Incorporating Scandi Style Interior Design into Your Home
We love the look that Scandinavian styling offers, so wanted to share these tips from our guest blogger Lee Flynn.
Scandi style contrasts geometric lines and shapes with natural textures and colors. It focuses on practical and livable space with comfortable and useful furniture. Easy and inexpensive to duplicate, the Scandinavian interior reduces clutter, vibrant colors and busy patterns. Nature is welcomed into the interior, but the home remains light and orderly.
Scandi Style Colors
A great example of Scandinavian style is from Puustelli USA, which is bringing kitchen design to the Twin Cities’ from Finland’s popular Puustelli brand.
Scandinavian interior design frequently uses stark and monochromatic color schemes. Earth tones and ocean-inspired blues are combined with whites, grays and blacks. Walls are white or gray. Natural wood, leather and monochromatic colors give the room a simple quiet feeling. Blues are the traditional favorite for an accent color, but metallics and pinks are also popular this season.
White or off-white is the dominate paint color. This style lends itself well to inexpensive and modular furniture with a white or black finish. Pale wood or wood with a light or bluish stain is also common. Wood floors or neutral tile floors are most popular, but a plush rug can also cover the floor. Cabinet painters works best in a white or pale gray. The blue and metallic accent colors are often used on the lights, in the rugs and with small decorative touches. Scandinavian design sometimes uses large areas of ocean and sky blues and blue-grays on the walls, bedding, rugs and furniture.
Scandi Style Lines
The white Puustelli kitchen demonstrates the style’s clean geometric lines perfectly.
The lines of Scandi interior design are bold, clean and geometric. The walls are usually white or gray rectangles decorated with simple images in thin frames or taped to the wall. The furniture is either basic and functional or plush and textured depending on its purpose. The elegant simplicity is emphasized with stripes and geometric patterns scattered here and there throughout the room.
Touches of bold stripes and simple patterns can be added to the room with items like pillows, curtains and chair upholstery. Geometric furniture with a basic design like modular furniture works well for shelves and desks. Plain wooden furniture can be sanded down and stained or painted. Many decorations are monochromic and geometric, but decorations can also bring in accents of color or rustic forms. Finally, part of the simple geometry is a love of open space, so the house should be decluttered.
If white isn’t your thing, blond cabinets contract beautifully with the dark walls and brilliant woodland mural in a Puustelli kitchen.
Scandi Style Textures
Scandinavian interior design contrasts two texture extremes, rich and tactile surfaces versus smooth and clean surfaces. The plain surfaces are a backdrop for the rough wood, brushed metal, textured fabrics, plush carpets, furs, feathers and other naturally tactile objects. The areas of function and business tend to be clean and free of distraction with small touches of color and nature. Areas of rest and leisure feature more varied colors and textures.
Painted metal surfaces on old lockers can be sanded down to achieve a brushed metallic finish. Wooden pallets or plywood can add rough wooden textures. Small tables and stands can be made out of cut tree stumps, and outdoor wicker chairs can come inside. Leather and fur are popular texture accents. Fabrics should be soft and practical. Applying upholstery cleaner, rug cleaner, bleach or green-alternative cleaners should be used regularly, because Scandinavian style needs a clean order to contrast against the rustic woods and natural textures. Some of the decorations should be colorful and nature-inspired but not all.
Conclusion
Scandi interior design offers a space of geometric order and natural elements. It is practical, useful, economical and attractive. The space is livable and clean with constant reminders of the natural world. It is easy and inexpensive to incorporate Scandi style into a home, but to be successful, clutter and bright patterns should be removed.