Light & Bright for the Holidays

This Scandi-Dutch home, built by a florist and her husband, sparkles and shines even more at Christmas.

- MONIQUE VAN DER PAUW

INEKE SMIT LOVES THE CRISP, CLEAR STYLE OF SCANDINAVIAN LIVING. This Dutch florist and her husband, Jan, built a Swedish wooden house in a northern province of The Netherlands. The bright color palette of whites, blues and a tiny bit of red; her joyful collection of crockery; beautiful table linens; lovely floral decorations and dozens of candles make her Scandi-Dutch home sparkle and shine even more at Christmas time.

“We’ve always been attracted to the Scandinavian style,” Ineke says. “We drive a Volvo and spend holidays in Norway and Denmark. And we’ve always loved the wooden houses that we saw up there. Painted in colors like yellow, blue, red, and all having different exteriors, there’s no such thing as a standard house.”

Although Ineke loves old houses, she and Jan decided on a newly built house for practical reasons. “So we ordered a Swedish house ourselves,” she says. “Besides the fact that they look great and have such a warm ambience, they’re also very well insulated, both the wooden frame as well as all the windows. We hardly need to heat the house; that’s why we don’t have a wood stove—it would get too warm.”