Upon returning from Copenhagen in 2010 Cynthia and I moved into an apartment on Rodney Street while I began restoration work on our house. We needed to replace a few items of furniture that we had chaotically sold off in 2009. When the neighbor had a garage sale, we purchased two Ethan Allen hutches that had belonged to his grandmother. A sudden wind storm knocked them down and broke the glass doors of one hutch before we could move them into the apartment. We’ve been wondering what to do with them ever since. Well we discovered the answer.

The Ethan Allen base cabinet we discovered to be the perfect size to fit the little nook in the upstairs guest room. This will be Solbritt and Lilian’s room when they come to visit and we wanted to have a nice vanity and sink to make the room a bit more welcoming and convenient, especially when they become teenagers and perhaps live with us while going to school here in Helena to polish up on their English. (Of course this is my idea and it hasn’t been cleared with the parents so don’t mention it to them just yet.)

I primed the base cabinet with a top quality Benjamin Moore latex primer in order to get good adhesion after sanding the lacquered finish. Then I painted 2 coats of our white semi-gloss that I have been using on all painted woodwork.

The sink we found at IKEA and brought it home to use in the master bedroom but we liked it so much we decided to get 2 of the same for both bedrooms. Cynthia picked up the mirror at the Restore Store for $2 and I simply painted it to match. The second sink is coming from Portland with Aaron and Melinda. Thanks again to Aaron for helping out with IKEA purchase and delivery!

The sink in the master bedroom sits on an IKEA cabinet made to go with it. We brought this one home ourselves from the Draper IKEA in Salt Lake City. The 3 drawer dresser was repurposed with some effort of trimming to fit the space and then a few coats of paint. The medicine cabinet came with the house and was repurposed from the original downstairs bathroom.

The teddy bear was repurposed from an old fur coat in the early 1950’s and has been in my possession ever since. It is dressed in one of my first hand knit sweaters and it is wrapped with my old Swedish baby scarf. The origin of the scarf is gone along with the passing of my parents but my guess would be that it was a gift brought by Sigrid and Hildegaard when they came from Uddevalla to Minneapolis for a visit in 1953.

Swedish guests that come to visit might recognize the design in our downstairs guest room. Our “Scandic” guest room has the look of the hotel where Cynthia and I have stayed in Stockholm near Sigrid and Olle’s old apartment. The wall mounted headboard with attached shelves and individual reading lights comes from- you guessed it, IKEA, but has the design straight out of the Scandic Alvik in Stockholm.

Guests with extremely heavy luggage will appreciate the strength of the luggage rack repurposed from the ends of our butcher block counter top in the kitchen. The legs are maple and from an old school desk I found at the Good Samaritan Thrift Shop on Montana Avenue.

Okay, so not everything is repurposed in this house. Cynthia and I had fun on the IKEA website and finally came up with this desk arrangement after looking at all the pieces in the showroom. Desk, drawers, cabinets, lights and chairs are all IKEA and fit perfectly into our dual desk study space.

It seems at times that it is taking forever to complete this house make-over and I admit to being discouraged on occasion. But when I sit here at the computer and post these pictures I can see the hours of work that have gone into the various projects and it is quite fun for me to realize that much work has been accomplished in the last few weeks. The house actually looks quite nice and inviting for Christmas, now that Cynthia has been able to give it some polishing and decorative touches.

The recipe for a cozy Christmas tea is about there. We just need to add several guests to spice it up just right.