Trendey has been awfully quiet lately..!  I’m busy saving the world, and if not Henen decides on a sudden comeback, this slow is how it’ll stay a couple more months. To spice up the place a little, here’s some views from my favourite room. Firstly, note that I put my grey skirt on the Ge’-lamp. Made it much nicer…Though I miss wearing my soft skirt. And that’s Grandpa’s well-used stool.
I finally found some gorgeous old birch-bark lamps at a flea market up in the north. Put 2 on the cupboard.

And below you can view our son Cliff (born in 1965 at A.D. Sutton & Sons factory) and also another birch barch lamp; this one is mismatched with a wooden ball lamp stand I painted the same colour as the wall.
The sunny & warm colour scheme makes me happy. What I cherish most is our kilims, they make the room so inviting and homey. I’m a sucker for rugs, the more of them, the better.

Todd Selby has visited the New York City home of Colin Tunstall, co owner & creative director Saturdays NYC, and I cherish the laid-backness! A melodic and interesting tune is what I hear. Detailwise, I Iove it that he’s got a beautiful Dala horse in the window (actually there are more Swedish details if you look further at the Selby – e.g. some bottles of fine Swedish snaps. Good choices).

Lived-in and hodgy-podgy. On the verge of messy, yet I still hear a good tune, fine lyrics. Love this display below.

We are just moving into a new home decor season – the lovely fall of 2011 – so what suit better in this downtime of news than to (again) summarize some ongoing trendiness. Without claiming to be complete, of course. Now to start, the allover trend is of course UNDECORATE! Coined by DwellStudio’s Christiane Lemieux, the no-rules/non-decorating approach to interior design is gaining ground steadily. A close friend to, and sometimes inseparable from, the good ol’ (awesome!) eclectic style. Laid-back, funny and personal.

All the oddities. Of any kind. Busts, psychology heads or any other fairly quirky & odd object. The science trend also shows a lot of anatomy posters, bell jars, eye tests and well, you name it. And we’re into retro, retro, retro! Retro might be the strongest trend of the 2010′s, so far and I wouldn’t be surprised if totally (I mean we have yet to see the full swing of 80s and 90s.). Moving on, home decor smacks of creativity. It’s the #1 feature of the undecorator. Personal collections in a variety of ways, e.g. mood boards, are typical (and functional) interest-adders to a room.

And the letters and numbers of course (companioned with vintage signs and messages). Oh, and the hotter than hot drinks trolley. Crazy popular.

Wallpapers are as popular as dark or mildly painted walls (or white walls, but I wouldn’t admit that, you know how I feel about white :p) Preferably Granny’s old wallpapers. And we’ve seen loads and loads of world maps and globes:

Riding us into the globetrotter-trend. With kilim (or kelim), ikat and other ethnic inspired fabrics and patterns. And to close for today, all the wild & creative frame groupings. To display art, pant hangers are useful or well, just ordinary clothes hangers can also do.

| sources: mouse over or click images |

You do know Pippi Longstocking, don’t you? She’s that unconventional clever and creative gal whose red braids stand out straight and who lives in a house called Villa Villekulla. You can often see her wearing a short patchwork dress with oversized shoes and missmatched thigh-high stockings. She’s got lots of humour, the strength of ten policemen and a suitcase full of gold coins. She is a treasure-hunter (sak-letare) and vintage-lover who sleeps with her feet on the pillow. Pippi knows all about rule-breaking.

She’s actually the quintessential undecorator.

In fact, one of the houses featured in the book Undecorate looks a lot like Pippi’s house. It has a whismy turret and a bright yellow door set with a patchwork window of coloured glass. More than that: it’s also full of unexpected treasures and mishmashy personal collections inside…

Now what is Pippi Longstocking Decorating, to be exact? Is it the same as Undecorating? Well, both yeah and no. All of the homes presented in the book on Undecorating are clearly Pippi-inspired. Because if anything, Pippi knows what’s best for Pippi. She wouldn’t let anyone else decide. She loves her things and a bit of (or loads of) quirkiness and character. If someone called her hodgepodge style crap decorating she would most certainly say:

“Aren’t we living in a free country? Aren’t we allowed to decorate as we wish?” and maybe she’ll add “…and by the way, I’ll tell you, that in the Isle of Kurrekurredutt, all people decorate this way and they are so downright happy they barely leave home.”

The Pippi Longstocking Decorating Guidelines? The DO’s and DONT’s? Crap, she’d say. And I think we can conclude Pippi has never ever been trendier.

I think the debate that the book and the phenomenon Undecorate have created is very interesting. Some, including myself, find the free, creative and personal no-rules-approach very liberating. Breaking ‘rules’ about how the perfect home should look like is pure pleasure. To play with colour, scale, proportion, texture, etc and find something creative, lively and personal come out of it. To be insipred by imperfection.

Just like trends that come and go, ‘no-rule-decorating’ is innovative in itself; it pushes boundaries and help develop new paths. Heartfelt creative decor gives new inspiration, with its wide range of examples – it has a wide wingspan and it is inclusive of diversity. To decorate with your heart. Who can say professional polish matters more than personal expression, in a home. To think freely is always greater.

Others, view Undecorate as a polar opposite to pretty and well-done interiors. Interior decorating is not ’anything goes’. Ugly is still ugly, cluttered is still cluttered and missmatching is missmatching, no matter what new label is put on it. Pretty and well-done (by the book) is highly valued and cherished: it never goes out of style. Interior decorating may not be rocket science but it surely requires some skills, professional rather than personal.

I would like to see the undecorating-idea taken one step further. Don’t ”decorate”, likewise don’t ”undecorate” – use your own decor philosophy!; whether it’s decorating like your grandma, to go with your love for polka dots, creating a circus theme in your house, have your kitchen public toilet style or to be guided by a professional’s step-by-step instructions. Whatever makes You happy. We don’t all need to love each other’s home decor...do we?

Anyhow, I just wanted – with this lovely photo from the book – to highlight that the author of Undecorate, Christiane Lemieux, (also) loves a good debate and she wants people to join in on Twitter for a #Undecorate tweet-chat. That’s on Wednesday, April 20 at 2 pm eastern (that would be 20:00 my Swedish time/CEST). Happy wknd!

Update: And take a look at The Undecorate Tumblr – with masses of creative, quirky and rule-free decor inspiration!

Update again: Some great articles on undecorating, part I & part II

It has hardly escaped the avid reader of interior design blogs that DwellStudio Founder & Creative Director Christiane Lemieux has published a book called Undecorate. With the appealing subtitle The No-Rules Approach to Interior Design. I got my copy the other day and first of all: the book is definitely a decorative object in itself! But that’s still not the primary benefit of the book. Undecorate is a homage to personal and heartfelt interior design. In a beautiful way it draws upon today’s [or tomorrow's if you live in Sweden ;)] trendiest and most valued interior design ideal: the lived-in, unfussy, creative imperfection. The book features twenty homes which all have the highly interesting and precious trait that they could only be the home of the person who decorated it – so much does each home reflect and enhance the individual(s) it contains. It’s a sweet but definite goodbye to the practise of buying ‘style’ from a know-it-all interior designer. Instead, this book invite you to decorate – or more specifically to undecorate; to follow your own instinct even when it’s telling you to do something a little crazy, a little different; even something against the ‘interior design rules’…

Still undecorating as a (or Lemieux’s) concept, is not haphazard style; it’s not thought-free. At all. It’s about being guided by something other than the traditional constraints. To be your own guide. Though just like its neighbour the creative, personal, quirky and eclectic style it’s not totally trend-free or without its own standards – it points to some direction, at least. Yet the ‘undecorating’ philosophy has an inherent freedom. It says a lot of yes and no no’s. It has a no-rules approach. If you love polka dots and feel you want to paint your rooms polkadotty, yes you should! If you want your living room to feel like a decadent Paris club…OR even ;) if you want your kitchen to look like an emergency room – yes! If those surroundings make you happy. And no, the book didn’t say those last things, but it inspires you in that direction. My personal favourite of the houses featured is under the heading “Life Imitates Art”. A New Englander has created a California home full of beauty and personality. It’s a mishmash of styles and periods with personal connection as a unifying link. It’s even a bit circusy, which I love (and now I know that love certainly has some connection to the fact that I used to ride a unicycle as a child).

Very inspiring, just like the entire book. It can be read many times over and in between readings it’s an attractive addition to the decor – if you love decor books!