Swedish Houzz: Simple Luxury for a Holiday House in Stockholm
A Danish design team redesigns an abandoned old farmhouse to dramatic effect
Vanessa Brunner
21 October 2014
Houzz Contributor
For some, luxury means opulence – rich carpets, chandeliers dripping with crystals and silk cushions. For others, luxury is about simplicity – having less sometimes means you get to enjoy it more. This home in Österlen, Sweden, is a perfect example of the latter. The home was once a forgotten farmhouse, which the clients found in a terrible state. But the location in the Swedish summer beach town couldn’t have been better, so the family recruited Jonas Labbé and Johannes Schotanus of LASC Studio in Copenhagen to renovate the space.
The clients, a couple from Stockholm with two children, were working with a limited budget, so Labbé and Schotanus decided to stick with a simple material palette, reinventing the farmhouse by opening up the space and blending traditional and contemporary elements. The result is clean, minimal and simply luxurious.
Here it is before the family moved in with their furniture, allowing you to focus on the home’s architecture itself.
The clients, a couple from Stockholm with two children, were working with a limited budget, so Labbé and Schotanus decided to stick with a simple material palette, reinventing the farmhouse by opening up the space and blending traditional and contemporary elements. The result is clean, minimal and simply luxurious.
Here it is before the family moved in with their furniture, allowing you to focus on the home’s architecture itself.
The homes in this area are usually built in a robust style, with a central courtyard to protect residents from the open and windy environment. While the clients were aware of what a traditional Österlen house looked like, they wanted something that would allow them to enjoy the outdoors.
Labbé and Schotanus decided to keep the original windows and floors, but they removed almost two-thirds of the walls inside the home to open up the space and give it a more lofty feel. They also installed more large window openings with window frames that dissolve into the plaster, making the glimpses of the outdoors seamless with the rest of the house.
The team at LASC Studio added a renovated 1960s Danish stove. The beautiful piece adds a rustic and authentic touch.
The team at LASC Studio added a renovated 1960s Danish stove. The beautiful piece adds a rustic and authentic touch.
The team kept the material palette minimal. Very little was used other than pine planks, concrete and white plaster. “We interpreted this as a challenge to rethink and play on the notion of shelter,” Labbé says.
Although bright pops of bold blue and orange are scattered throughout the house, the colours are generally simple and bare to echo the landscape outside. While the pale palette connects with the outdoors, the blue and orange accents throughout the home were designed as elements of comfort and nostalgia – they remind the clients of the time they spent living in China and of the summer days they spent at a nearby beach.
The blue and orange are used mainly in transitional spaces, such as hallways, and seem to peek out and then disappear again as you walk through the house.
From the very beginning, they decided to infuse the house with a look they described as “immaterial luxury.” Simple pine planks line the walls and floors leading up the bold blue staircase.
“This is a very unpretentious house,” says Labbé. “It brings the focus of luxury back to being about experience and simplicity.”
“This is a very unpretentious house,” says Labbé. “It brings the focus of luxury back to being about experience and simplicity.”
Upstairs, a hidden door lends a playful and surprising element to a light-filled bedroom nook. The pine door blends right in with the panelled wall, revealing a burst of neon orange when opened. “We enjoy working in this way – finding solutions and expressions that seem both familiar and surprising,” Schotanus says.
When the door to the bedroom is left open, the main living area downstairs is visible – making the area feel very much like a loft. The main goal for the team was to open up the house as much as possible. While part of that process was removing some pieces of the structure, it also involved reinventing the existing house by opening up doors and windows in the original walls.
True to modern style in Sweden, product and decor is kept very simple and sparse. But the space is warmed up by natural sunlight pouring onto cosy and rustic pine panelling.
One of the clients and LASC’s favourite parts about this project was the old washing house connected to the main house. Both structures were designed in the same style – a traditional exterior structure that has playful and modern ideas mixed into its design.
The team wanted to make sure the beauty of the Österlen countryside would be as present in the bath house as it is in the main house. The shower floor was made out of wood so that when the shower is turned on the sound of water falling on wood recalls the natural world outside.
The bath was placed towards the other end of the bath house, in front of a sunlit window. The bench underneath the window is heated concrete. The simple design puts an emphasis on the view and blurs the transition between the indoors and outdoors.
Related Stories
Houzz Around The World
Norwegian Houzz: A Joyous Home Born Out of Creativity and Intuition
By Lily Gahagan
A graphic designer with a knack for decorating creates this happy, light-filled cottage
Full Story
Houzz Around The World
French Houzz: Upcycling Paves the Way For a Funky Family Home
Decorating with creative accents – on a budget – makes for a one-of-a-kind abode
Full Story
Houzz Around The World
Swedish Houzz: Sneak a Peek Around a Playful Family Home in Stockholm
This fun-loving family of 5 have married their Swedish and British heritage to create a colourful home that's bright and brimming with charm
Full Story
Houzz Around The World
A Young Danish Family's Forever Home, Five Floors Up
The sloping walls and awkward nooks in this attic appartment called for imaginative design and genius storage solutions
Full Story
Houzz Around The World
An Industrial Workshop is Recycled as a Cosy Family Home
By Kate Burt
A creative Irish homeowner converted a workshop and a mechanic’s garage into a warm, rustic, industrial-style dwelling
Full Story
Houzz Around The World
A 17th Century Monastery Becomes a Modern-Day Retreat
This centuries-old Italian monastery on the Amalfi Coast became the five-star holiday home of two lucky Australians
Full Story
Houzz Around The World
Houzz Tour: A Designer-Free Home for a Fashion Blogger
To fashion blogger Maria Jernov, style is far more important than designer labels, and her home definitely reflects this
Full Story
Christmas
Step Inside a Bright and Colourful Christmas Home in Sweden
In this bright house, the holiday spirit is palpable even without the traditional red and green decorations
Full Story
Christmas
Houzz Tour: Colour Takes the Cake in a Swedish Family Farmhouse
Pink, blue and yellow Christmas decorations stand in for traditional red and white in this charming country home
Full Story
Houzz Around The World
Italian Houzz: A Well-Thought-Out Update of an Ocean-View Barn
With its original foundations kept in tact, this Ligurian barn had a contemporary facelift fit for a modern family
Full Story
Interesting but needs some humanising.
- http://houzz.com/sr/m=7/u=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuaG91enouY29tL3Bob3RvLzEzNDI1MTkxOS1qZWZmcmV5cy1uZWNrLW1vZGVybi1saXZpbmctcm9vbS1ib3N0b24=