After many weeks of packing and moving out and moving in mayhem, I’m finally beginning to settle in in my new house. At last I have the phone and broadband sorted and my new study/office at least partially decorated! Quite a relief after many days of sitting on a stool in front of a make-shift desk made of moving boxes trying to get a dongle to work for more than ten minutes in a row:-)

As I’m a big fan of black walls, I decided to make the walls of the room I spend the most of my time in (except for the bedroom and the kitchen) this colour. I went for Farrow & Ball’s “Off-Black” and I really love how it turned out! In some lights and next to pitch black items (as below) it looks like a lilac-y grey…

…whereas most of the times it just looks like a mellow black or very deep grey. More on this room once I manage to get some more furniture in! On display at the moment are some colour-bursting Mexican fairy lights and vintage finds like a pink Victorian arm chair and my gold-rimmed H. Next is to get some shelves and storage furniture in place, must go shopping!

..is the trend theme of the Spring 2010 Formex Fair and Exhibition. Current season, AW 2009, Formex took us on a fashionable journey back to yesteryear. From the window of a respectably-furnished train carriage we saw the 1940s and 50s, literature, maps and globes. The colour scale included olive green, orange, tomato, rust and muted yellow. The trend theme was Vintage Travel. Now, for the light season ahead, Nordic designers gather round the theme Creative Flow. Spring 2010 Formex fair will take place January 21-24, 2010.

The outline says cautious optimism and a desire for change create considerable scope for creativity. So what’s the setting this time? Rooms…places where people go to create. Workrooms and studios of designers and creators, may it be an industrial premise, converted shops or loft spaces, the gardener’s greenhouse, the author’s den or the artist’s studio. Or rooms where creativity and living space merge: The kitchen table becomes a sewing corner; the living room a painter’s studio. Some key words on this trend theme: Natural, raw surfaces blend with bright colours and high finish. Poppy primary colours meet muted earthy naturals. The feeling is sophisticated, but also very relaxed. I like it! Creative flow is exactly what I need. Not only because I am planning how to arrange and furnish our new home (I have lots of flow on that part!), no, because I have some creative job to do. For-a-living. I need to find the flow. My study room/home office in the new flat will be given the best circumstances to stimulate this. My chioce of creative colour for the walls is obvious. It’s a blue hue. The blue on the pic below (from DAY Birger et Mikkelsen) is very similiar to the colour I’m after.

To determine the colour on the pic (to make paint-shopping easier) I tried the programmes Color Capture and Color Snap (iPhone app-versions). To my great satisfaction the hues closest were called Refuge, Stillwater and Sea Reflections. I know nothing more creativity-stimulating than the sea, the great blue ocean. In order to be creative in a concentrated way, I need calm and serenity. Like the view of an open, calm sea. Noise creates ideas, waves challenges ideas, but for creativeness to flow the sea needs to be still. Shades of blue brings me peace and enliven my creative spirit. I will combine the sea-reflecting cold blue walls in my refuge with velvet curtains in a warm copper-rust-orange hue, hung on a white-painted birch tree branch. I will rest my head in a black daybed, and have all books arranged in white bookshelves. I’ll post a photo when it’s done!

What is a creative environment to You? How do You arrange a room or space to spark creativity?

I had a plan to make a series of Study Room Details, but as my dream of a spacy apartment is increasingly fading (due to the overheated and interest-doped housing market) I now re-vistit the study room with less grandiosity. There will only be study (working) in this room – sewing, hobby-ing and crafts are consigned, at best, to a bigger model closet. I will still have the Crying boy Tee and the “Drottningen von Savannen”-poster hanging, and some String Pocket Bookshelves, but as for the rest of the interiors I figure something like this:

The pic to the left I found via Creative Activity, it’s from a house boat. I like many things in this photo: The big brown table, the sofa – I will have a day bed in my study room, for overnight guests – the lamp: a Jielde lamp attached to the roof (great inspiration!), the black table lamp (a Kartell Bourgie lamp?) and not to mention the cuckoo clock (tho I would go for a more antique model). Pic to the upper right: how I’d love to have an antique typewriter on a bureau or shelf! And of course a gold-framed chalkboard. The lower right stool – this piece of design reaches to me bluntly. The Wood & Wool Stool is made from colourful scrapwood planks with a cover that’s square pattern-crocheted cotton or nylon. It has so much character! There, my study room detail-mix in a nutshell.

Name a Swede that isn’t proud of the fresh and oh soo creative designer Lisa Bengtsson. She left Berghs School of Communication in 2007 with a graduation project (the wallpaper above) making future career come self-evident. The wallpaper is named Familjen (The Family) and has a pattern of frames. It wants to tell a story about how we live and frame our lives. You can decorate it with photos of loved ones, you can put knobs on the wall that you hang things on, you can do anything that expresses your story, or you can just leave the design as it is. A roll (length 10m, width 0,53m) has a pricetag of approx £70 (795 SEK). Also, keep your eyes out for the Special Edition Gold version of the wallpaper.

I just love this poster “Drottningen von Savannen”. I do not have one in my possesion yet, but it’s on it’s waaay! It will be hangning in my study room. Soo cool, no explanation needed =) Well, maybe one thing: the ornate, guilded frame is printed on the poster as well! Price approx. £17.

Wait, there are more lovely things. The fabric of this cushion to the left is named “Sir Harald”. Harald is Lisa Bengtsson’s great grandfather. Next to that super-trendey fabric, a piece of peacock cup & plate designed for Indiska (and yes, there seems to be birdcages painted on it!). A list of Lisa Bengtsson retailers can be found here. And btw, here’s a short interview with Lisa Bengtsson, from the Formex fair.

And that’s the lamp I’m talking about.: Isn’t it great! The good old Anglepoise lamp has been around since the 1930s (invented by British motor car designer George Carwardine) and I bet most of us will have had some version of this lamp illuminating our desks at some point. The Giant Anglepoise Lamp is three times the size of the original lamp and was created in celebration of the 70th Birthday of the Anglepoise.

I really like this lamp! It’s so deliciously out of proportion and would make a cool design statement in any room (I want it in my study). Handmade in England, this lamp doesn’t come cheap however… prices range from £1,200 to £1,990 depending on colour (check out the range at Anglepoise)

Right, now all I need to do is go and convince my husband that we need to spend two grand on a giant desk lamp… erm… Just in case this should fail, I would consider settling for this one designed by Muno available at RockettsStGeorge. It’s actually rather nice as well and only costs £249!

In our next flat we’ll have space enough to have a Study Room. This room will be used for work, reading and miscellenious hobbies. Not least it will be a DIY room – my perfectly sorted tools and my sewing machine will finally come out of the closet. The interior style will (if I get to decide, I’m sure I can make that happen =)) be a mixture of vintage and contemporary. Depending on the floor layout and the house style, the picture in mind is either a historically inspired one – of the private office where the head of the household had his! books and a solid wodden desk. Or – a more contemporary look with book shelves and storage along the walls and a big table in the middle of the room with some odd stylish chairs.

Here’s the start of a series of study room details. Two appealing details found @ apartmenttherapy.com: A writing slate with a wooden frame, and a book shelf (seemingly built-in) just below the window.