Something Blue...

Blue isn’t a colour we normally associate with warmth and welcome, but this Swedish home is proof that having the blues can be blooming lovely

- Emma Persson Lagerberg & Sally Conor

Colour courage When it comes to adding colour to our homes, most of us take a cautious approach, making do with a feature wall here and a bright cushion or two there. But decorating a whole house in a single hue is pretty much unheard of. Kristin Lagerqvist somehow missed this memo when she decided to theme her home, in the Swedish city of Varberg, around the colour blue.

With her husband, Jonas, and their three sons, Simon, Otto and Igor, Kristin was happy living elsewhere in Varberg, but Jonas had his eye on this historic home.

“Jonas mentioned that if the house came up for sale, he would like to go and have a look,” says Kristin. “I was satisfied with our house at the time and not especially eager to move. But over a bottle of wine on a porch in Florence, he mentioned the house again. We knew the family who lived there wanted to sell to a family who would enjoy the house, the same way they had.”

Changing rooms Back in Varberg, the couple were invited to see the 1920s home and Kristin was powerless to resist its charms.

“I was not at all hard to persuade,” she says. “When I laced my shoes in the hallway I said out loud, ‘We want it!’ and my husband said, ‘Sshhhh!’ The owners just laughed at my eagerness.”

The house had been very well taken care of by its previous owners, so once the Lagerqvists had purchased it and moved in, no major effort was required to shape it into a home that suited them. The colour scheme was the only thing they knew they wanted to change.

“Blue has always been my colour,” says Kristin. “There is something reassuring and comforting about the different tones of the sky and the sea. We repainted all the rooms and wallpapered them in our colours.”

Eclectic chic