Oh YAY for Europe!

The timing of the Cure is perfect b/c this Friday is Persian New Years - which you start by cleaning your home from top to bottom.

I live in Paris and will be doing a deep cure of my ~35 m2 triplex apartment in a 17th century building - so many interesting challenges!

I can't wait to hear about other's projects, challenges and successes!

And another YAY from a Parisian Cure-seeker. We moved to here from Vancouver Canada late last fall, moved into our 63m2 1 bdrm apartment at the end of December.

Our first challenge was installing a kitchen, since ours was empty aside from a sink.

Now the next challenge is to sort out our living room, which is also our dining room, office, guest room, library and media centre. And do something about the dingy white walls, which are papered in strange textured wallpaper that I think is supposed to resemble rough plaster....we'd like some colour!

We've got plenty more projects to last us another 3 years of curing. For now I think the living room and maybe lighting (since the apartment had none when we moved in) will be work enough for this spring.

Hi everybody, I live in a small 3-room (70 m2) apt. in Constance, Germany. We (SO, me, two cats) moved in 1 year ago and there is still almost everything unfinished. I want to deep clean, declutter and get more organized. The apt. is beautyfull, hardwood floors, lots of light, but I didn't make the most of it yet. My kitchen is in desperarate need of a re-do (we owed the kitchen by the couple that was living there before we moved in) to make it work for me, your home office is more a storage/rubbish room than an office and the bed room needs lotsa of work, too.
I also hope to get some inspirations for the living room, the room I like best and use most.
Girls, did you allready install some flickr? Are there any pics allready to share? I would be really helpfull for me to get some tips for our place.

Hey Nicolezh

Here are some pics - on Picasa, not Flickr (I'm not so crazy about Flickr).

Before we moved in (very zen): http://picasaweb.google.com/sehosking/OurNewApartment#

Two weeks after the move (chaos!)
http://picasaweb.google.com/sehosking/ApartmentJan1102#

Kitchen & bathroom improvements (helllooo Ikea):
http://picasaweb.google.com/sehosking/KitchenBathroom#

Gimlet, I'm SUPER jealous of your gorgeous LR & BR floors! We have the standard hex tiles in the LR, really ugly tiles in the kitchen and basic wood in the bedroom. I'll try to post some pictures tomorrow.

stunning place!
I'll also try to post some pictures tomorrow or so.

Gimlet, those are really lovely floors indeed! I like your list-writing counter and wished we had a little nook like that. :)

I'm in London and this is our second cure -- we made quite a bit of progress last spring and a year on we'd like to step things up a bit. :) We rent a three bedroom post-war flat which we love but it has its own challenges of course! I work in the art and craft industry from a home studio in what would otherwise be the third bedroom or a formal dining room, so no matter how much we would like to not have stuff...we have stuff.

We have some pictures online here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shimelle/sets/72157604120849032/
but I need to get adding some new ones to document this cure. :)

Woo Hoo for the Europe forum!
Shimelle and Gimlet: I'm loving your floors – very envious in fact!
I'm in London (in a Victorian cottage) and intend to finally sort out my bedroom which I started ages ago and is now dragging on. I'll try and find one of the before photos of the ghastly yellow and brown smudgy wallpaper (it looked like the results of a dirty protest!).
Thankfully the walls are all finished and nicely painted and replastered after pulling off the glued on dado rail resulted in the plaster falling off! But there's still loads more to do...

Hi to the team!
Brief intro: I'm in Athens and I plan to make my bedroom more user-friendly. More details and pics will follow.
(Oh, and I'm waiting for my copy of AT to arrive this Friday.)

^^

Hi everyone!
I'm in Dublin and I'm at home on maternity leave for the next few months (have to get my excuse for half-heartedness in early!) and hope to tackle my 2-up/2-down house. We have the common problem of having loads of cool stuff ... in boxes surrounded by junk (aka my boyfriend's stuff - DVDs/books/comics/CDs). I'm also waiting for my copy of AT.
Really enjoyed this weeks task - nice and lazy, copying beautiful pictures into a word file. More of that!

Hi Europe!

Good luck on the Spring Cure and keep one another going.

It's great to finally have a place for local and international voices. Please let us know how it works for you.

Best, Maxwell (in NYC where it's c o l d today)

Hi everybody,
a short summary from my first "cure-saturday". Well, I'm really motivated and feel good, although I only do baby steps.
Yesterday we (SO and me) moved out an old huge printer my partner kept "just in case", an old, ugly disfunctional chair (it was my first chair when I left my parent's home, but I never liked it) and some dated glasses someone left at my place. Today I finally installed the new kitchen board (wanna see? http://www.ikea.com/de/de/catalog/products/70099516) and removed our cluttered shelf. What a relief! Everything is now in its place, I see how many things we have (sooo many glasses and chickpeas...).
Now there are some holes in the walls, I will fill them afterwards!
There will be still to be done in the kitchen, painting (I was thinking about some sage green, but my partner insists on white) I need something to cover the washing machine, something for the window (I thought of this http://www.jereko.de/Fensterfolie/Fensterfolie-Otto::10.html), as erverybody can look inside, new doorknobs (als the actual ones scream "u-g-l-y") and maybe I'll paint the cupboards...
This night, i'll sew some velco on a curtain and clean all og my floors.
How are you? What happened this weekend in your places?
I'd love to hear!

oh, I forgot to post my weekly flower. It's a lovely yellow buttercup from the farmer's market. Now it is in my livingroom:
http://img.makeupalley.com/thumb.asp?f=8_9_0_8_1234842.JPG&sb=w&maxSize=600

Yo fellow Euro-curees

Hmmmm...I now get why the AT book tells us to wash floors as part of week 1 homework. There's nothing like trying to manoeuvre around around boxes, chair legs, a/v equipment and skitterish cat in a small apartment to bring home the less = more philosophy.

Overall, my 'Deep Cure' progress is moving, just a bit slowly. Some of the homework gets me a bit homesick for my ex-apartment in Vancouver, which had less charm but was in far better condition....

1. Washing floors: Half-done. I vacuumed & washed all tile floors, but dragged my feet on the wood floors and dealing with their canyon-sized gaps between the boards. Will tackle 'em tomorrow.
2. Flowers: Done! Daffodils now grace our newly decluttered fireplace mantel.
(Before pic is here.)
3. List of home repairs: just started. After assessing one room, I suddenly got homesick for my previous apartment. Built in the 50s, it was devoid of architectural detail *but* had been fully renovated by my extremely house-proud ex-landlord.
4. Creating a vision: Not started...yet! I know, this bit should be the fun, easy part, but for me it's the hardest. Our budget is tight (currently only 1 income) we expect to move back to Canada in 5 years or so: chances are we'll have to liquidate most of our possessions before we go. This means making the most of our collection of disparate Ikea items & keeping new purchases to a minimum. Anybody else in this same boat?

Gimlet - I totally get you on the one income thing. We moved to Paris from SF and are living on one income, so the budget it tight. We are, however, currently planning on making France our forever home (of course, I said that about San Francisco!).

For buying things affordably, have you checked out http://paris.kijiji.fr ? It's like craigslist, but the prices are often lower b/c it's locals posting instead of expats like on craigslist and fusac. Also, craigslist is awesome around June, August, December/January b/c a lot of people move back to their home countries at those times (pre-summer, post-summer, holidays) and sell things for whatever they can get. We got a great Habitat sofabed for about 1/5 of the retail price that way.

For great cleaning tips that are often specific to these old buildings, check out the show C'est Du Propre on M6 - I learned how to get my tomettes (unglazed hex tiles) super clean with soda crystals (cristaux de soude).

Borrowing your list format, b/c it's a great way to keep myself honest:

1. Deep cleaning kitchen - to be done Thursday after I destroy my kitchen by making cupcakes for the SOS English Book Sale. In preparation for Nowrouz (Persian New Year), I cleaned our apartment from top to bottom, which should make cleaning this week a bit easier. Also, since I'm home, I cook at least 5 days a week, so that's not an issue.

2. Buying flowers - also part of Nowrouz tradition, I bought some potted hyacinth bulbs, which are currently blooming and smelling fantastic.

3. List of home repairs - I'd actually already started one, but need to review it with my husband for input and agreement (and commitment to actually fixing!)

4. Creating a vision - I've got tons of pictures and a general concept started for each space from when we moved in last fall, but I feel like I need to tighten it up a bit. The kitchen is a problem area - there's what I'd like it to be, and what reality will allow it to be. *sigh*

5. Floorplans - This is also mostly done from when we moved in last fall (when trying to buy stuff for a 35 sq. m. triplex apartment with low ceilings and NO 90 degree angles, it helped to know EXACT measurements for everything), the kitchen, however, has had some changes.

Ugh - I fail at formatting on this site. :-( Apologies for bold mania

Hannala - Congratulations on doing a full new year cleaning! Thanks tonnes for the cleaning & 2ndhand shopping tips. Maybe I'll manage to find lamps actually not from Ikea on kijiji....

Kitchens are tough. If it's any consolation, two of the walls in ours have such weird, unworkable features that even though it's spacious (by Parisian 1 bdrm standards), we only had one corner where we could really put up anything.

RE: food. That is definitely one of the pluses of being at home so much. As I type I'm making tomato confit and letting some roasted red peppers cool, so the apartment is definitely getting 'seasoned' today (as described by Maxwell in today's post). Have you checked out the Chocolate & Zucchini blog? it's written by a Parisian who didn't discover cooking until she lived in SF. She even has recordings of food-based French expressions.

Anybody have any pictures? Looking forward to visuals of others european digs.

i'm another londoner, and from vancouver, and i'm borderline temporary - we're renting, and will probably always live partially in canada and in europe. i have two small people distracting/assisting in this process. we're in a victorian flat conversion over three floors, with a garden, also managing a studio in the mix. i'm doing a deep cure of the house and throwing in a reworking of the garden!! the patio was once painted red white check, which is now truly awful, i'd love to have advice about how to restore the tiles to their natural sandy tone without breaking the bank.
a decorator is painting the very rusted gate securing our french doors to the garden, lucky me! thanks to the owner. this is already begun. i've torn up a sidewalk, changed the pathway, and i'm awaiting beach pebbles for it. i'm looking at seeds - for lots of colour and for food as well. i'm using the cottage garden as a reference. inside the house i'm just refining how it functions and trying to make it more cosy. i may organise a trade with a couple of other artists, to get some art in here. i think we probably need things like cushions, plants, artwork, lighting, to soften the place. we've only lived here since november, so we're still settling in. i have painted the bathroom, at least!

i put potted hyacinths outside our door; i think i may buy some potted daffodils, and then move them into the garden after they finish.

i cured my vancouver flat, then sold it! so i've been through it once, i love this. i'm hoping all the londoners haven't got all the library copies!

Hi there,

nice to see there's a board for us in Europe. Hopefully more people will sign up! I've been spreading the word since I got my copy of the book last autumn, but myself only managed to do a one-room remedy back then. This time around, the "landing strip" will get the most attention, whereas the rest of the apartment mostly needs to be "decluttered". We hope to move abroad in a year or so, therefore I only plan to get a couple of things from Ikea, frame some new pictures, paint a few walls. So, it's a relatively small cure I'm doing.

If anybody has any great ideas on hallways/entryways, I'll be happy to see them ;-)

And btw, I'm in Berlin. Any other Berliners around?

Have fun, everybody!

Hi again,
you can have a look at my before bedroom here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/16846773@N04/3392671049/in/set-72157616040800254/
Although one might not see it at first sight, I find it quite cold and uninviting, not to mention empty.

Unfortunately my copy of the book hasn't arrived yet after 11 days... If there's one good thing about this it's giving me the opportunity to discover many things that annoy me while going unnoticed, as I try to take hints from the postings and work the details for myself. Ie. I started to see how objects, arrangements and habits can undermine feeling good at home (or how they can be a result of defensive behavior) -- also how the annoying thing might not be the object itself but the attitude connected to it.
Now I just wish I can find ways to transform what I notice!

Cheers

Hi

I am in Edinburgh, UK and signed up at the beginning of this spring cure. I don't think I will be following the cure strictly, but trying to accomplish most things over the period. I am planning my end-of-cure tea party - otherwise there is no incentive. So far I haven't done too much (guilt).

I need to seriously declutter and deep clean, make a list of repairs and do the most pressing, and concentrate on one area, which I think will be the hall (landing strip).

The house is a ground floor and basement flat with a walled garden. It is a great house, but a little impractical in the layout - sitting room upstairs and kitchen downstairs.

The cure makes a lot of sense to me - I bought the book two years ago but haven't felt able to start until now as everything seemed too much (a long period of illness).

I hope to post pictures once I work out how. I have a lots of magazines and links to pictures of homes I like gathered.

First small purchase will be a shaker peg rail. A bit twee, but nice. Heals had a lovely pure wooden one but don't seem to be selling them any longer, so I am looking at this:

http://www.jonathanavery.co.uk/accessories/shakerpegrail.html

I am sure one of these will cure all my clutter problems :)

Starting a little late here in France outside of Paris as I only just found the europe board. I need lots of help! Love all the tips and inspirations found here. FYI another place to recommend for second hand in paris is freecycle. Its free stuff from sofas & lamps to books and computers. You never know what you will find. Unfortunately now that we have moved outside of paris its too hard for me to pick stuff up. Sign up on the yahoo group and receive a list each day of free stuff people are getting rid of. Its kind of like rummaging through the piles of stuff you see on the sidewalk everytime someone moves. Only this way you don't have to look over your shoulder to see who saw you pick up that old chair! .http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freecycleparis/

Gimlet
I am a huge fan of Chocolate & Zuchini. I give her cookbook out as gifts all the time. I am so envious that her written english is so much better than my french (and probably my english too) I love how great her photos (often taken with a mobile phone) are. They look so professional and ofcourse yummy. She should be posting to the kitchn.com flickr board of pro looking photos.

great to see everyone busy! i've recognised that i'm taking on too much and will have to address the house with an autumn cure :P so i'm focusing on the garden patio. things are coming along well, i will post pictures. i've freecycled the stones, waiting on the edging to go, and i must find someone to collect the rubble. we finished the pebble pathway - a tonne of beach pebbles carried by bucket through the house! and added a circle at then end. it took a lot just to get all the rubble, stones edging out of the garden...freecycle is great because some folks don't mind doing some work to get their free stuff, so they carried a lot of heavy stone through the house.

i'm still uncertain about how to treat the patio, i'll post a pic. i have rusty chairs, belonging to the owner, i may have them painted white if they allow it, and i was at liberty looking at fabrics that work well outdoors, cushions, tablecloths, lots of fun.

*

Hi again, the book arrived at my hands at beginning of week 3, so I'm catching up. Meanwhile I'd like to share with you the landing strip I've created -- which is found in an unusual place: the kitchen.
You see, I use to leave the bags in the kitchen so that's where I head after entering the ap, and there's this perfect small surface where I empty my pockets and which used to be a horrible mess all the past years. I always thought I have to get rid of this habit, but the "landing strip notion" got rid of the guilt for me and all I did was transform it to a cuter place.
^^

http://www.flickr.com/photos/16846773@N04/3418644851/in/photostream/

France.
I'm working on the livingroom to avoid dealing with the entryway/entree. Here are the pics of before and during :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26085091@N03/sets/72157616518088368/

I need need need to buy storage space and a coffee table. I have a really hard time finding furniture in france. Want to go modern but anything modern in france seems sooo expensive.

anybody have some affordable furniture places to check out? On used items I never see any decent furniture. The pouces (love the design pouces in paris!) are soooo expensive.
I am looking for eames style sort of retro modern stuff.
can't find a good buffet/console when there are zillions in the USA.
These are the type of consoles I am looking for:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26085091@N03/3426306912/

Does anybody else get lost in the apartment therapy site/here? Is there anyway to be notified if someone responds to your post or when a post is interesting to you to be notified each time its updated like a forum? So much great info but I can never re-find discussions/photos topics. I have to visit like 10 places each time. any help?

i get a bit lost - but i get the emails sent to me, and follow the links to the cure from there. here they are:

http://tinyurl.com/springcure

http://tinyurl.com/springcuretoo

i am very happy to have all of our concrete rubble picked up, and all of the concrete edging as well, so we are clear of everything but some dirt. it was very hard work carrying a tonne of concrete through the house! luckily i had help.

locally i found fabulous coated linen and cotton fabric for tablecloths, i may get the flowery pattern, or just the plain white linen.

my seeds have arrived, very exciting!

- tulp, looks good!

- jeannec, i'm in the uk, i'm not sure you'd want to pay the shipping. otherwise perhaps http://www.habitat.co.uk? can you ask around for cheaper places? i'd love to buy furniture in paris!!

*

France - design flea market
For the first time ever I am going to let myself BUY something at the puces du design:
http://www.pucesdudesign.com/en/galerie.php

they have their anniversary flea market this June and it looks bigger than their usual one. You really have to negotiate on the prices though as most stuff is seen as an "antique" Its also good to just get the business card from the exhibitors so you know where to go in between markets.

UK child's panton chairs for 20£ !!!
http://www.vita-interiors.co.uk/Childs-Verner-Panton-Chair-ABS-p-16290.html

Sorry to post a copy but for kids stuff I just can't put 300€ into a chair and I am so excited to have found this!

Jeannec - thanks for the link - I might make it over.

Do you have tips on what are the other good Paris flea markets?

thanks jeannec, me too!

i've cleaned the patio, nearly, but i may have to try a pressure washer to get awful old paint off of the pavers. i tried a floral tablecloth, it was way too much and now have a wipe-able white linen. we are making 'bunting' to decorate, see how far we get. it is almost time to plant, so the full extent of this garden revision won't show for a few months.

i'd love lighting ideas for the garden.

how are things going?

*

ah, you quiet europeans! my garden cure is done, with some things to wait for, on the patio. i put in all the beautiful deep black compost a few days ago now, and i'm planting out seeds today. i received a beautiful aged pot of strawberry plants i've set in place, and all the pebbles look wonderful against the dark soil. i figured out the push mower and i love keeping it clipped. i've decided to get the acacia wood deck tiles to cover most of the patio, as soon as possible, and pebble around pots around the edge. i'm growing creeping thyme in areas where the children run around, and they've begun planting a children's garden at the back, beans, peas, sweetpeas, pumpkins. i've cut down a bamboo that died in a storm, and will reuse the beautiful cracked pot to fill with flowers. i have a wipe-able cream linen table cloth for the outside table, and i'd like to make covers for some folding chairs. my children and i are sewing bunting (pennants) to decorate the garden. all slower than i'd like, but still exciting! i have family from vancouver here, so we're enjoying picnics in the garden, as our casual celebration.

i'd love to hear how everyone's cures have gone!

PARIS:
Just got the apartment therapy email about sales and events going on in each town. sniff sniff me jealous! So here is one I found in paris:
Design Paris 16 - Exposition-vente de mobilier, luninaire et objets vintage et contemporain, Paris (du 14 au 19 mai)
but there is no more info like location etc does anyone know more/know what they are talking about?

Also everybody should attend the 'journees d'architecture a vivre" in June. You get to visit people's real live homes with a tour by the architect. I love it !!
http://www.maisonscontemporaines.com/pageB.asp?T=intro&ST=intro

Lots of vide greniers/brocantes this weekend!!!!

By the way, my own cure has stalled. I didn't get the book until week 5 and my home is just too far into construction and chaos so I'll definately be back ready to go for the next one. However, I have managed to clean out my kitchen and I do buy myself flowers each week and refresh them with flowers from the garden. Has really made a difference!
Oh and I finally got my husband to install the new light in the kitchen! Haven't uploaded photos yet.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26085091@N03/sets/72157617117308721/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26085091@N03/sets/72157616518088368/