lots of things that could go wrong with that scenario but it all went off without a hitch.

Attic project

Like I said in my last post our attic project started up the day after Isabel's birthday. Rickard and his dad teamed up and put up some wind-proofing cloth before moving on to insulation (220 mm of it).



Once all the walls were insulated they put in a hatch to the new fourth floor (or is it the third floor?) and then nailed down the floor to the new attic (or attic-attic as we have started calling it).



A few days later the entire space was encapsulated in plastic film and then the studs to hold the drywall/plasterboard/gypsum were put up.



Yesterday they started putting up the interior walls so we could get a feel for if the outline of the rooms we had done would work. Which it did. The girls are very excited for the space to be habitable. Which will be a few more months though I'm afraid.

Today Rickard and his Father is ordering the drywall for a Tuesday/Wednesday delivery, the electrician is coming to have a look at the diagrams we've made to make sure it's done correctly. And then I think they'll start laying down the cables for the electricity.

I have conveniently (?) gone back to work so I am not there to see it all happen. I get to see it all when I get home at night. I have two more weeks to work before school starts for the girls. Then I have taken a week off - I think I will be patching the walls and sanding them that week. At least I hope I can do that.

With the speed they've set it may already be done by then.

Pictures from the build goes up in this public Flickr-set.
And if you are on Instagram you can search for #attic2013 - most of the pictures should be mine.