Salvage operation

The last few weeks have been a bit busy with all kinds of ordinary things, and despite of good intentions and ideas, we have not been able to focus on the blog as much as we wanted. Therefore, now it is a perfect time to break the silence with a short story with a twist a modernist enthusiast might find quite intriguing.

Recently, our focus has been on sourcing materials for the ongoing (never ending) renovation. Last weekend we were visiting some dear friends in a town close to Helsinki. They also live in a 1960's home which still has some interesting MCM-details in place. Contrary to our taste, their preference in interior design is more contemporary. Given our MCM madness and the fact that as a part of their renovation project they were considering replacing one of these amazing details, a set of cobalt blue tiles with white ones, Pekka had only one option - he needed to save the tiles, one way or another. Fortunately, knowing Pekka's passion for these kinds of things, our friends kindly played along and promised the tiles would be ours if we helped in detaching them.

Cobalt blue

So gentlemen - pick up your tools and get started! In their original location, the tiles were placed in the front of a fireplace.

Tools for the task

Man at work

While working our way through the tiles we quite quickly learned the right technique for how to minimise any possible damages during the detachment process. From seventeen tiles which were detached from cement only two got broken. Not bad at all! The tiles were actually quite thick which made our work a bit easier than had we been working with a very thin tiles. Overall, the project can be considered a successful one.

Half way there

Now that we have a nice pile of MCM tiles the obvious questions arises: what are we going to do with them? Well, to be quite honest - we have no idea. But they are so cool, aren't they? Somehow, if you'd ask Minna she would tell you in an instant the lack of ideas is never a problem. Usually, the problem comes from the abundance of ideas - how to choose the best and at the same time at least a bit realistic one. Perhaps we should have a vote. If you had 15 cobalt blue tiles measuring 295 x 95 x 15 mm, what would you do?

Clearly, it is a story to be continued...

Fifteen pieces waiting for a new location