How to Combine Colors Scandinavian-Style: Example from Sweden

The apartment has a separate entrance to a cozy inner courtyard located in the historic district of Gothenburg — Haga. There, on both sides of pedestrian streets, traditional three-story houses with stone basement floors stand. It's no surprise that the apartment interior is designed accordingly — in a Scandinavian style.

The kitchen and living room in the apartment are combined. This makes the space more spacious and bright. Large windows paired with white walls further fill the room with light.

Despite the small space, the kitchen looks spacious (even very) and functional. The oven, dishwasher, refrigerator, additional freezer, bar counter, and many pull-out drawers — everything has its place.

One wall of the kitchen is painted white, and another is tiled with white tiles. The floor features light grey parquet boards, chosen almost in the same color as the natural stone worktop of the kitchen. Next to the window, there is a dining table and chairs made from natural wood in a grey pearl color. Due to the dominance of grey tones, blue cabinets stand out and look brighter. In this case, grey serves as a neutral color that allows blue to be the main accent on the kitchen.

Merging the kitchen and living room creates a social and pleasant space in the apartment. The main accent here is a carpet with a floral pattern, and the matching textile on the sofa together with the carpet create a harmonious combination. The walls, as in the rest of the apartment, are painted white. It's no surprise that white unifies all interior items into a single whole and hides differences between colors and furniture.

Large windows, without which it's hard to imagine Scandinavian style, fill the space with air and natural light. The wide window sills decorated with living flowers in pots look so natural that it seems there's no better place for them.

Separating the kitchen and living room is not only done through the bar counter but also thanks to color choices. The living room appears darker compared to the kitchen: dark brown piano, chestnut pots for flowers, and dark textiles on the sofa. A great example of how to divide space without walls or partitions.

The bedroom also uses monochromatic grey shades to give the small room depth. The wide windows seem to illuminate the bedroom from within.

Along one wall, two built-in white wardrobes are placed, serving two functions. One is practical, as a storage space, and the second is decorative, as a way to break up the grey walls with white color.

The apartment has a spacious bathroom. Inside there is a wooden vanity unit with a sink, a mini-laundry room with a washing machine and dryer, many storage spaces, built-in mirror, shower, and even heated flooring. The walls are tiled with white tiles, and the floor is black, which in contrast increases the space and doesn’t hurt even in a spacious bathroom.

The entrance hall is convenient: there's plenty of space for storing shoes and outerwear, and opposite it — a mirror.

What's unusual is that the entrance hall connects all rooms in the apartment into a circular and continuous layout. The elevated wall and black tiles at the entrance well separate the hallway area from the general corridor.

Layout