Dynamic life nowadays dictates its own rules. The noise of cities, pollution, and the abundance of cars are very tiring. Modern residents of megacities strive to escape from all this and create cozy and comfortable conditions in their apartments. An apartment decorated in Swedish style can become a piece of paradise. It harmoniously combines functionality with a minimum of furniture and fresh, bright details. A specific feature of the Swedish interior is the predominance of light colors, which visually increase the area of the home and give it an atmosphere of warmth and comfort.
The inventor of this interior style was the Stockholm artist Carl Larson. In the late 1880s, Larson decorated his small, modest house in white, an unusual color for that time, and diluted this whiteness with several bright details. For more than 130 years, the style invented by Larson has not lost its relevance and is used far beyond Sweden.
Swedish design
Swedish style in the living room interior
Swedish style in the interior
Main stylistic features of Swedish interior
You need to start getting acquainted with this unusual interior, of course, with its typical characteristics. So, the main features of Swedish decor are:
1. Simplicity of design; 2. Light tone walls; 3. Wooden or ceramic floor; 4. Replacing window curtains with blinds; 5. Often wooden furniture; 6. Lots of sofa cushions; 7. Colored bedspreads; 8. Pictures on the walls; 9. Availability of floor carpets; 10. Large floor vases with original paintings.
stylistic feature of the Swedish interior - paintings and portraits on the walls
Swedish interior: color layout
As already mentioned, the interior in question is memorable for its light palette with an advantage of white tones.
The craving for calm tones is due to the national characteristics of the Swedes, who are secretive in their emotions, but this absolutely does not mean that the richness and brightness of colors is alien to them. Swedes enjoy filling their homes with colorful accessories and decorative elements. The main colors of Swedish decor are all pastel shades: cream, creamy, milky. Contrast is added to the interior with rougher tones: black, brown, burgundy and blue. The bright palette includes orange, red, pink, yellow, purple and green.
Swedish living room interior in white and green tones
Favorite food
Apple pie, rhubarb compote. They love potatoes and radishes.
One of the Swedish newspapers wrote: “Whoever invented the new potato should be given a Nobel Prize!”
Swedes also love pickled herring in mustard sauce, grilled salmon, and meatballs with lingonberries.
They love rutabaga puree with carrots.
Crispy bread spread with pollock caviar and boiled egg.
They love blueberries, raspberries and cloudberries.
But they don’t like mushrooms and don’t pick them. They think that all mushrooms are poisonous and you have to be a mushroom genius to distinguish chanterelles from white ones. Otherwise, if you mix it up, eat it, you will immediately fall and die in terrible convulsions. It's all too complicated and dangerous, so it's better not to collect them. As a result, there are so many mushrooms in the forest that you don’t even need to look for them - come and get them
Swedish style house
Decorating a house in the Swedish style is a pleasure, the main thing is to know where to start.
Ceiling
As a rule, finishing begins with the ceiling surface. In a Swedish interior, it can be covered with wallpaper and then painted, lined with plasterboard and again painted in a suitable color, or hidden under stretch ceilings that are always white. The finishing touch will be finishing the ceiling perimeter with polyurethane skirting boards, which exactly imitate stucco.
decoration of the walls and ceiling of the Swedish living room in the same color style
Walls
Wall decoration in a Swedish house can be done with light decorative plaster, snow-white vinyl wallpaper with an unusual texture, or the usual paintable wallpaper. Modernity has made some adjustments to the Swedish style, and today a system of combined wall decor is increasingly found in such interiors. It looks something like this: three wall surfaces are covered with white plaster, and the rest is highlighted with textured wallpaper in bright green or deep red.
Floors
The floors in a truly Swedish interior are covered with long planks of natural wood, painted in the traditional white color for this decor. But since not everyone can use such an expensive coating, and such floors require special attention to maintain, modern designers are increasingly replacing floorboards with ceramic tiles, naturally in pastel colors. As for the color part of the decor, here they do not depart from the traditions of style.
a wooden floor with a small rug is the best solution for decorating a Swedish-style living room
Furniture
A room in the hygge style cannot be called cluttered - the trendsetters of this style value spaciousness, simplicity and advocate reasonable consumption. Therefore, the furniture includes only the essentials.
Hygge furniture is more about functionality than beauty. Just look at the assortment of the nearest IKEA store to understand the clear direction of the style. A sofa, for example, is most often of a simple shape and unremarkable color - you can decorate it with a blanket or soft pillows.
The photo shows a combination of a laconic sofa with an unusual table
In addition, not deliberately new and modern models are welcome, but old things with history. Grandmother's chest, antique sideboard, shabby chairs - any vintage adds a pleasant charm to the atmosphere.
The photo shows an example of a living room with two windows without curtains
Swedish interior in the living room
You already have a rough idea of what the decor of the Swedish room will look like, but what to fill the interior with is still an open question.
The white walls of the living room will be an excellent backdrop for an equally snow-white sofa, which can be covered with a colorful blanket and chaotically decorated with many pillows. This will create the concept of slight "creative" clutter. Of course, armchairs are purchased as a set for the sofa, but their upholstery should be slightly darker than that of the sofa. In the center of the furniture composition you can install a coffee table, which can be wooden or pleasing to the eye with decorative forging.
red chandelier as a bright decorative element in a Swedish living room
In principle, for a Swedish interior it doesn’t matter what exactly it will be made of and what shape it will be given, the main thing is that it should also be white.
There can be a rectangular or oval carpet on the living room floor, the color scheme of which matches the tone of the furniture upholstery or sofa blankets. The intricately shaped living room is decorated with mirrors, paintings in modest white frames, floor lamps and painted vases, poufs, and window blinds.
traditional living room in Swedish style: ceiling and walls in light colors, black sofa and rug, the color of which matches both the furniture and the main color
Milk, water and other drinks
Swedes drink a lot of milk. A carton of milk is considered an equivalent substitute for lunch and is sometimes drunk right at the workplace. Children are almost forcefully taught to drink milk with their food. It is considered healthy and tasty. If not with milk, then wash down your food with water at all costs.
Swedish milk is very tasty, just like grandma's in the village, even though it is sold in cardboard packages. Swedish water is also so pure and tasty that you won’t even want to drink anything else.
In many countries it is considered harmful to drink during meals, but certainly not in Sweden. Swedish newspapers shout in chorus about the benefits of water, print reports on how much you need to drink at what body weight and in what weather.
When you see a doctor, the first question they ask you is: how many liters a day do you drink? And no matter what number you name, they will definitely say: “That’s too little!” Then the doctor tells scary stories about what will happen if you don’t start drinking more.
Swedes recognize only one juice - orange.
Swedes love kvass and are ready to consume huge quantities of it.
Swedish style bedroom
Since the heart of the bedroom is the bed, it is the main focus when furnishing the room. It should be made of wood, ideally solid wood. Made from durable material, it will serve its owners for many years and will also fit perfectly into a stylish Swedish interior. The bed frame does not have to be painted white; it can easily remain a natural shade.
All other furnishings: bedside tables, chest of drawers, wardrobe, dressing table - can also be made of unbleached wood. Wicker chairs and soft poufs are more than appropriate in a Swedish bedroom. The ceiling and walls of the bedroom are covered with light paint, but the floors here can be the color of natural wood.
The bedroom is decorated according to the same principle as the living room. Here they also hang pictures, mirrors and add floor vases, lamps with compact lampshades, fresh flowers and hide the windows behind the blinds.
Swedish interior design for the bedroom
Secret
White color in the main details of the room’s decoration and furnishings visually expands the space and creates a feeling of fresh air in it. The cool shades in which the wallpaper and textiles of upholstered furniture are made encourage relaxation and tranquility and decorate the house. Living room, kitchen, bedroom - everything harmoniously combines the common features of one design solution.
The Scandinavian style house has a white ceiling. It is decorated with plasterboard, tension material, but leveled plaster will look best. As a decorative detail on the ceiling, artificial stucco molding is used on the baseboard. The house is decorated with small paintings and photographs in simple white frames or mirrors.
Swedish style bathroom
A stylish Swedish bathroom should have a touch of austerity.
The ideal order reigning in it will give the room a visual uninhabitedness, which in this case will only emphasize the pedantry of the Swedish interior. In such a bathroom you will never see jars of creams, tubes of toothpaste, bottles of perfume, deodorants and other little things - all this is necessarily hidden on the shelves and drawers of the bathroom set. But the general background of the Swedish bathroom is represented not only by a light palette. Additional shades like gray, black, and brown often appear here. This, of course, is pleasing to the eye, but still leadership remains with the Swedes’ favorite white, therefore his leadership is one of the most important stylistic conditions. If there are windows in the bathroom, there is no talk of decorating them with curtains initially, because for a wet room this is nonsense. Here, too, stylish and comfortable modern blinds, familiar to Swedish interiors, are used. In terms of plumbing, a rectangular bathtub and sink with chrome fittings and faucets will fit perfectly into the decor. Stylish sconces, colored towels and a compact vase with cute flowers, standing somewhere near the washbasin, will dilute the design.
restraint and simplicity in Swedish bathroom interiors
Swedish cuisine
The Swedish kitchen space is content with a typical set of furniture, without pretentiousness or other frills. A kitchen set, a dining table and comfortable chairs are all that unassuming Swedes need. Kitchen walls are usually covered with moisture-resistant paint, white, of course, and the furniture present may well be in the same spectrum. Only the dining table is allowed to slightly contrast with the decor. It may be gray or brown in color. But chairs in a Swedish kitchen interior can be not only traditionally wooden. Modern plastic models will also feel quite comfortable here.
modern Swedish style kitchen
The kitchen is perhaps the only room in whose decor open shelves are welcome, because they provide quick access to the necessary products and utensils. Naturally, they should be in perfect order, because the Swedish style is characterized by particular neatness, and besides, the white design requires this. You cannot ignore the luxurious, by stylistic standards, kitchen decor. It contains a lot of flowering plants planted in monochromatic light pots, wall planters, glass panels with photo printing, decorative plates, white blinds and, of course, a chandelier that imitates palace candlesticks in its design.
Private life
Invading a Swede's home is a terrible tactlessness. The saying “An uninvited guest is worse than a Tatar” would be perfect for Sweden, but the Tatar needs to be replaced with someone else. An uninvited guest is worse than a fine for illegal parking, although it’s hard to imagine a misfortune worse than a fine. If the house manager, a neighbor, or even an acquaintance from work suddenly turns up, the Swede can calmly not let him into the house. And the house manager won’t be offended!
In Sweden you have to pay to have a TV, in addition to paying for the TV channels and the electricity the TV consumes. Everyone is sent a letter where they are required to declare the presence or absence of a TV
A typical Swede reasons: “If people ring the doorbell, it means they want to ruin your evening. You have to hide and not breathe.”
