Swedish Council Of America Articles

Swedish Council Of America Articles

DECORATIVE ARTS

FOLK ART

FABRIC ARTS

MUSEUMS

WOODWORKING

PAINTING AND DRAWING

CRAFTS AND DECORATIVE ARTS (book reviews)

3 Rustic Scandinavian Country Homes – Borrow Ideas From Norway and Denmark

Swedish Country Home

Inspiring Interiors Blog posted some terrific pictures of a barn styled home with a Scandinavian styled interior. If you are looking for a country styled look, consider how this home is set up.

Start With A Gray Palette

Starting out with gray through out your house can be a really simple way to decorate the rest of your home.  To make it interesting, choose several shades of gray which you can work through your home.

For my own home, I decided that lighter colors worked well in larger rooms, while the more saturated shades could punch things up in the closets, the bathrooms, and smaller rooms.

Using gray through out your home allows your home to flow nicer than having one bright bold color in each room of the house.  Later if you want to add color, simply attach a chair rail, and paint the upper half of the wall.  You can add depth with accessories and wall art.

Work With Muted Shades For Country Styles

The wood walls in this home look very primitive with a gray wash. Some walls are left natural while others are painted.  In one of the rooms, dried floral wreaths add a rustic touch to the walls.  Here is an example of a captivating look that is inexpensive.

Helichrysum Strawflowers are one of my favorite florals.  Pick flowers for drying when they are open, but not fully mature.  Hang the stems upside down in a cool-well ventilated spot to dry.  Avoid over-watering during the growing season, and these florals will look spectacular dried in a vase or a floral wreath.

Incorporate Red And Rust…….

Red is a classic country color that is commonly seen in the countryside of Sweden. Barns and countryside homes are painted rich reds, making it a very classic color to work with.  Painting a chest of drawers or an accent chair in Falu red can really bring out the country side of Scandinavian decorating.  Pair together rusty metal urns, and accessories like natural straw, hay, wicker, baskets for that country feel.

French Swedish Inspired Country HOme

Swedish HomeFrench Swedish Inspired Country HOmeThe house below was originally an eighteenth century barn which was converted into a guest house.   This lovely barn is located in the village of Saint-Hilaire-sur-Helpe, in France, and pairs together both the Swedish and French rustic styles.

Photography by Corinne Schanté-Angel, All images from here.

Early 19th Century Female PortraitEarly 19th Century Female Portrait –Maison Maison

A Tyner Antiques - Swedish Rococo ChestSwedish Rococo Chest-A. Tyner Antiques

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A Museum Recreates The Look Of Century Old Swedish Interiors With Historic Costumes

Picture Credit- Skansen.se

Skansen: Traditional Swedish Style – New And Used Options from $42

Founded in 1891 by Artur Hazelius, Skansen was the first open-air museum in the world; its aim to show how people lived and worked in the past in the different regions of Sweden. Hazelius was a teacher and researcher in Nordic languages who felt that traditional ways of life were disappearing with the onset of industrialization.

He started to collect an extensive collection of objects, which he put together in the form of tableau-type interiors, in a building in Drottningattan in the middle of Stockholm. Gradually, however, he wanted to show whole houses, furnished with traditional objects, furnishings and works of art, inhabited by people in historic costume, and through Skansen this idea became a reality.

Published in association with the Skansen Foundation, this beautiful book is illustrated throughout in colour. It describes not only the museum and its buildings, but also presents a microcosm of Swedish life, culture, art and architecture. The natural landscape of the museum setting is used to enhance the regional variations in Swedish art and architecture, with buildings from the southern part of Sweden being located in the southern-most part of the museum and so on.

Each chapter is devoted to a particular region represented by the museum: northern, middle and southern Sweden, as well as a typical Swedish town quarter. The buildings described here vary in date from the Vastveit storehouse, which was built in the fourteenth century, to the Skane farmstead which was finished in the 1920s. Stylistically, the range of buildings displayed at the museum is enormous: we move through time and style from the summer pasture farm, or Faboden, with its essentially medieval form of wooden construction, through the classical elegance of buildings like the late-eighteenth century Skogaholm Manor, or the impressive malm house built for the merchant Charles Tottie, to functional timber frame of the early twentieth-century Assembly Hall from Varmland. The informative, but accessible, text has been written by Ralph Edenheim, who is a Swedish art historian, and Head of the Department of Cultural History at Skansen. 128 pages.

Below are pictures of Swedish Interiors are those taken from photographer Photographer Joanna Holmgren found in two publications Skansen: Traditional Swedish Style , Swedish Folk Art: All Tradition Is Change

Swedish Interiors – Photographed By Photographer Joanna Holmgren

Swedish Interiors – Photographed By Photographer Joanna Holmgren

Swedish Interiors – Photographed By Photographer Joanna Holmgren

Swedish Interiors – Photographed By Photographer Joanna Holmgren