Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Home sweet home

As I am far away from my home in Finland -- and will be for quite some time -- thought the best place to start would be just that, home.

My home is in an old factory building where they used to manufacture cables! One wing of this huge brick building is now converted to wonderful loft apartments, one of them being mine. The rest is a cultural center with artists studios, galleries, exhibitions and music workshops and the lot. and I just love it.

I find it fascinating to live in a place with some history. Don't get me wrong, a new place, built to your every wish is naturally very, very nice, but there is something about places with a little bit of a history too. In fact, I have been writing a book, a novel, and the story is built around a house which has seen several kinds of people come and go. I have 90 pages ready, but it's been like that for at least a couple of years now and I am afraid I never find enough time (or energy, or creativity) to finish it. If I do, I promise to let you know.

Not sure if it's just me as a person -- indecisive, what-if-something-even-better-comes-up -- but even though I would like to think that I have a good taste (if that could be defined), my own place always seems to be a bit plain at best of times. The thing is that I like so many different things and styles and it just gets too difficult to choose. For that reason my place is a little bit empty and lifeless. After living there for three years I still have not found that perfect painting to hang on the wall. So it's empty. And in a room with ceiling in 5 meters, empty white walls really need something on them. Paint is a good option, you might think, but I can't decide on the color. I still don't have curtains, because... well, you see the pattern.

The place is empty also in very concrete terms as I will not be there for another year or so. My work has brought me to Casablanca in Morocco. Thanks to Maryam from
My Marrakech, a wonderful blog in which I bumped into when googling for 'expat and Morocco' for opening up the wonderful world of blogs for me. I've been hooked to every interior design magazine I have been able to get my hands on for as long as I can remember, but I never knew I could find as much similar kind of inspiration from these blogs!! So thanks to Maryam and all the rest of you beautiful people for leading the way for us mere starters. You humble me.

So, Casablanca is my home away from home for the next couple of months after which I will move to Johannesburg, South Africa. This time away from home will be very difficult, because I am basically living out of two suitcases. Not much I can carry with me and not much I can buy if and WHEN I find something I like. And being in Morocco is not an easy place to be in that sense. There is endless amount of inspiration and wonderful things I would love to have at my home. Rugs, poufs, ceramics, you name it. And if I'm honest, I have not been able to completely resist myself during my time here. I better check those air freight prices before I go totally wild!