Sedsel's Serene Oasis In The Heart of Copenhagen

Tjena! I hope you had a wonderful weekend! The weather broke here after weeks and weeks of sunshine which was a real blessing in disguise as it meant we finally got around to doing a few things at home - phew! I promise to share our bedroom make-over soon! In the meantime, across the Öresund strait, Sedsel Roug and her family have just returned to their apartment in Copenhagen after a few weeks in the Danish countryside. You might recognise her serene apartment from a feature in 2019 - when it was a sea of light green. Today, the flat has been undergone an off-white transformation resulting in a calm oasis in the heart of the city. I caught up with Sedsel (who I've had the pleasure of meeting before), to find out more about the colour palette, how to work with contrast, shapes and scale to add interest - and her passion for all things vintage. 

Can you tell us more about your apartment and why you fell in love with it?

The building was built in 1863 and is located next to eat French street Værnedamsvej in Frederiksberg, where you can find lots of cosy shops and cafes. I lived in Brussels and New York and just fell in love with the international vibe of the neighbourhood. 

Since I last featured your home, the colour palette has changed from sea green to a serene off-white. What was the thought behind this? 

I felt the need to create a calmness and wanted the art and vintage finds to stand out. So, I recently repainted the entire apartment in the same colour: 4311 from Flügger. 

Speaking of which, I absolutely love that your home is full of interesting pieces. Can you tell us more about your decorating ethos?

When it comes to decor, I always love an eclectic mix of vintage and found objects, which are collected over time and tell stories of their past. Decorating a home should be like a book - where you enjoy the journey rather than the end. 

What are the important elements to you, when decorating a home? 

I love working with scale, shape and placement. Decorating a home is a feeling and an intuition. I seek intrigue and curiosity with every element I add. I also love working with contrast - using a calm wall colour and then placing art and ceramics in dark colours in front. Somehow, the contrast creates thyme balance I am constantly searching for. 

Do you like to follow the latest trends? 

My home doesn't reflect a certain trend or style - it's a mix of things that move with me and items that tell a story. It's this blend that magically creates an interesting balance and calmness. 

Do you have a favourite piece of furniture? 

I have a big passion for wooden vintage objects. The little eight stool in the shape of an 'eight' (see above) is a big favourite (I found it on Etsy). Wood only becomes more beautiful with time. it brings so much warmth and tranquillity to a room. One should never be afraid of mixing different wood. 

What do you love most about your home?

Our home tells a story and I love to embrace the very fact that our table has stains from glasses, or that our floors are worn from our children running around. I guess I search the beauty in imperfection. Life isn't perfect and stains and patina don't ruin your living space but show someone is living here. 

Beautiful, and so inspiring, don't you think?

I love her quote: ''Decorating a home should be like a book - where you enjoy the journey rather than the end". This is exactly how I feel about my own home. It will never be 'finished'. 

Is there anything that stood out to you about Sedsel's home and / or words? 

You can see more snapshots of her living space over on her beautiful instagram @sedselroug. 

Fancy peeking inside a few other Copenhagen homes to kick off the week in style? here are a few of my favourites:

A cosy Copenhagen apartment full of vintage finds and plants

A wonderful Copenhagen apartment full of soul

A Copenhagen family home brimming with books and design treasures

Have a great start to the week!

Niki

PS I'm still on summertime over here (despite the not very summery weather!) and posting Monday, Wednesday and Friday until a return to my daily posts once the girls are back at school. Thank you for your patience! 

Photography: Sidsel Roug, shared with kind permission. 

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Mathilda & Anton's Serene Apartment in Southern Sweden

Hello friends, happy Monday! I was always get a little extra excited when I discover a home tour in Malmö - and this one is SO beautiful! Plus, it has a wonderful, serene vibe which I thought would help us launch into the week on a lovely, calm note! Tucked away on a quiet street in the leafy district of Rörsjöstaden, this turn-of-the-century apartment has been given some real TLC from owners Mathilda and Anton. The newly renovated living space has been decorated in a sea of neutrals, with warm wood playing a central role. Look closely and you'll also spy Scandinavian design pieces (I've done my best to include some links!), high street finds, vintage pieces and plenty of art! Välkommen in! 

The bamboo lamp, believe it or not, is from HM Home - what a find (currently out of stock, which doesn't surprise me)! The light oak table is from JYSK and the chairs are classic wishbone. The wooden kitchen cabinets are from IKEA. 

A vintage wall catches the light in the corner of the sitting room (source similar here*) while at is piled up beneath, waiting to be hung. 

An IKEA sofa and two armchairs are arranged around an IKEA coffee table. A String shelving unit runs along the back wall beneath a series of paintings and a Samsung Frame TV (cleverly disguised as art in the centre of the gallery wall). 

Mathilda has set up a home office on a fold-away vintage table by the window. 

Striped linen bedding from IKEA catches the light in the bedroom. The linen cushions are from Swedish brand Granit. 

There's something about this home, with it's beautiful natural light and soft tones that has made me feel ultra-calm this Monday, hope about you?

See more pictures of Mathilda and Anton's lovely Malmö hope over at @sekelskiftsdagboken

May this feeling of calm remain all week!

Having said that, I have a feeling I might just get pulses racing tomorrow. I'm busy preparing a post about an awe-inspiring Swedish holiday home in a former fire station (including before and after pics)! Whatever you're doing tomorrow, make sure you stop by!

Wishing you all a wonderful start to the week!

Niki

Photography: Mathilda / @sekelskiftsdagboken

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Rustic Simplicity in Beautiful Neutral Tones

Are you a fan of rustic? If so, you might just love the rustic simplicity of this living space. It's been beautifully styled for a Zara home photo shoot, and the images were just too beautiful not to share! Think subtle nuances of cream, beige and light brown with texture oozing from the surfaces of stone, rattan, linen and wood. Perfect inspiration for anyone looking to add softness to their home, without a load of 'stuff'! 

This reminds me a little of my own sitting room - I love the brown tones and tactile linen fabrics. 

A friend gave me a wooden bowl like this for my birthday a few years ago and it's been a favourite ever since. They're soooo versatile. I use mine for serving food (salads etc) but also for decorative purposes - they look pretty filled with fir cones, shells and other items!

Love the two-toned hem on these curtains - there's something really cool about them in the light. 

So serene! Just what I needed for a little mid-week calm, how about you? 

How I'd love to swipe my hand across the bedding in the final picture... I bet it's so soft! I have to say, my desire to touch things is what get's me in trouble in museums! Tell me you also get an uncontrollable desire to touch and feel things from time to time. I think that's why I also prefer to shop in store than online (I'm so old school!).  

There's a load more rustic inspiration here: 

A magical farmhouse on a hill (captured for my second book - I'll never ever forget the day I spent there!).

From light to dark in a Swedish sitting room 

A lovely farmstay with a relaxed, rustic vibe

And in the rustic archive. 

Wishing you a great Wednesday! 

Niki

Photos courtesy of Zara Home

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Mindful Decorating: Tips and A Tour of a Cosy Swedish Home in Holland

This grey, rainy Tuesday in Malmö calls for a day indoors - preferably in 'mysbyxor' (comfy track pants) and some very chunky knit socks (although these days I swear by my Swedish Shephard slippers!). Slightly further South, founder of Hemma Interiors Matilda Kristoffersson, a Swede living in Amersfoort, The Netherlands is cosying up at home with her Dutch husband Thijs and their three children Luuk (2.5 years) and newborn twins Joep and Lill. Matilda is an interior stylist who prides herself on a 'feeling first' approach. The mindful home has become a hot topic in recent times, especially as we find ourselves spending a copious amount of time indoors. I caught up with Matilda to find out a more about what it means and garner a few tips. 

Can you tell us a little about your house? 

We live in a terraced house measuring 135 square meters, divided over three floors. On the ground floor, we have our kitchen, dining, and living room as one open space with warm oak floors throughout. On the first floor we have our bedroom, family bathroom and our children's bedrooms  (Joep and Lill share a room). On the third floor, we have an attic space with high ceilings which serves as my workspace as well as a guest room for when my family comes over from Sweden. Both the first and second floor has white stained pine wood floors. I am very traditional Swedish in that I love white walls and light wooden floors. The house is situated on a quiet street in a newly built area with a canal just in front which we can see from our large windows in the kitchen and our bedroom. It is a great place for children to grow up and our son often plays with his friends out on the street in front of our house. 

How has being Scandinavian influenced your style and work? 

Being Swedish I think home is something really important. It gets pretty dark and cold during a big part of the year, so we tend to spend a lot of time in our homes, and that of our friends. I am very passionate about helping and inspiring others to create a home that truly makes them feel good and “at home” via my company Hemma Interiors (hemma means "home" in Swedish). I do this via my Instagram, my Online Course in Mindful Interior, and a new Guided Room Meditation that I am about to release. 

That sound really exciting, I'll be keeping a look out for your course! How has your interest in mindfulness and your Swedish background contributed to your home decorating? 

I take a mindful and “feeling first”  approach to how I decorate our home. This means that I think about how I want to feel in a space, and then connect this to design and style choices. So there is quite a mix of styles in our home with a more rustic kitchen, minimalistic bedroom, eclectic and classic look in the living room. But our entire home is still very Scandinavian I would say. In order to have a peaceful flow in the house, each space still has a similar color palette and materials; I’m very traditional Swedish in that I love a white wall and natural wood. We buy most of our furniture second hand as I believe that it is the best for our environment and it gives a very personal feeling to a home. I also buy a lot from IKEA (also second hand often) which I hack and upgrade to make my own. This really gives an outlet for my creativity.

Mindful decorating has become a big topic lately, can you tell us more about it?

When people hear I combine mindfulness and interior, they assume that it must mean minimalism and light colors, kind of like walking into a yoga studio. But in reality, a mindful interior does not necessarily mean that it looks in a certain type of way, but rather it is about the power of really tuning into our own personal style and focusing on how you really want to feel in your home, rather than how it looks from an outside perspective. Something I call “Feeling First” interior.

I think how we feel in our homes have become even more important over the last few months as we spend so much time in them now. Our homes are, and can be, so much more than just a place where we eat, sleep and watch TV. It is truly a space that we can use to relax, spend loving time with family and friends, and fully be ourselves in. 

  

How does mindful decorating differ from the usual way you might approach decorating a home? 

Decorating your home in a mindful way, 'Feeling First' instead of 'Design First', flips around the traditional decorating and interior process. You start off by exploring how you want to feel in your home, and then think about what type of colors, materials, designs and styles fit with this feeling. It is about starting from who you are and realizing your own personal style in your home, rather than trying to recreate that of someone else. And by doing so, empowering yourself to be and show who you really are in your home. Because if we are not able to celebrate our true selves in our own homes, then where else?

Do you have any tips for anyone looking to try a mindful approach to decorating? 

To me, the core of mindfulness is to embrace what is and be grateful for what you have in the now - because at the end of the day that is all we ever have - this moment now. By embracing what our homes are right now we can decorate from a place of gratitude and start to truly connect to how we want to live in them. I believe that we all have something that I call “Interior Intuition”, a sort of powerful guiding gut feeling of how we want our homes to look and feel. The trick is just to learn how to connect to it, and trust it. 

Here are three tips to get your started: 

1. Dare to listen to, and trust, your own interior intuition
2. Start with gratitude. Embrace what is already there rather than get caught up in the things you don’t like 
3. Think about how you want to feel in your space rather than how you want it to look

***

Thank you so much to Matilda for sharing her home tour and mindful interior tips. Oh - and a big congratulations are in order on little Joep and Lill! 

You can find out more about Matilda's online courses here.

I hope you found this topic as interesting as I did - do share your thoughts below, I'd love to hear them! 

Niki

Photography: Matilda Kristofferson 

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2

Johanne & Lukas' Beautiful Copenhagen Townhouse from 1927

Tjena! How was your weekend? The sun was shining here in the Öresund region which is just what we all needed to keep our spirits up! I say 'Öresund' because that also includes Copenhagen, which is just over the water from where I live - and the subject of today's home tour! Yay! You might recall the feature I wrote about Johanne & Lukas's apartment last year (in case you missed it, take a peek here - it's packed with fab small space ideas!). And now the pair, who are expecting a baby girl in the summer, have moved to a wonderful townhouse. Built in 1927, the property was in major need of renovation and I can't think of a better pair for the job than Johanne and Lukas. Snapshots on their instagram @femte.til.venstre reveal it's starting to take shape beautifully! Here's a sneak peek: 

I love doors with windows that open separately - they're perfect for springtime!

The wall looks very much like my new kitchen wall - I used chalk paint from the small Icelandic company Kalklitir who pretty much worldwide and do some beautiful shades! Plus, they are the nicest people ever! 

I'm such a big fan of this IKEA Gjöra bed - the high bar can be used for clothes, fabric and general customising (no doubt Allie would use it as a gymnastics bar given the chance too!).  It looks really pretty in this bedroom, don't you think? 

Oh, so beautiful - just as expected!

I love all the earthy touches and all the wood in particular, it's so calming. 

Is there anything that stood out to you? 

Excited to hear the baby news this summer, I'll be keeping an eye on their instagram like a hawk! If you're not already following Johanne and Lukas, you can find them at @femte.til.venstre.

How about a little more Danish inspiration this morning?

A cosy Danish loft full of plants and vintage finds
Books, art and golden tones in a Copenhagen apartment
A Copenhagen home full of Scandinavian design treasures

Have a great start to the week!

Niki

Photography: Johanne & Lukas / @femte.til.venstre

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