Benita Larsson’s minimalistic world

Ok, I admit it, officially I became obsessed with Benita’s YouTube channel. I’ve discovered her wonderful, minimalistic world 2 weeks ago, and since then watching any of her videos is the most relaxing activity of the moment. She is an online marketing specialist (heh, no wonder why her social media channels have such a nice vibe) and a video content creator in her free time. Benita lives in Stockholm in a 2 rooms apartment with a small backyard that she turned into an urban jungle. Every 2nd Tuesday she shares a video about her everyday life, routines, her apartment, wardrobe, cleaning habits, and all this is focusing on Scandinavian, minimalistic principles. 

Just a heads up, if you start watching her videos, you realize that your home is full of crap, and you should start decluttering right away. Without any exaggeration, Benita’s videos can be with therapeutic effects, suddenly you understand that you have way too many things in your home, and you could be just fine with only the 20% of the stuff you have right now.

Below you can find a nice tour of her minimalistic home, explaining why white color is so common in Scandinavian homes. 

 

She also has an Amazon shop where you can find her favorite products and things she purchased or has in her apartment. If you see something you like in her videos, feel free to check this page, and most certainly you’ll find the item. Just as I did, I saw in her fridge organizing video the roller for face, and I bought one for myself. It’s already in the fridge, cooling down, and it’s so great to roll it over my face on these hot summer days. Love it!

 

Photo credits: Cover image – @benitalarsson

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Living big in a tiny home

What I love the most about tiny homes is that they teach you how to live more minimalistic. If you don’t have enough space for all the unnecessary stuff that a human being is capable of hoarding, you have no other option, but to declutter. We are quite ok with my husband from this point of view, but still, sometimes I wonder why we’ve bought a 3 bedroom + living room house, and now we are planning to build a garage on top of this…more space to store stuff…grrrr.

Anyhow, this beautiful 1 room apartment is in Jakobsdal/Örgryte residential area, up on a hill with a gorgeous view of Gothenburg. The building originates from 1934 and the apartment got renovated in 2010. The studio has 39 square meters and thanks to the light interior design everything got airy after the renovation. The floor is covered by a three-strip parquet in oak throughout the entire apartment, and the walls are painted in Sommarsnö color from Jotun. I adore the wall art gallery and the reading nook next to the window, these are basic essentials, from my perspective, to turn a room into a hygge interior. I wonder from where the pendant and the table lamp are, never seen it before, drop a comment if you know the brand/producer.

The kitchen is well organized, with white cabinetry, oak countertop, and white matte subway tiles on the wall. I like the fact, that they optimized the space by turning the deep window sill into a dining area.

The apartment has a view and its own access to the cozy courtyard. As usual, for Swedish people a direct connection to nature is essential, and this lovely tiny home is no exception to this principle either.

If you are from this region and care to see this studio, it is for sale, so don’t hesitate to contact Lundin and book a tour.

 

Photo credits: thank you Lundin.se for letting my share these pictures.

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A lake house in a non-digital environment

For 3 weeks in a row, I continue to be in a holiday mood and dreaming about a countryside life. Last week’s treehouse made me realized how wonderful can simple things be. Sitting in front of my laptop all day due to my work, sometimes I aspire to non-digital environments, no social media, no nothing. And I think today’s interior would be a perfect match for this.

Only for 1-hour drive from Stockholm, in the region of Katrineholm Municipality, there is this tiny, magical lake house with basic facilities, no internet, household electricity available only with solar cells, no tap water or sewerage. The place is simply magical with its view to a lake, being in the middle of pure farmland without any neighbors. This interior is simply teaching you to spend time without any digital device or tool, take a book, a puzzle, a magazine…start having long night talks with your loved ones. 🙂

The living room has 3 windows with a lot of natural light coming in. During winter this stove is a perfect heating source, and it’s also a guarantee for a hygge feeling.

The kitchen is full of ceramic treasures exposed on the open shelving. It’s a real farmhouse kitchen that has recently been painted with linseed oil paint using olive and wheat gray colors.

Since there is no tap water in the lake house, the water supply inside the house is assured by these water tanks, which I found like some masterpieces from previous centuries. It seems that it can also serve as a cooler for freshwater during hot summers.

The stairs take you to the upper level where 2 bedrooms can be found. The attic is gorgeous thanks to the visible beams all over the place.

The view from this window is to the lake and sitting out in the summer, far from the noise of the city, can make you discover new sounds of nature during magical sunsets and starry nights.

This lake house is for sale, so if you are in Sweden, maybe close to Stockholm, do not hesitate to book a view at Historika Hem.

Care to see other summer holiday inspirations? Check out the Transylvania Loft Treehouse or La Belle Vue – a perfect place to start the summer articles. Going back to nature and spend some time without your mobile phone or laptop can be a real treat for your soul.

 

Photo credits: thank you Historika Hem for letting my share these pictures.

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An eclectic apartment with breath-taking details

Although I’m not brave enough to bring some fancy, eclectic elements into our home, I love peeking inside those homes where owners were bold enough to use 19th century furniture, ballroom chandeliers, colors, or anything else that brings eclectic feeling to the place. This Swedish apartment captured my attention right away, especially for its incredibly beautiful ceilings and stoves in every room of the house, the owners even kept the original doors and windows. This is what I love the most about Nordic people, they see the value of the vintage things, refurbish them and combine them with new ones, this way they end up, in my humble opinion, with the warmest interiors on this planet.

The apartment was built in 1886, it has 3 bedrooms, and a spacious living room combined with a dining area. The kitchen is strategically well structured, with an island in the center, it offers extra storage space. I like how they managed to fit in the washing machine and dryer too.

The ballroom chandelier is a bulletproof element to get an eclectic feeling of the place.

The Devil is in the details…they say, this stove is simply magical, even if it’s not functioning for some reason, I would never ever remove it from my house.

All bedrooms in this apartment are white and pastel color base. This one has a gallery wall above the bed, for similar inspiration check the Desenio site, they have ready-to-be-used collections and they are even offering guidance on how to get a perfect gallery wall. The Formakami JH5 pendant is another great focal point of the room. 

On the drawer I spot a white Carl-Johan lamp by Olsson & Jensen, such a small and cute piece 🙂 It can perfectly fit into the children’s room as well.

And of course, it has a small balcony, all Swedish apartments have an outdoor space, even if it’s a tiny one, but they need to go out somewhere and inhale nature.

If you enjoyed the tour and you are located in Gothenburg by any chance, this 127 sqm apartment is for sale. Do not hesitate to contact the Lundin team for showing you around.

Styling by: @bydecoab
Photo by: @pousard_photography

 

Photo credits: thank you Lundin.se for letting my share these pictures.

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A Swedish apartment with iconic elements

Apartments, where I see hints of historical brands and iconic pieces, always amaze me. When I discovered this apartment, I instantly knew that there are so many classic or vintage elements that I need to write an article about it. This is a 55 sqm apartment in the charming Linnéstaden neighborhood of Gothenburg, with 2 rooms and a small kitchen combined with a dining area. Every room contains at least one iconic furniture, so most certainly, this apartment’s red thread is the collection of the evergreen pieces. The living room has everything a home needs to become original, natural, and stylish. The gallery wall is an instant beauty that can be seen right from the entrance, not to mention the stove that is beyond being beautiful. Imagine sitting here with a glass of wine while the fire crackles. The mirror from the hallway is a vintage piece most certainly purchased on a flea market, I see some patina on it that makes it even more original.

The kitchen is small but cozy enough. I love the shelves next to the window. This is not the first time when I see this genius idea of using a narrow space. I instantly spotted on the top and middle shelves the classic wooden birds designed by the Danish Kristina Vedel in 1959. The dining table is a minimalistic centerpiece combined with the black chairs. The red E60 stools, designed by Alvar Aalto and becomen famous in 1934, are the gem of this small kitchen. If you find these irresistible, you can buy them here or here if you are from my country. These chairs can be used also as side tables next to your bed, so it might worth the investment 😉

The bedroom is relatively small, but this does not mean that a home office, a comfy bed, and a wardrobe are not fitting in. The 3 art pieces gallery wall turns it into a more inviting place.

A classic 7 series Arne Jacobsen chair and a green banker’s desk lamp assures the continuation of the red thread throughout this room.

I love the fact that Nordic people keep their bathrooms as simple as possible. You can rarely see floral tiles or crowded patterns, they prefer to go with basic colors and simplicity.

At the entrance and in the hallway we can see the marvelous wooden flooring that has been nicely preserved in the whole apartment. The carpet on the wall is an instant focal point of the place, I like it when people are bold enough to throw a carpet on the wall and turn it into a decoration.

This apartment is inspiring with its 3.10 meters of ceilings, it lets your creativity finding its way both horizontally and vertically. Don’t forget that original, iconic pieces can turn your home into a special place. The flea markets are full of valuable pieces, and let’s hope when all these pandemic things will take over, we can enjoy again the magic of these markets.

Have a lovely start to the week.

 

Photo credits: shared with the cordial permission of Entrance

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A nice one-room apartment in Göteborg

It was not an easy decision about my first home tour. I wanted something specific to the Nordic style that I would like to promote here on my blog, I wanted something different from the interiors we are used to in my region. I opted for an apartment listed by Entrance, a Swedish real estate agency I admire a lot.

Swedish people are famous for their talent to maximize small places and turn into livable apartments. No wonder why Ikea became so popular for their solutions for storage, foldable furniture and practicality. This 1 room apartment in Göteborg (Gothenburg) has everything a person would need for a decent life: a bedroom, a reading nook, home office, wardrobe and an open floor plan kitchen to the living room. All this only on 31 sqm. The apartment has an incredible vibe due to its Velux skylights, the visible beams and its height ceilings.

The imperfection of the right hand side wall makes the room even more beautiful. The gorgeous commode and mirror takes me back to the midcentury period when these classy pieces were very popular, I wouldn’t even dare to assume that the commode might be from a different century. Either way it’s a great focal point of this living room.

The kitchen is well-structured and clean thanks to the bright color cabinets. The dining table is even foldable so more people can join the dinner. If I’m not mistaken, the light is from Ikea.

Home office in one of the corners of the living room. This is a perfect spot where to work on these strange days when we have to do remote work.

I particularly love the reading nook under the bay window. This is a perfect spot to hop in with a good book and a tasty coffee. The lighting above the table is a koushi pendant lamp, a very popular piece in the Nordic countries. You can find original lighting, but you can also DIY if you are handy. The wardrobe is an Elfa system hidden behind a white curtain, a genius idea when you are short on space, and this solution perfectly serves the storage instead of a large closet that wouldn’t fit here.

I hope you enjoyed the tour, I for sure did.

 

Photo credits: Thank you Entrance for letting me share these photos done by Anders Bergstedt.

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