A NATURAL HOME

Move over hygge. The latest trend is lagom, Swedish for moderation. It’s how we should be buying for our homes says Emma Powell

- Emma Caulton

You wouldn’t expect someone running a retail business to be so insistent that we buy less. However, Emma Powell, co-founder of Freyr and Fell, an online homewares store and interiors service, practises what she preaches. She focuses on having fewer things, chosen with more care. This is lagom – a Swedish lifestyle approach that influences both Emma’s business, a celebration of modern handcrafted design, and her home. She explains: “Lagom means not too little; not too much; just right.”

It is a slow home movement focusing on living with moderation and making considered purchases. Its tenets include shopping locally, buying used pieces and repurposing items. Emma continues: “Having spent time in Denmark over the years, I’ve been fortunate to understand and appreciate the importance of recycling, reusing, buying less and buying gradually. For example, I’ve been collecting Royal Copenhagen porcelain for years, slowly adding pieces to my collection. And I saved up for my Santa & Cole Cestita Batería lantern. I love this iconic design. Everyone remarks on how beautiful it is.”

The iconic lamp, little sister to pioneering designer Miguel Milá’s more famous Cesta lantern, is both a focal point and an investment piece. Emma showcases such items alongside flea market and used finds. There’s a mid-century dining table, acquired from an elderly lady moving into an old people’s home, that Emma says, “will be loved in this house”. A Narnia wardrobe in daughter Martha’s room was picked up from “a lovely family who were looking to get rid of it”.

Kitchen units, in situ when Emma moved into her village home, have been upcycled by repainting them matt navy. Emma points out: “They were perfectly good, so why replace them?”