The Private Quarters

We have now completed our tour around the ground floor and it’s time to climb upstairs. Originally there was just one room and a landing at the other end of the house, and the other half of the floor was used as an attic. Then the stairs were moved from the hallway to the kitchen, which cleverly made it possible to turn the landing into one more bedroom, when the old staircase was closed. We, however, needed even more space, and had the attic made into a master bedroom with an en-suite bathroom (okay, it’s really tiny, but still). This project paralleled with our moving out of the old house and in this house and caused some challenges, which we just had to deal with at the time. Looking back I now realise what madness it all was… But we made it!

So the upstairs is our private area. The first room you see is the one original room, and now it belongs to the little girls. This is Kerttu’s bed, under which there is a pull-out storage box containing her wooden trains. The stuffed animals are now stuffed in another box behind the chair.

Veera sleeps high up in her loft bed. We took out the two lowest steps in order to discourage Kerttu or anyone too small from climbing up there to mess things up without Veera’s permission. So far it has worked quite well, and Veera enjoys her little nest.

Next to the loft bed there is a wall full of Lundia bookshelf, a clever Finnish build-it-yourself bookcase system that is considered old-fashioned and embarrasing in its original pine-wood appearance by some but has proven super flexible and handy every time I’ve moved house. You can move and remove the shelves as you like and combine the pieces in as many ways as your imagination lets you. I think that’s just brilliant. Life doesn’t stand still. Kids grow, they want to change rooms and eventually they will move out on their own. Most of our Lundia has served me for 35 years, and it looks like I will at least try to pass them on to my kids.

Well then. When you walk through the little girls’ room there is a door that was once the front door of the second-floor flat. Now it’s the door that gives my Bonus Daughter some peace and quiet before noon on weekends, but also lets in more light when it’s open. This room is what was once the landing. The bed can be pulled out, and that’s why this is also the most convenient choice for a guest room.

Some Lundia there as well. I have done my literature studies.

Right where the staircase used to be is now a (bit unfinished) doorway through which you can see our bathroom window. The black bookcase contains our bedlinen and all kinds of arts and crafts material. 

We had to have a bathroom upstairs. Because the space was somewhat restricted we decided to have the tiniest possible bathroom. This is what we got.

It even has its own library.

When you come out of the bathroom you can see our bedroom. Because this is a private floor we’re not bothered with bedspreads. So all this used to be the attic (there are some pictures here), but now it’s like the backstage, where all the magic happens, you know.

That’s my clothes rack. The rest of my wardrobe is in the drawer in the picture above. It took a move, some profound thinking and a smaller house to end up in the same conclusion as Marie Kondo did. The table, designed by Alvar Aalto, that now works as a sewing station (loads of budding projects in the back of my mind but never enough time to start them) was the nappy-changing station when I was a baby.

This is the view from the stairs.

Oops, I almost forgot. This is the dressing table. It used to be my great-aunt’s writing console. I still get to keep it mostly to myself, but even Kerttu knows where the mascara is and brings her own hair brush and does her hair here with me. She can hear the birds on the wallpaper sing.