Red Zipper

At some point when the downstairs was still a mess, we wondered how much time we'd actually spend there when finished. After all, the living room upstairs is perfectly functional, and it is not really we needed more space.

But then, Zipper arrived. We had contemplated several options in terms of couch based on quite a few criteria. First and foremost, only bright red would do. Also, it needed to endure two termites and a dachshund, and have enough room for the five of us - and definitely be a corner sofa to assume a prominent role in the room. Finally, we were looking for a very relaxed look and feel.

Eventually, the answer (i.e. a couch that met our requests) was found much closer than expected, just literally around the corner. Annaleena Hämäläinen, who is the creative director of Hakola, a Finnish furniture company, also happens to be our neighbour. She listened to our wishes and presented a perfect solution - a Red Zipper by Hakola. 

Don't you dare waking me up!

We will be return to the Red Zipper soon, when showing you more of our favourite room in the entire apartment. Funny to even think we were doubting if this room would be used. Now we are wondering how we ever survived without it...

Déjà vu - painting

So a little while back we decided to start reorganizing one of the rooms upstairs for the baby. Up until now, it has only been in occasional use, mostly for storing and office purposes. Honestly, not much though has been invested in this room...

Can you sense my reluctancy to pose?

But finally, the growing family served as the perfect excuse to take the first step. The string bookshelf and desk moved downstairs, and after a bit of persuasion, Sofi agreed to give up her Muurame drawer units as an exchange to another drawer. We actually quite like the new location of the String shelf - not quite sure if it will be the final destination, but seems to be working quite well for now.

New temp location for the String shelf

Clearly, Pekka has been a bit short on projects lately and was eager to get down and dirty with some very basic renovation. On Saturday night, after all the furniture shuffling, he suddenly proposed we should repaint the walls. And to make a long story short, on Sunday afternoon, the task was completed.

Sofi checking out the equipment

It is funny how time flies. In September 2012, when Minna was in charge of the painting of this particular room, baby Sofi was sitting in a bouncer chair and observing. Now, she loudly and persistently demanded to have a brush on her own to be able to participate. And of course, Pekka could not wish for a better assistant! And when one basically lives in the middle of a continuous renovation, one of the benefits is that all tools are readily available. Just like this time - no need to run out to get brushes our paint, or anything else for that matter - it took only a few minutes to fetch everything from the bunker.

Set - ready!

It was a fun weekend - our idea of "family quality time". And the walls, of course, look so much better. The after pictures will follow, once we get the furniture in place...

Master and apprentice

The Bunker

A few days past Christmas festivities, we are happy to show you the latest advancements downstairs. You may remember the original Man Cave Pekka build two years ago in the small room located next to the bathroom. This room is now serving mostly a storage space and will soon be converted to a guest room, thus meaning that the "Man Cave" functionalities will finally relocate underground, more specifically to the bunker.

Step in and have a peak!

The original table and shelves from the Man Cave have already been reinstalled to the new location and Pekka and has started to build a suspended ceiling. According to our thinking, this seemingly "unnecessary" structure will be important element creating a more "room-like" feel for the Man Cave, rather than the space being just a cellar (as it actually, in reality is). It is all about the details, isn't it?

The first phase of the installation

Similarly to the laundry room, also the bunker has fluorescent tube lighting. What is different between the two is that the main part of the bunker lighting will be hidden behind the ceiling slats.

Hidden fluorescent tube housings

Placing the fluorescent tubes above the ceiling hides the light sources and makes the light penetrate through the slats. On the way down the light picks up a warm wooden tone and creates a cozy, inviting atmosphere.

Light shining through the slats

The bunker will have two separate lighting modes that can also be turned on simultaneously. The first switches on the fluorescent tubes above the ceiling. The second operates the work lights above the table similarly to Pekka's set up in the original Man Cave.

General vs. working lights 

General vs. working lighting 

During a recent visit and the semi-mandatory tour around the apartment, Pekka's aunt wondered if Pekka is having a "slat-period" in his life. Yes, he has indeed built a suspended ceiling in the laundry room using a similar approach and yes, also the downstairs teak wall is made of slats. But rather than Pekka's personal obsession, the rationale revolves more around the warmth and scandinavian look of the structure. So when the decision needed to be made regarding the bunker ceiling, we didn't think two minutes of not adding this mid century twist to the overall slat mix.

Getting there...!

As of today, Pekka has installed about 15 square meters of ceiling. Once again, we quite like how it is materializing.  Over the Holiday break he will continue the project and once there are further concrete results, we will of course post an update for you to review.

Teak wall - once more!

Never before has a single project required so much effort during the past 2.5 years than the slat wall in the downstairs lobby. Sourcing the teak started nearly a year ago, and since then Pekka has been relentlessly working on the different wall components. Finally, there is a light in the end of a teak tunnel.

162 teak slats

Also, the rest of Project Downstairs is moving forward. A few weeks ago a plumber installed a central heating radiator weighing just under 100 kg, so Pekka's assistance was once again welcomed to allow easy installation. The timing is perfect - the weather is finally starting to get a bit colder. This year winter seems to take forever to begin and even now, in late December, there is no snow in sight in the Southern Finland. But when the snow and cold finally take over we'll be ready: in addition to the radiator the downstairs is secured with 227 meters of floor heating cable underneath the slate.

Radiator

Pekka has been slaving to finalize the assembly of the slat wall in order to allow Kaitsu, our trusted electrician to finish the lighting (including the led-light system) and installation of the sockets. And as a result of their combined efforts, the darkness turned into light during the first week of December. 

24V transformer ready to be hidden

The slat wall has two openings for a satellite cable and for electricity. The first one is located close to the window on the bottom right corner of the wall. The second one is approximately in the middle of the wall and will be covered by a TV creating a visually "cable-free" outcome.

TV socket before

Pekka still needs to build hatches to cover both sockets. The hatches will allow electricity plugs to pass through even when closed, and they have been cut from the slats located the socket area. Naturally, this is to ensure both the tone and pattern of the grain will be a perfect match allowing a visual continuity.

TV socket. Hatch missing.

The led light was attached in two rows to an aluminium strip on top of the teak slats. Quite an intense moment to see the interaction of the led and the slat wall for the first time...

To the right

To the left

Finally - switch it on! The effect created by the led light is stunning. With a color temperature of 5500K the light reproduces the surrounding colors in a very natural way.

With a trace of disco feel...!

We are extremely pleased with how Project Slat Wall is becoming reality. The overall visual image of the downstairs lobby including slate floor and teak slats is spot on mid century modern. Perfect match to what we originally imagined!

Lights on!

Most of the work including the floor, ceiling and walls is now done. We still lack quite a few small details including for example doors, which might be a relatively considerate next step especially for potential house guests. We also have ambitious plans regarding the furniture and lights, but these are put on hold to balance the budget a bit before rushing into new investments - unless, of course, we run into something absolutely irresistible in some random auction.

Ceiling, floor and walls

Last but not least - a sneak peak of this years Christmas card! As an annual example of the seamless teamwork Minna prepares the layout and text and Pekka has the primary responsibility of the photo shoot. This year, naturally, we wanted to conduct the shoot downstairs and yes, you might already guess who the models (whose willingness for seamless teamwork seems to be a bit variable and require bribing in a growing degree) will be...

Ho ho ho!

DIY acoustic slat wall

So, it's been a long while. It seems that we are currently in a midst of a period when there are so many different things ongoing simultaneously that in the end it seems extremely difficult to find the appropriate time for...well, basically anything. But better late than never - now we are back and quite exited to share with you our experiences on how to construct an acoustic slat wall!

Half way there

For the last two moths, as boring and slow it might sound, Pekka has been sanding and oiling teak slats made of material sourced from Tiikki.com. The bunker has proven to be an absolute necessity allowing the isolation of this kind of smelly and dusty work, which when for example left to dry does not conflict with everyday life. To date,  nearly half of the wall is ready, the other half waiting to be finished before the first week of December when the electrical work including the indirect lighting of the slat wall will be finished.

Never ending row of teak slats

We also needed close to 15 square meters of acoustic panels for the slat wall, and as a result of some research work, found an excellent material provider option from Finland: Konto. Especially here in Finland Konto is recognized for its innovative acoustic products made mainly of peat moss. Specifically, we would like to thank Sami Laitila from the Konto Team for is expertise and kind customer service. If you have any needs regarding acoustic panels, do not hesitate to contact Sami!

Twenty acoustic panels and a non-acoustic dacshund

There are several reasons why we ended up choosing Konto. First, we preferred a Finnish product with solid acoustic capabilities minimizing the echo created by the slate floor. Second, the Konto panel works exceptionally well in the slat wall sandwich structure Pekka created. The panels are rigid enough not to squeeze together too much, and they have a tough outer surface that will not break easily. Third, as the panels are mainly made of peat moss it is a sustainable product matching our renovation philosophy.

Beautiful surface texture of Konto acoustic panel 

Konto acoustic panels are also very easy to resize with a stanley knife. Afterwards, a cut panel edge  can be "re-closed" with  heat for example using a flat iron. After this, the edge can be painted, leaving no visible cues of previous modifications. Pekka needed to do some detailed cutting for a vent that is located at the top part of the wall. He also sliced a very thin, round piece of the panel in order to clue it on the top of the vent lid. This enables unification of the surface texture with the rest of the wall. Now the only missing part is a slat hatch.

Missing a slat hatch

Other important piece what was needed for the wall is a ten meter LED stripe, which will be a light source for an indirect wall light. We found the components from Adlux (highly recommended material provider). There were two important considerations. First, these LEDs provide a light with a color temperature of 5500K, which is very close to the day light color temperature. This kind of lighting conditions compliment the surrounding colors in the best possible way. Second, these LEDs can be dimmed, which we considered very important to be able to adjust the amount of light to match the different uses of the space.

Ten meters of LED

Next to the construction of the slat wall. First, an acoustic panels is "squeezed" between teak slats (in front) and a board of plywood (on the back), creating a sandwich structure. All these three elements are then attached together with screws from behind.

Sandwich structure

The wall itself is also modular. The width of each module was determined by the width of Konto panels (594 mm). Pekka started building the modules with a sheet of plywood and then adding an acoustic panel on top.

Ready for the slats

Then he placed the teak slats prepared with love and patience on top of the plywood-panel base.

Each module requires 18 teak slats

The idea was to have a fixed space between each slat leaving the black acoustic panel partly visible on the back. This was achieved by using pieces of wood as spacers allowing Pekka to control the gaps between slats while completing the screwing phase.

Slats & spacers

Pekka had also pre-clued stripes of printed paper to the back of each plywood element. These stripes helped to determine the screw marks with precision allowing easy assembling.

Crosses marking the spot

Slats & gaps

Once each module was completed, the next step was to attach it up on the wall with screws. Leaving an empty slat space to each end of the module enabled fixing the modules with screws from front up to the wall. Later, single slats will be glued to cover the empty spaces, hiding the screw heads and creating an illusion of a perfectly screwless entity.

Fixing gap on side of the module

On the very bottom we left a small space between the slats and the slate floor, which determined by the choice of material is a bit uneven. This appeals to us visually, as the slight unevenness is not so noticeable, but it also has a functional aspect. We will be using the space to hide electrical wires etc. behind a black hatch made of Konto material. 

Once again, even if it is an extremely slow process where counting the working hours makes absolutely no sense, we are really happy to see how the finished half of the slat wall looks, and can't wait to share the rest of the story with you!

To be continued

Slate floor - check!

We are very happy to announce that the downstairs slate floor is ready including everything from the floor heating to the protective coating. And what's better - all systems tested and working perfectly! Naturally, we are very pleased as the process has been exahaustingly long and extremely dusty. But in the end, the outcome matches the vision quite well.

However, the lounge area still misses a few "minor" details such as the teak slat wall and its indirect lighting, finalization of the electrical work, central heating radiator, three inside- and one outside doors, window, lights, furniture, rug and appliances. And no, we have paid absolutely no attention to the downstairs quest room at this point.

Slate floor, completed! 

Back to the floor itself. One of the most labor intensive phases in the installation was to give floor the appropriate final finish, basically meaning sanding. This is actually something which is not an absolute must, and thus not something everyone might choose to do, but we felt that it was crucially important as we wanted to get rid of all the edges in the rock and smooth out the surface of the filler in between.

Sanding in a dust cloud

This didn't however mean we wanted to remove the texture of the slate. Quite the opposite. The texture was something that we wanted to keep, as together with the color and form factor, it is one of the key characteristics why we originally chose this type of slate in the first place. So the purpose of sanding was to remove the sharpness from the rock. When walking bare foot some roughness and variation is fine, but sharpness is certainly an unwanted feature.

Texture retained

Once the floor had been sanded with a big machine Pekka insisted on doing another round manually. Rock after rock he went through the entire floor ensuring that the smoothness of both the slate and filler was at an acceptable level and the graphical sharpness between the filler and slate was crisp.

Sanding by hand

The tool Pekka used for the manual work was a little sander by Bosch. It worked perfectly, as with 80 grit paper it managed to attack both slate and filler just with the right force. Well, the motor did break half way through the process, but the guarantee took care of it, after which he was able to successfully finish the job.

Pekka's little helper

All in all we are very happy with the outcome regarding the slate floor. Once more, a big hand for Liuskemestarit who provided the material and took care of the installation. We will return to them next summer when we continue the never ending downstairs / backyard story and start the garden work including the construction of a 45 square meter slate terrace on the back of the apartment.

All set!

Currently, downstairs provides a place for certain pieces of furniture that have been either stored away ever since we moved in two years ago or have been used upstairs earlier. Actually, some of these pieces are fore sale so if you are interested please visit the market to take a look. Perhaps one of these MCM pieces has your name on it! 

Temporary downstairs furniture

Of course, Pekka has already developed an interior concept for the downstairs lounge layout including furniture and lights. As soon as he will find the time, he is thinking of shooting a few renderings in order to visualize the idea for all of you. But no rush. One thing at the time...

Teak slats

If you have been following the teak slat wall saga, we have some news! Since last winter the planks have been stored in a pile in the darkness of the bunker, but now finally the time has come to move forward with the project! (And if you have no idea what we are taking about please review the previous posts: 1, 2, 3.)

Again, the job was to be done in the same place than last time, the architectural wood workshop of Aalto University located close to our home.  But at the brink of the very first cut, Pekka found himself hesitating. Even if he had given some serious thought for the design, when about to slice the first perfectly beautiful, massive plank of teak his mind started to wonder: "Should I reconsider the final design once more? If I make this cut I have passed the point of no return..."

The first set ready to be processed

After these fleeting moments of hesitation, when the very final decision was made, he was ready to roll. The first thing was to push the planks through a thickness planer in order to gain geometric purity. This was followed by processing the planks with first a jointer, then a circular saw and eventually once more a thickness planer. Overall, this stage took about two working days.

Coming through!

One plank ready for jointer

Based on our calculations we needed somewhere around 160 slats to cover the 5.5 meter wall downstairs. However, to have a possibility to choose between different pieces at the installation stage, altogether around 200 slats we made. This required slicing of 21 planks of beautiful teak to slats with predetermined cross section dimensions of 22 x 30 mm.

Exactly 200 pieces

Even though the slats were planed in the previous step their edges still remained sharp. Therefore, all of them needed to be hand sanded with a 240 grit sand paper to the direction of the grain. Based on the his experimental observations Pekka had made earlier this was an adequate smoothness for this stage. After sanding, the slats were cleaned with pressured air in order to get rid or all the dust particles. Only after this, they could be treated with oil and turpentine mixture.

50% Tung oil - 50% Turpentine

The first set of 20 slats has now been treated with a mixture of Tung oil and turpentine for the first time. An unavoidable side effect is of course a horrible smell of turpentine invading also upstairs (oh well, at least it is not construction dust which would mean an extra round with a vacuum cleaner). Once the slats have dried they will be rubbed with steel wool and retreated with a few layers of pure Tung oil. The most crucial thing here is to be patient in order to allow sufficient drying time for Tung oil. But it certainly will pay off, as one day all this extensive processing will result in a stunning teak slat wall inspired by the MCM era. Great!

20 out of 200

We have also made a decision regarding the actual construction of the wall. It will be a sandwich construction of nine modules, consisting of teak slats in front, acoustic panels in the middle, backed up by sheets of plywood on the very back. This allows us to attach the slats in place with screws from behind, leaving the screw heads invisible to the eye. We have also made some research regarding the acoustic panels and have managed to find an excellent material provider from Finland. More about this very soon!

Teak slats