Swedish Whites

The photographer and stylist Marie Delice Karlsson has renovated their dream house from 1919.

"We decorate with white and green"

BY HELEN STRAUSS PHOTO MARIE DELICE KARLSSON

At home with Marie and Frederick in turn of the century house in Västgötska BJÖRKETORP Christmas is in full swing. Has decorated it with green - fir twigs and moss becomes pretty at all that beautiful white. And to light up bonfires in the three fireplaces.

OUTER staircase is decorated with soft pine boughs, apples and burning lanterns. Here at the home of Marie Delice Karlsson and Fredrik Johansson in the white manager's house from 1919 in BJÖRKETORP, just south of Västgötska Kinna, smells throughout the house in July

I love the smell of Christmas. We wash the floors with soap and put cloves in oranges and hangs up into fine ribbons. Hyacinths and a variety of green plants is a part of our July finishes. In my childhood home, it smelled good spruce and såpskurade floor on Christmas morning. The memories are strong and such fine traditions we want to pass on to our children, says Marie, who is a stylist and photographer and does many jobs for Country Life.

Marie likes to surprise and think in new ways, such as helping put a small Christmas tree on the stairs and pull a bag over your foot Christmas tree.

Just over seven years ago, they lived in an old chapel in Lerum. they längtade after something bigger because they had outgrown the house. - We were in the midst of a bidding on another farm when my sister found Villa Huvudsta online. I went in and looked at Hemnet and fell head over heels. The whole family squeezed into the car that evening and we went the seven mile to watch the house and surroundings. when clinical we arrived, it had started to get dark, but at the entrance, which was bordered by huge winds, we saw the amazing house. it was like a dream, so beautifully embedded with century-old trees around the site, and the porch with the beautiful pillars made the house into a real treasure. That we would just have said Marie, laughing at the memory.

The next day they called the realtor and had to come and look at the house.despite the dark walls, old carpeting, furuspalje and kitchens from the 1970s överväldigades Marie and Frederick of the atmosphere and they began to fantasize about what they wanted to do with the house. And Marie believed firmly in that house would be theirs right away, utgångspriset was in fact low. But on viewing days were filled as well as a garden house of interested and Marie had to wait out a protracted bidding that lasted for one week.

Marie prefers to work with bright colors, but since it's Christmas, get the red creep into the table in the form of apples and candlesticks.

Utgångspriset doubled and I was torn between hope and despair, but we had made up our minds and in the end it was just us. it was great happiness when clinical we finally signed the papers, says Marie.

Then it was time to sell the mission house and it actually became clear on Marie's birthday.

 It was a very nice 40th anniversary me. 

First, Marie and Frederick, who is a carpenter, came to renovate the kitchen.The old cabinets were ripped off, the roof was raised and the stairs to the basement were removed. When clinical they stripped off that would be left was built efterlängtade lantköket with generous work spaces, a large köpmansdisk, open vägghyllor, fönstervägg to the dining area and paneling on the walls and ceilings.

- To get the feeling a bit worn out from the very beginning, I have antique-painted köksskåpen, says Marie who is also a trained decorative painter. on köpmansdiskens boxes I wrote Latin names of garden plants, I have a weakness for beautiful writing and often use when clinical culinary herbs I cook.

The kitchen was perhaps the biggest project to row ashore just because the kids then was small, and for a few months at a family fast food and frozen casseroles from the oven they set up in gästrummet.

Systematically, they have worked their way through room after room, and got to know the house in every little nook.Therefore, they need not be afraid to find any hidden faults or nasty surprises. 

In Villa Huvudsta the decor is now light, the high ceilings and the rooms are large with mullioned windows and wooden floors.

The first few years we had all white. But changing with the times and now it has crept into some gray shades in the interior. Sometimes I try with some beautiful balls but pretty quickly I realize that it's not me. As a stylist, I work with a variety of different styles, I will be well saturated and a bit wary. I seek the quiet of my home, explains Marie.

She mixes shiny and dull, hot and cold, as well as old and new. Building on contrasts is important. Marie often find furniture auctions and garage sales, as she renovates and paints. Certainly there Ikeamöbler here too but Marie prefers the already frayed in instead of buying new.

Old furniture has a patinated beauty and a unique history that never achieves with new purchases, says Marie often draw inspiration from any particular möbelpjäs or detail, but she looks the same in newspapers and books on interior design.

via:Lantliv

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