Houzz Tour: A Limestone House in Sweden Full of Personality
This interior designer was just looking for a summer place but got a whole new life with a garden boutique instead
When Sofie Nordenberger started looking for a house in Gotland, an island off the east coast of Sweden, she was originally looking for a place to spend the summer. “I was born in Visby [a town in Gotland] and I had been living in Stockholm for a couple of years when I came across this big house online. I had really thought about persuading my husband to buy a summer house, but fate had something else in mind.” In the spring of 2012, the family moved into a house that needed a lot of love and care but now works as both a home and workplace.
The house has a 1½-acre (6,000-square-metre) garden, but Nordenberger is not a gardening enthusiast. “I’m so uninterested in gardens, so no gardening for me. However, there are a lot of magnificent fruit trees!”
When the family decided to make the house a permanent residence, it first needed a thorough renovation. “The house was in need of love both indoors and out. We have so far built a new bathroom and kitchen, redone the facade, and rewired the electrical system.” However, the open floor plan, which feels so modern and large, is completely original – no walls needed to be moved.
It’s the ground floor that Nordenberger uses for her work as an interior designer, with rooms that can be often seen on Instagram and in photo shoots. “I run the company Oh Living, which consists of an online shop, a boutique (open during summer), located in the wing next to the building, and a consultation section where I work on my styling assignments. My house acts as a space for me and my business and also for other companies who want to photograph products. Therefore, I want to keep the upstairs private for the family.”
Does that mean the style of the upstairs is completely different, cluttered with gadgets, murky wallpaper and carpet from the ’70s? “Unfortunately not,” Nordenberger says, laughing. “The rooms are smaller but decorated in the same style as the remaining living areas.”
Nordenberger finished the walls with rough plaster that fits well into the Gotland house. She laid a new floor upstairs, but the original one downstairs was only sanded and painted.
The beautifully differing widths of the ceiling and floor panelling first became noticeable when the wood was painted in polished white. “The ceiling and floor were already in place when we moved in, but maybe someone else had thought about it before. The cabinet (on the left in the picture) is an old one that I actually got completely for free here on the island. I removed the doors and repainted it, and now it’s one of my favourite cabinets. It holds a lot of things.”
Upon entering the hall (the middle space in the image), the couple’s bedroom is to the right (at the back of the image), the living room to the left (foreground) and the kitchen straight ahead (not pictured). “This is how most of the old residences on Gotland look, as far as I understand: two big rooms – here they are called salar – on each side of the entrance. From the bedroom you can also see my studio, and next to the kitchen there is a passage that is now a playroom for my son.”
“When we bought the house, the kitchen was already in relatively good order, but of course we needed to put our mark on it. We plastered the walls, painted the floors, put in an Italian granite countertop, installed a gas stove with a hood from Smeg, and built a log burner that warms well during the winter months. The kitchen structure is from Ikea; in autumn 2016 we painted it dark grey-blue.”
The wonderfully thick walls are typical of houses in Gotland. “We used to joke that’s the reason we can never communicate with people: We have about 1-metre-thick limestone walls which make phone reception unpredictable.”
The wonderfully thick walls are typical of houses in Gotland. “We used to joke that’s the reason we can never communicate with people: We have about 1-metre-thick limestone walls which make phone reception unpredictable.”
It’s easy to think Nordenberger furnished the bedroom so simply and sparsely so as to conveniently be able to move everything away for photo shoots, but that’s not the case. “No, I just like it this way. The bedroom was previously a dining hall, which we basically never used. I didn’t like the fact that we never used one of the largest rooms, so one day I decided to turn it into a bedroom. That’s the best thing I’ve done! It’s great to lie down and watch the fire. The tile stove is original and we use it frequently.”
“This is my chaos room, the place where I work, but it’s also the place where a lot of props for photo shoots are kept. The tabletop is concrete. I especially like the big heavy legs made from recycled teak. The crystal chandelier was a wedding present – it measures more than one metre in diameter.”
The summer shop in the garden is in the wing of the building directly adjacent to the house. “It got a huge response, which is so fun! I knocked down the limestone walls by hand and tried to create an environment that suits my business in a simple and modest way.”
So, the chance find of a house has allowed Nordenberger to build an entire lifestyle
in this inspiring home.
So, the chance find of a house has allowed Nordenberger to build an entire lifestyle
in this inspiring home.
Who lives here: Interior designer and instagrammer Sofie Nordenberger, with her family
Location: Sanda parish, on Gotland, Sweden
Size: About 2150 square feet (200 square metres), with a large old barn and a separate house (pictured here) of around 754 square feet (70 square metres)
Rooms: 9 rooms, two bathrooms and a kitchen
Year built: The traditional Gotland limestone house dates back to 1891