trendey

Just a quick note as this year’s outdoor furniture & decor is slowly beginning to be launched. Alongside the nature theme, colour is the thing. And solar-powered lighting! Might be the balcony/outdoor item of the year. Even IKEA has a range, named SOLIG. In white, red and turqouise.

The Lively colourful balcony pots are high on the agenda this spring, with a choice of eight colours and a great feature: the selfwatering attachment.

As for seating, I’m looking out for the chair that will beat my design favourite, the top-trendy Forest chair from Italian Fast.

And of course, every outdoor space needs a (colourful) garden gnome.

| pic: living etc |

The popular Swedish slipcover company Bemz has today released a dream collaboration: Two fabrics from the talented designer Lisa Bengtsson are set to enliven almost any bland IKEA couch or armchair. It’s the rosy fabric Baronessa (top pic, on an IKEA Karlanda sofa) – a pattern reminiscent of blooming gardens and romantic castles. It’s also the modern nostalgia fabric Sir Harald (bottom pic, on IKEA’s Klippan sofa) – a pattern inspired by Lisa Bengtsson’s ancestors.

Baronessa is – together with the pattern Ros-Mari - on my top list of this season’s absolutely nicest fabrics. Baronessa is developed in collaboration with the textile company Mairo. The pattern comes in two colour options as runners, pillows, panels, lampshades, etc..

“My time has no inhibitions
my mind has no limits
I provide the scent of the loving life.”

Here’s our other Lisa Bengtsson stories.

The prevailing style of decor in the capital of Sweden has been a topic in this blog several times. My apology and explanation is that I – during my four months long search and hunt for an apartment to buy – glanced through countless real estate ads and visited numerous styled Stockholm homes. It has been summed up in Scandinavian style and the “colour” Stockholm-White (its definition and colour code is disputed, some holds it’s S 0502-Y). Now, I stumbled across the (very fine) blog Splendid Willow, written by Monika, who is a native Swede living in the US. She has recently listed the design elements you can be sure to find in a Stockholm apartment:

* White. Swedes embrace gallons and gallons of white paint.
* Hardwood floors with individual rugs (we stopped using wall to wall carpeting decades ago).
* State of the art kitchens.
* State of the art bathrooms.
* Books! Books are prominent, we surround ourselves with books and display them with pride.
* A great mix of old and new. A true Swede will rather have no furniture at all than to get rid of historical elements such as old wood burning stoves and the old beams.

I endorse all the points and add to the list:

* Naked windows. A fear of curtains lives inside the city homes.
* Stylish lighting. Lighting is a crucial point. Right now, two trends stand out: large round lights hanging from the ceiling (the IKEA Maskros lamp probably sell like crazy) and chandeliers, preferably crystal.
* Well-arranged wardrobes. Again, you’ll never escape IKEA, that company has distorted our brains showing their shelving systems with thousands of practical options. (The dream of a walk-in closet is intrinsic but not always pronounced.)

Proof. (Exhibit A to F)

|photos from Skeppsholmen|

Speaking about our Swedish pride IKEA, here’s my top 5 list of news in the 59 ed. catalogue.

The first IKEA catalogue was printed back in 1951 and at that time it was only available in good ol’Sweden. Just recently the IKEA catalogue for 2010, the 59th edition, was printed and distributed all around the world. Today it’s printed in close to 200 million copies and shipped to 38 countries. Being a Swede I’m of course very proud of IKEA’s success and it’s quite interesting to look in the older editions. Here’s a couple of snapshots from the 15th edition and some of the furnitures are really trendey! Check it out over at ikke tikke theo.

IKEA Catalog anno 1965