I have a bit of a thing for Scandinavian influenced design at the moment. I'm thinking it may have started way back when I was a child visiting my Aunty Marae and Uncle Wally's place at Bilgola on the northern beaches. Although Aunty Marae is not Scandinavian, she did come from that part of the world, Estonia. Not far from the Scandinavian countries, in the Baltic. She always mesmerised me with her gorgeous-ness - tall, olive skin, blonde and so fit and healthy looking. I loved their beach house. It was decorated in a minimalist kind of style, white with dashes of colour here and there. And then the second influence came a few years later when Robyn introduced me to Ikea - and I have never looked back! Who doesn't love Ikea and all of their wonderful Swedish designed furniture and accessories.
Now, having lived in Germany for 2 years and with most of my 'clutter' in storage back in Sydney, I think I am rediscovering my love of minimalism and Scandinavian interior design. I long for white walls and Danish designed furniture with splashes of colour in cushions, paintings and interior accessories. White and blue is my thing at the moment. And as for furniture, my current obsession is the Eames chairs. Matthew is calling it a chair fettish! I was disappointed when I realised Eames was American and not Danish (not that I have anything against Americans, well most Americans, but I just thought he was Danish), oh well... I do so love this recliner...
Ok, well if only they weren't so darned expensive! I must work on my technique when attempting to talk Matthew into buying a chair to fulfil my ''fettish''! Not sure how I will go about explaining that spending thousands on one chair is actually an investment in our children's future...hmmm, must work on my delivery technique! Luckily for me I have found a website that sells ''replica eames'. Oh yes! My coveted Eames chair could in fact become reality.
Matthew also plays a part in this newly awakened love of all things Scandinavianish. We were invited to a Christmas get together by some of our neighbours in one of the apartments upstairs. When we came home later that evening Matthew said to me how he really liked their apartment and how it was decorated... light and bright, minimal with a few much loved and cherished family antiques mixed with modern Ikea/ Swedish inspired furniture and art works. They had great storage solutions and had no clutter around at all and they had raised 3 children in a 2 bedroom apartment. I had to admit that yes, it did look good. And immediately I started to mentally rearrange our apartment. But why oh why did we have to move into an apartment where the previous owners had gone wild with the ''ragging and sponging'' painting technique so popular in the 90's. Ugh! We have yellow and brown sponged walls...not at all like the bright and breezy apartment upstairs! Since I don't have the opportunity to change the colour scheme in our home here, I will have to set my sights on home, at home.
So for the past few months I have been planning a few changes to our decorating scheme for our house at home. We plan on having some work done when we get back next year and I figure adding a lick of white paint on the walls and not unpacking the clutter out of storage should do the trick. Plus my new (yet to be acquired) ''eames''chair, a Danish inspired light fitting or two, perhaps a new 'blonde wood' dining table and some strategically placed shades of blue in vases, cushions and throws will complete the look and make me feel all Scandinavianish!
My new decorating bibles...
scandinavian modern home
(forget the white lounge - it's never going to happen)
scandinavian modern
danish designs
Mind you, I do have the 'clutter and hoarding gene' which I have an internal struggle with on a daily basis. So you never know, I may end up with the 'scattered clutter' scandinavian look. Well, it will be fun trying anyway!
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