Peter and I spent all day Friday at Den Gamle By museum in Aarhus, which is a superb outdoor museum that was started in 1914.  Houses from all over Denmark were collected and moved to Aarhus, and set up to represent a small market town in various periods from 1500s onwards.  We wanted to get some ideas for our house (built in 1750) to bring it back to the correct period look.  We especially looked at the ceilings as we have just stripped back all the many years of horrendous additions to our house.  Now we’re back to the old ceiling beams and boards, so we have to decide where to go from here!

Eilschou Almshouses, Hans Christian Andersen visited here as a child.  I love the wooden sink – I would not break so many dishes in that one.

We went to the bakers and bought some giant meringues, then some lavender soap and enamelware at the ironmongers in Sondergade.  It was all so beautifully wrapped, what a pity all this customer care has gone out of the window – you can’t even get a plastic bag in the store to put all your shopping in these days!

Back to the real reason for visiting, ceilings.  My favourite is the blue and white but all are suitable for different parts of the house.

I love the log burners, unfortunately they are not practical for modern use.  Look at the fabulous paint work on the living room walls, all hand painted on plaster (a bit over the top for our house, I’m afraid).  For the outside colour scheme, we liked the pale yellow, natural beams and white windows for the outside of the house.  Our house is a much darker yellow, and has dark brown windows, so when it comes to repainting the outside, we have a good idea what we want.

A few photos from around the museum:  This museum its one of my favourite places to visit as I see something different every time I come.