WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!

Sep 9, 2019 | 7 comments

Hi! Hello! How are you all doing? I’ve not been putting a lot of effort into my blog for the past couple years which I am actually super sad about. Afterall this is where it all started when I pubilshed my very first post back in 2015! I’ve been thinking about picking back up on writing so many times, but with the rise of short-form content (hello TikTok, Shorts and Reels) it’s just harder to have time for it all these days. As much as I love creating snappy little styling reels I do also miss long-form and slower content, and I’m secretly hoping that we’ll start seeing a slow shift back to that in the near future. I mean, am I the only one feeling super fatigued by the AMOUNT of content out there some times? Everything is so high speed; similar to our consumption habits. I know everyone seems to love TikTok, I’ve given it a go myself and I do kind of like it too, but man. From a content creator perspective (even not just that, from a social media user perspective too), I’m so tired of feeling like you have to be “in it” and that you need to be onboard with all the newest social media trends alive to keep up. Anyway… moan over.

I wanted to check in here with a bit of a life update (for those of you old-school enough to enjoy the written format) as I feel like we’ve not chatted in ages!

 

(Trigger warning: infertility)

One major thing I have been considering openeing up about for a while is infertility and how this has been affecting our lives for the past 2 years. I’ve been going back and forth about sharing this for so long because well, it’s private and intimate and while I do like keeping things real on here some things are just better kept private. Having said that I’ve felt so incredibly alone in this whole process, and actually, after deciding to just be honest about it I’m amazed of how many other people we meet are actually going through the same. According to WHO 1 in 6 people are affected by infertility on a global scale, so really this is something we should talk way more about, yet there seems to be a lot of shame and taboo evolving around it. It’s something you always think happens to the next person and it’s never something I pictured would happen to me. But as this article states “infertility does not discriminate”, and it can happen to anyone.

As you know if you’ve followed me for some time we were blessed with a beautiful daughter back in 2020. When we decided we wanted children at the time, it didn’t take long from making that decision until I actually had a positive pregnancy test in my hands. Not long after that we felt ready to expand the family again, but as it turns out fate had other plans for us. It took a long time for us to even feel sure and ready to become parents the first time around, but once we did (it’s true what everyone always tells you) there was nothing else we rather wanted. That was it. Wanting to experience it all again so bad and then not being able to conceive has been no less than heartbreaking. At some point it becomes part of your life – you kind of get used to the fact that it’s just not happening. I don’t want to go into too much detail, but we were ultimately left with no other option (if we ever wanted more kids) than to go through IVF. I’m currently on my second round of IVF after one unsuccesful attempt back in fall 2023. Full of hormones and super (!) tired, but feeling okay despite it all. Having spring around the corner and generally experiencing lighter days at the moment helps a lot.

I’m very grateful for where we are and what we have, please know that. So we will have to see what the future brings. I just wanted to open up about this so that maybe if you’re going through the same thing; please know that you’re not alone and I know exactly how you feel <3 And maybe also so you guys know why I might be a little absent sometimes. 

I’m back at my desk after a lovely week in London last week, partly to shoot the second episode of my sustainable city guides series but also to be part of a photoshoot, which I’ll tell you guys more about later this month! The latter was really one of those pinch-me moments – I’ve been on shoots many times before when I used to work as a designer, but I’ve never been the one in the actual shoot. It was such a cool experience and I didn’t really want the day to end, haha! I’ve been away quite a lot lately, so it feels great to have an entire week back at my desk this week. I need to ground myself a little and I’m dying to edit all of the amazing content I’ve been gathering up the past few weeks. I’ve had the most amazing, slow weekend too (I’ve slept in every day and just been hanging around in the apartment with no makeup and no obligations), so this morning it felt great starting fresh and getting back on track with a good workout session and another vegetarian food delivery for the week from Aarstiderne.

Besides the exciting things I’ve had on the table workwise lately, someone of you might have already seen over on Instagram that we bought a house! YES, finally we had some luck! The house is still furnished but noone has been living there the past 6 months. Therefore we’re already getting the keys in a month, which is so amazing! The current owners just need to empty the final things and as soon as they’re done we’ll get the keys.

Jeg er tilbage ved mit skrivebord efter en skøn uge i London sidste uge, delvist for at optage del 2 af min nye sustainable city guide serie men også fordi jeg skulle over og deltage i et photoshoot, som jeg glæder mig til at dele med jer senere på måneden! Sidstnævnte var virkelig ét af de der pinch me moments – jeg har været på shoot mange gange med tidligere jobs da jeg arbejde som designer, men har aldrig prøvet at være den der skulle tages billeder af. Det var en fed oplevelse og en dag jeg ikke rigtig ville have skulle slutte, haha! Det er blevet til en hel del rejser (både inden- og udenrigs) på det sidste, så det er skønt at være tilbage på min pind hele denne uge. Jeg har brug for at grounde mig selv lidt, og få redigeret alt det fantastiske materiale jeg har fået samlet sammen de sidste par uger. Jeg har haft den dejligste, langsomme weekend (jeg har sovet længe hver dag, tullet rundt uden makeup og bare sat alting på pause de sidste par dage), så det var rart at starte på en frisk her til morgen med en god omgang tiltrængt træning og levering af denne uges Årstiderne.

Udover diverse spændende ting og sager sådan workwise på det sidste, så har nogle af jer nok fanget ovre på Instagram at vi har købt hus! YES, endelig lykkedes det os! Huset er stadig møbleret, men de tidligere ejere har ikke boet der det sidste halve år. Derfor har vi allerede disposition på huset om en måned, hvilket er fantastisk! De skal egentlig bare have det sidste tømt ud, og så snart de er færdige med det så får vi nøglerne.

We have a 3 month notice on the apartment, and it’s great that we’ll have that overlap where we both have the house and the apartment available. The bedroom and spare rooms in the house need to be renovated – they all need new floors and the old wallpapers must be removed, and we also want to put in new plaster ceilings in the entire house. It’s an older house from the 70s which has been partly renovated over the years, and it just needs kind of a common thread to tie the style together all through the house, and that’s what we’re gonna give it. The kitchen and baths are new though, same thing with the roof and windows – so all the “big” things are already taken care of which is nice. We’ve been looking at so many different houses this past year, both houses that were completely done and ready to be moved into but also those that needed a bit of tlc (not a complete makeover though, since we’ve known all along that would have been too much for us to handle). I think we’ve found a house which is perfectly placed in the middle of those! We will get the opportunity to make some changes completely as we want without it being too much for us.

The plan is to start inside of the house and get as much as possible sorted while we still have the apartment. Then during spring next year we’ll move outside to fix up the garden (we want to make it more simple and easy to maintain) and we’re both dreaming about building a cozy wooden terrace too. Also the previous owners have put in RED pvc/plastic windows in the entire house. Yep, we’re talking yellow bricks, red roof AND red windows. I don’t want to sound ungrateful but… why you’d want to go for that colour combo is beyond me, but each to their own right? So the plan is to get the windows painted (probably by a professional to start off with, since we have no idea how to deal with it. Had the windows been in wood it had been much easier to tackle) and we’re thinking we want them to be a dark grey instead. So if we in the future decide to paint the house light grey or beige, the windows will look nice with that too. Even if we stick with the yellow bricks as they are it’s gonna look so nice with the dark windows. We’re also playing with the thought of maybe one day painting the roof black, but we’ll see. The windows and the garden are what we’ll focus on, then maybe the rest will come in time – maybe not. You never know.

Vi har 3 måneders opsigelse på lejligheden, så det er ret fedt vi lige får et overlap hvor vi både har nøglerne til huset men stadig bor i lejligheden. Hele værelsesafdelingen i huset skal nemlig renoveres og have nye gulve, og desuden skal det gamle tapet pilles af overalt, ligesom vi også gerne vil have sat ens gipsloft op i alle rum. Det er et ældre hus fra 70’erne som er delvist renoveret, og det bærer tydeligt præg af at renovationen er sket lidt i etaper; der mangler nemlig lidt en rød tråd gennem hele huset, og det er dén vi gerne vil give det. Køkken og bad er dog helt nyt, tag og vinduer også forholdsvis nye – så det er rart at de “store” poster ligesom er ordnet. Vi har set på virkelig mange forskellige huse det sidste års tid, både huse som var totalt indflytningsklare, men også dem der skulle have en kærlig hånd (dog ikke totalrenoveres, da vi hele tiden har vidst at det ville blive en for stor mundfuld for os). Jeg tror vi har fundet et hus som ligger perfekt midt imellem de to! Vi får mulighed for at sætte vores eget præg på huset, uden at det virker for overvældende.

Planen er at vi starter indenfor og får styr på så meget som muligt dér inden vi skal være ude af lejligheden. Til foråret er der så nogle ting uden for der skal ordnes, blandt andet skal terrænet hele vejen rundt om huset sænkes en smule og haven skal gøres mere simpel (vi snakker feks. lidt for mange buske og en lille dam der ikke liiiige er vores kop te), og så vil vi også rigtig gerne bygge en hyggelig træterrasse. Desuden har de tidligere ejere simpelthen valgt, at sætte røde PVC vinduer i huset. Jep, gule mursten, rødt tag OG røde PVC vinduer. Jeg vil ikke lyde utaknemmelig men… hvorfor man valgte den farvekombi i sin tid er mig en gåde, men altså – hver sin smag, ikke? Så her er planen at få vinduerne lakeret (muligvis af en professionel til at starte med, da vi ikke rigtig ved hvordan man skal gribe det an), og vi tænker at de skal være mørkegrå i stedet, sådan at hvis vi nu gerne vil pudse huset op i lys grå eller beige engang, så passer vinduerne i farven. Selv hvis vi vælger at bevare de gule mursten som de er (for de er virkelig fine og i god stand) så tror jeg, at det vil se fint ud med mørke vinduer. Måske vil vi også på sigt male taget sort, men altså vinduerne og haven er det allervigtigste i første omgang. Det kan være vi med tiden lærer at leve med resten. Det ved man aldrig!

The house is located only 10 minutes away from the city center by bicycle, and the best part is that we’ll have a huge forest and fields with cows almost in the backyard at the same time. That combined with the fact that Aabenraa is located by the ocean makes the whole thing complete. Seriously, this is exactly the location we’ve been missing when we lived in our old house! The house hunt has been a success (for now anyway, touch wood nothing bad happens) and we can’t wait until we get the keys. Morten is in renovation-mode already and every night he’s looking at materials  and do-it-yourself videos online, so that we’ll be completely ready to start when we get the keys. I feel very lucky to have a husband who knows how to make stuff himself, and who fully enjoys it too. Then he can just put me to work 😉

I’ve also started gathering up loads of interior inspiration over on pinterest – pictures that also suit the kind of house we’re gonna get in one way or the other. I can’t wait to be reunited with all of our stuff and furniture from the old house either, which we currently have in storage. And to go thrift hunting of course! If you guys want to tag along in the move and renovation process of the house, I’m thinking about doing a little series over on my channel, so do make sure to subscribe over there too!

Huset ligger kun 10 minutter væk fra bymidten på cykel, og det bedste af det hele er at vi samtidig har en kæmpe skov og marker med køer lige i baghaven. Dét kombineret med det faktum, at Aabenraa jo også er en by der ligger ved vandet gør det bare endnu bedre. Seriøst, det er lige præcis den her type beliggenhed vi begge savnede i vores gamle hus! Husjagten må (ihvertfald indtil nu, krydser fingre for at der ikke dukker noget uventet op) siges at have båret frugt, og vi kan slet ikke vente til vi får nøglerne. Morten er total i bygge-mode, og han sidder hver aften og nørder byggematerialer og videoer på nettet, sådan at vi er total klar til at gå igang haha! Jeg føler mig meget heldig over at have en mand, som har begge hænder skruet godt på. Så kan han bare sætte mig igang 😉

Jeg er også begyndt at gemme en helt masse inspiration ovre på Pinterest – billeder som på den ene eller anden måde også passer til den type hus vi får. Glæder mig simpelthen sådan til, at blive genforenet med alle vores ting og møbler fra huset, som vi har opbevaret lige nu. Og til at gå på genbrugsjagt selvfølgelig! Hvis I vil følge med i flytterodet og renovationen af huset, så regner jeg med at lave en lille serie på min Youtube kanal, så husk at følge med derovre også!

 

7 Comments

  1. vicky t

    So nice to hear you’ve found your dream home! You’ll also find that when you renovate, you make it yours – which is always how we by homes here in the states. Good for you Signe!

    Reply
  2. Rachel Dow

    Congrats Signe! What an exciting new chapter in your life! Sounds like a wonderful location & can’t wait to see updates on your channel. :0) Blessings from the U.S. ~R

    Reply
  3. AllyIrvine121

    Hey, I’m over here now Signe! The location of the house sounds perfect with the ocean and the forest. (For some reason I was thinking you were 1/2 an hour away from Copenhagen but now I see it’s nearly 3 hours.) It’s a great new adventure for you both and I’m sure you’ll create something stylish, sustainable and full of the hygge we all aspire to ?❣️

    Reply
  4. Stina

    I’m so happy for you! I look forward to see The progress of you transforming The house into your dream home. ?

    Reply
  5. Carrie

    Congratulations, it’s going to be wonderful!!!!

    Reply
  6. Katherine

    Congratulations! What an exciting time you have ahead of you 🙂

    Reply
  7. Leanne

    So excited for you that you’ve found a new house to love.

    Reply

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