[Photos taken 23 – 30 June 2024, posted online 25 September 2024. The mornings are getting quite chilly!]
Following a quick summer house chill, it was time to get to work on mom’s new apartment, while she was away in Sweden.
In between bursts of activity on that front, I kept building the veggie-box enclosures, although at that point it was clear they wouldn’t really be useful until the following summer. Oh well.
Aside from working on projects, I had a game-night, met a friend for lunch, finally met up with my physio for some solid guidance on fixing my back (use those glutes!), Emma started a new camp, and Bjarki turned a whopping 17 years old!!
Earlier that day, it was time for brunch! All the goodies present, cute guy included!
Selfie!
A contemplative guest, as I played with the “Portrait” setting on the phone.
Bubble-time!
Anna had bestowed a few Creme-Brulés on us, but we didn’t have a handy burner.
Big torch to the rescue!
Emma approved!
By the time we set out for home we were getting a bit hungry again, so we stopped by in Borgarnes.
Emma’s favorite at our favorite cafe.
There were still a lot of flags up from Independence Day on the back patio.
We decided to take a quick walk down to the sea.
Kelp.
Table decorations belonging to the restaurant by the sea.
Finnur had a task or two to finish at the summer house, so dinner at home was pizza. Yes, I’m that lazy.
The ended with a bit of gaming. Sadly, progress has been slow.
Leaving the game-place at 1 in the night (we’d gotten a late start). This was just a few days past the summer solstice.
Monday 24 June 2024
I finally managed to score a session with my busy physical therapist, by promising the receptionist that it would be a one-off: I just needed a sanity check on which exercises to do for my strained back. Much to my amusement, my old company logo was still listed on the screens, even though it had left the building over a month before.
I took a peek up to the sixth floor. The new tenants were making themselves comfortable. I took a peek inside, and the pool table was gone!
The weather forecast promised little to no rain, so I went back to building. This was the status before I began. Anna had planted some broccoli plants.
My workstation up and running.
The lid attached.
Getting to this point took two hours.
Inside, cookies were under construction.
Tuesday 25 June 2024
After two weeks of afternoon-tennis-camp, Emma transitioned to an afternoon-“art and animals”-camp with a few friends.
Hello Ikea, my old friend.
I confirmed that the curtain-holders already at the new apartment were from Ikea. These were sold out, but they thankfully reappeared a few days later.
One project I want to complete is to make the area around the veggie-boxes nicer, preferably using some maintenance-free material that still looks ok. I still haven’t found the answer to how best to do it…
My Ikea haul was deceptively small. There was a lot of drilling and screwing in my future.
Woodworking at home was thwarted by heavy rains. I guess I’d just have to read a book or something…?
Wednesday 26 June 2024
Back at Ikea, now to commit to a book-case for the new apartment, after much mulling and measuring.
By sheer luck, this was the first day of the Ikea summer sale. It was so new they hadn’t even really started advertising it!! The book-case had been more expensive just the day before!
I was also on the lookout for a new bed-side-table for Emma, now that her bed was a lot wider and lower than the old one. These seemed perfect!
Loving my Ikea-friendly car. It gobbled these boxes up nicely.
My first task at the new place was to install drying rods and racks. This was my Plan A, although I knew it would be tight.
Big sigh. This would not work at all, there was not enough space! As soon as the washing machine would start tumbling, it would destroy the rack! Thankfully I hadn’t started screwing anything into the walls yet.
After sitting down in frustration, and despairing a bit, I got the idea to fit the rack to the other wall. Lets call it Plan B!
My magician of a sister-in-law had spotted these dining-table chairs listed for sale on a local Facebook group. It turned out they were hiding in a garage about five streets away, so we took it as a sign and got them! The old chairs were completely worn out.
After some cursing and idiotically jamming one of the long metal poles straight onto a toe-nail. the laundry wall system was up and running!
While I’d been mucking about in the bathroom, my partner-in-crime had assembled the book-case, and it all looked so much nicer with the “new” chairs!
The to-do list. It was long.
At home base, Emma and I got to work assembling her new night-table.
Tah-daaahh!
We sent out a photo of the old night-stand to the families, and it turned out one of Finnur’s sisters wanted it. That gave me the idea to also ask if she wanted Emma’s old bed and she said Yes! Oh, such relief to not have to post it on Facebook for sale…! I had been dreading that for weeks!
Thursday 27 June 2024
Back at the new apartment, I discovered I needed to go buy something to hang the dining table light on from the ceiling. Best to measure the hole in the ceiling to be sure!
Oldest bro came to add a pair of hands. He dutifully sorted through the boxes of hangers and then re-hanged the clothes using the “good ones”.
That white wall is a solid concrete support wall. Drilling into it to put in safety anchors was a massive pain, and somehow took foooorevvver. But it got done, and I somewhat haphazardly unloaded the books into it.
The old chairs where they belonged: at the recycling center. Thank you for your service! I then dropped my brother off, and headed to the hardware store…
Found it!!
Back at the apartment I made the nasty discovery that the light wires were “capped threads”. This meant they didn’t have the strength needed to be pushed into the connection box in the ceiling.
These connection boxes require solid wires. Thankfully, Anna called just then asking if she could be of assistance, and I got her to go to the hardware store to buy the other kind of connectors, oh and a few screws.
Sister-in-law giving her enthusiastic thumbs up for the newly installed light, yay! She’d been busy putting stuff away in the kitchen.
Next up, finishing what the previous owner had started, and actually putting a solid curtain-holder-track over all the windows. Anna totally saved my hide and my sanity.
It’s a pretty clever system, and quite flexible. You just install these holders into the ceiling, and then slide the track onto them. It’s very forgiving.
My buddies. Drilling into the solid-cement-ceiling was insanely difficult. I was happy to have been lifting for quite a while, strengthening my hand and back muscles, or we would have gotten nowhere.
Friday 28 June 2024
It was Bjarki’s 17th birthday!! Hip, hip, hurrah! I drove him to work at the local e-sports arena, where he was helping out with the e-sports camp.
Arriving for a lunch with a lady!
Being a lady who lunches!!
The desert we split, yum! She’s just re-started her academic career, very exciting!
Going through my updated physio-exercise program. It was very much of the “restart and strengthen the inactive muscles” variety.
Stopped by the local nerd-store on the way home to buy t-shirts for Bjarki. Anna was my remote consultant.
The clear winner!
This one also met with a favorable rating.
The curtain holders had reappeared at Ikea, so I quickly drove over there to grab some before they sold out again! Just to be on the safe side I took a photo of the accessories included with the curtain tracks. It would come in handy later.
There were birthday presents!
Bjarki opted for a home-made steak dinner. His taste buds are getting more evolved!
Big sis, and dad.
Little sis.
She was quite excited about the ice-cream!
Digesting birthday boy.
The t-shirt was a big hit, and the siblings obliged me by posing for a sibling photo.
Saturday 29 June 2024
My morning ritual, pretty much every day: Fancy coffee and a notebook to make lists.
I was hoping for a busy day! I didn’t do all of it, but more than nothing!
At the hardware store, again.
Finnur had kindly agreed to be on top of the dandelions (yellow-flowered weeds) that summer. He kept his word. Very little other weeding happened.
We both suck at fully completing projects. This pile of old fence-timber had been left in the grass the previous fall… it was long past time to get rid of it!
I decided to use some of mom’s moving boxes to tidily transport the stuff to the recycling center.
That was quite satisfying! Oh, and I’d picked up more flowers at the “hardware” store.
It probably took (8 months plus) one hour to saw the pile down into a manageable size.
The weather was so nice that I got going on the fourth and final veggie-box enclosure.
Two-to-three hours later I had “clothed” sides.
Soooo close! But it was past nine in the evening, and I was done for.
Sunday 30 June 2024
Back at the new apartment I finally mustered up the courage to break into the mailbox, as we had no key. It went ok, but was suitably terrifying, as I tried to do it without bending the door itself too badly.
The salesperson didn’t sell me quite the correct replacement lock, but you have to have a pretty severe case of OCD to let it get on your nerves. At least putting in another lock will be easier now that we have a functioning key!
Measuring the available space for a microwave oven…
My younger local brother, and owner of the biggest back-muscles I know, came over to help me install the last of the curtain-tracks. The drilling was difficult, even for him! (And what he’s holding was not the drill we used, that’s just the screw-machine! The “real” drill sits on the steps.) But we got it done. Phew! That concluded the most tool-intensive projects at the new apartment for the time-being, as well as the month of June 2024!
