How to Make a Dark Apartment Cozy and Well-Lit: Experience of a Swedish Family

When you hear the phrase «small Scandinavian apartment», you might think of snow-white walls, the same furniture, and a few subtle accents. This Stockholm interior breaks that pattern, offering to change the approach to housing design.

The apartment's owners, Matthias Brokert and his wife Jasna, lived there for more than ten years before deciding to make a radical change in the interior. Previously, they constantly made large and small changes to the interior, adding decorative details and striving to improve the space. The main problem was that the apartment is located on the first floor, and there's never enough sunlight.

The couple painted the walls white and acquired light-colored furniture, but the result never satisfied them. Then, during a family meeting, they decided to consult designer Jannele Gernelius, who proposed an unexpected solution: accept as a fact that the apartment will never be dazzlingly bright and simply make the living space cozy and convenient.

This approach pleased the clients — and the space was filled with complex, saturated colors: several shades of gray, different variants of green, black. Neutral white and natural wood tones, as well as trendy metal details «in bronze», complement such an unexpected palette for small apartments.

Another designer's suggestion that found a warm response from Matthias and Jasna was to revise the layout. As they admitted, their family (with two teenage children) doesn't spend much time together in the living room. On the contrary, the kitchen is truly the heart of the house.

That is why they decided to slightly expand the kitchen, giving it functions of a spacious dining room and living room. A small TV room was also arranged nearby. As a result, the apartment became suitable for family gatherings, guest visits, and evening moments when parents and children divide into «interest groups».

By abandoning the tedious white walls and cabinet fronts, the designer decided to fight for natural lighting through other methods. Between the kitchen and living room is a semi-transparent partition that hardly obstructs sunlight from entering. This approach, along with a very wide passage from one zone to another, made both rooms much brighter.

In addition, light is added by glass cabinet doors in the kitchen and wardrobe in the bedroom, as well as a mirror on the kitchen backsplash. By the way, according to the project's clients, it makes communication easier between those who are standing at the countertop preparing or rinsing dishes and other family members.

Otherwise, lighting in the apartment is provided by artificial light sources. They weren't stingy: spotlights, multi-bulb chandeliers, wall sconces, pendant lights...

It is extremely convenient to regulate the level of interior lighting in such a setup. As Matthias and Jasna note, their home didn't become darker without white walls.

The interior is impressive for its abundance of storage systems, elegantly and unobtrusively integrated into the design. Spacious kitchen cabinets (by the way, during renovation they preserved the original frames and changed only the fronts and added several IKEA hanging shelves), a kitchen cabinet, a large wardrobe in the bedroom, a console in the bedroom, a TV unit in the mini-living room, and the hostess's favorite «closet» near the entrance to the apartment.

Jasna admits: she is delighted with how the hallway transformed after the renovation. «The reason for the design with two openings is a load-bearing column in the center. The most beautiful thing about our hallway is that it accommodates everything that shouldn't be placed beyond the entrance door».

Large mirrors in full height are positioned opposite each opening, and we have a thousand shoe shelves, clothing hangers, and numerous shelves for anything... I love our hallway!

Of course, one can't ignore the most vibrant accent in the interior — the «lipstick pink» entrance door. By the way, the apartment owner even named her Instagram page after it!

Photo: skonahem.com, Instagram @tadaa_sthlm, Instagram @lipstickdoorandmore