Karli Hayes Blog

We move in. At last!

2007-03-07T05:59:00.000-08:00

A big big thank you to Petrus, Hanna and Gustav Brynte who have put up with us for so so long. Hanna gave birth to a beautiful little girl (called Pippi according to big brother Gustav) on Friday night and we decided to give the Brynts a break and move in to our new house. Nice hey?

Say hello to our livning room...

...and our staircase. As you can see we dont have much furniture...so myrorna: here we come.

New Kitchen

2007-02-28T06:54:00.000-08:00

So we went to Ikea and bought our new kitchen. But a picture of 10 boxes is so so boring, so here is a clip of Emily chasing a spot ligth at Ikea.

So what is a "Cliff"

2007-02-27T07:38:00.000-08:00

Does anyone remember Cliff Barnes in Dallas? The Looooser. The dude who made all the misstakes and was the laugh stock of the 80s. In his honour any misstake made on our house is called a "Cliff".
Guess what. We have a lot of "Cliffs" in our house. But I won´t tell you what they are, you have to come and see for yourself!

Winter finally came

2007-02-27T06:56:00.000-08:00

So winter finallly came and the water stretch between Lidingö and Storholmen frozen we are now crossing over on our "kicks" (yes, the wooden chair placed on two metal bits is called a "kick"). It takes us over the ice in no time at all. Here we are crossing with some good friends of ours. The Jägerskogs.

Our little Emily fell asleep on the "kick".

Lisa and Emily taking a look and visualising what may become of Emilys bedroom.

Lisa making sure that the bathroom is 100% water proof. It is a wooden house after all so we dont want any nasty surprises behind the tiles in a few months.

2007-01-27T09:33:00.000-08:00

Ok. I´m sorry for being so slow on updating the blog. Someone asked me if we have named the house. Well...we have given it the name that´s on the gate entrance: "Tillflykten", or "The Refuge". I hope one day that it really will be a refuge for us. At the moment it might have just as well be called "Slaveship" or "Workcamp".

Any way...we are loving our little place on this planet and its even more beautiful now when snow has fallen.
Building progress has been slow since christmas, but now we are on the move again. Inside walls, floor heating, electricity, bathroom...still plenty to do.
If you have a spare weekend please let me know!!!

We haven´t decided on the colour of the house yet. Even if its still a few months before spring and time for the paint job, we need to decide! We are thinking between järnvitriol and a falu"grön"färg. Thats right.

What do you think? (Way too few friends and family have posted anything on this blog. Is anyone actually reading this????)
See you soon!!
/Karli

Mixed pictures...mixed feelings

2007-01-26T06:18:00.000-08:00

A year or two ago when we decided to build our own house I imagined myself walking around tile shops and choosing colours and fabric....very romantic. Reality is somewhat different. It took us a good portion of the fall to dig and build the system for the sewage system. Storholmen is a smal island with quite a few houses. There is no publilc sewage system so every one has to take care of there own shit. Quite litterally. Here my friends Petrus & Benny digging the trench and longing for summer.

The first picture from inside the house! This is the kitchen window. Notice the sea-view! (But don´t tell our taxoffice, because that will raise the tax value or our house.)

Global warming has also hit Storholmen. Water level has reached an all-time-high. This is our pub and pier. A place to get seriously wet.

We cant tow our boat at our pier. Its all under water.

My darling sis Steph getting dirty helping out.

"Let there be walls. And there were walls"

2006-11-16T11:05:00.000-08:00

The last couple of days there has been so much happening I haven´t even had time to eat. No matter blogging. I even lost my USB-cable to transfer pics from my camera!
Anyway, our three handy-men from the north have been extremely productive and managed put down the floor boards, raise the walls, and put up the "takstoools"...the roof things...sorry don´t know that one in english.

The problem is that this time of the year there is hardely any daylight in Stockholm. Sun rises at 8.30 and sets around 3.30 so I don´t get to see the progress in daylight. November is probably the most miserable month of the year here. Wet, cold, windy, below zero, just above zero and mud, mud and mud.

No, we haven´t got snow yet. These winter pictures are from last year.
But too keep us in good mood and to keep hope alive we need think about winter and how beautiful Storholmen is in January and Febuary.

Traffic jam in our garden

2006-11-09T13:24:00.000-08:00

So the house is "pre-fabricated" and delivered in parts. Like a gigantic lego-kit. (I really hope they included the instructions) The parts are scattered all over our garden and it´s hard even to imagine what the final result will be like.
And, like all building projects, our time schedule is off the charts, and so is our budget!!
Any donations can be paid into my bankaccount =)

Big day! House arrives...well house parts arrive

2006-11-09T13:06:00.000-08:00

(Click on the pics for a larger version)

So the big day finally came. After a week of snow storm and low temperatues we thought that the whole thing would be cancelled, but the skies decided to stop crying for a day and the ferry from waxholm finally arrived. It wasn´t quite shallow enough so the poor captain couldn´t get closer than 2-3 metres. But it was enough for his excavator to lift bit by bit across the gap. A couple of nervous hours!
Good old Jörgen (our next door neighbour) transported all the bits and pieces all the way up too our garden. Well, perhaps I shouldn´t call it a garden, but a mud pit.
Three builders from Krylbo (small town in the north) came down and immediately started to put the joist beams (floor beams) in place.
Hopefully by the end of next week we will have a house!! Well...four walls, a roof and floor beams. Its a start.

Mud mud mud

2006-11-01T04:47:00.000-08:00

So, our beautiful garden has become a mud-pit. Well, it´s all about seeing the potential, having the vision clear. Otherwise it´s quite easy to become depressed! The old ute-dass is gone! That´s where the sewage-cleaner (reningsverk) will be. Foundation with a small entrance is also off the "to-do-list".

Foundation

2006-09-23T12:25:00.000-07:00

Hey all!
Here is a picture of our "new" boat. We have named her "Hulken" or "The Hulk". She is a "must" here on Storholmen, especially now during our construction period. Just look at her carrying that pallet with concrete!! Yea, thats my Hulk.

Finally, after some help from two guys from Sydkraft, we have at last a foundation to build our house on. The room in the corner will be our machine centre with boilers, heater, ets.

Blog is now in English

2006-06-15T02:56:00.000-07:00

So it appears that I also have an international audience. How great is that?
We are still waiting for our "bygglov"....eh...the permit to build our new house. I guess our commune is not working under a commission system. I wonder what would happen if they got paid a bonus for each approved bygglov.

In the meantime we have chopped down a couple of trees and built a "vedbod"....wood-boud.

By the way. Here is a picture of the type of house we are building.

Flytten

2006-06-13T03:19:00.000-07:00

För att vara på plats och kunna lägga ner lite timmar på bygget efter jobbet så bestämde vi oss för att ändå flytta ut till Storholmen. Lisa och Emily trivs och myser.

2006-06-13T03:17:00.000-07:00

Host host...

2006-06-13T03:14:00.000-07:00

Från 8 på morgonen till 5 på natten eldades det. Host host. Jag tar av mig hatten för Josef Lindgren, Johan Arvidsson, Benny Gillberg som var med och kämpade tappert. I princip hela huset försvann. Ryktet gör gällande att grannen uppmätte 38 grader i köket...men jag vet inte.

Rivet

2006-06-13T03:09:00.000-07:00

Så där ja. Så var det gamla huset rivet. Vi tänkte elda upp allt brännbart i början av april, men det var antingen för blåsigt eller så spöregnade det. Det var inte förrän valborg som det var läge. Burn bayby burn!!!

Adjö gamla hus

2006-06-11T14:19:00.000-07:00

Det nya huset ska stå på samma ställe som det gamla. Tyvärr fanns det inget som var värt att spara. Golver var ruttet, taket hängde. Bättre att riva. Rivningen tog 35 minuter.

Hej hej

2006-06-10T13:32:00.000-07:00

Hej hej, jag tänkte blogga lite för att dela med mig av mina erfarenheter när vi bygger vårt hus.