Swedish inspiration by Ikea.

By now everybody knows what Ikea is and most of us have spent hours assembling a piece of Ikea furniture. For me going to Ikea is like going home! Every Ikea store all around the world is identical and seeing the swedish names everywhere and walking into rooms looking like the average swedes living room gives me a sense of "home". Also having the food section when you are abroad has helped me get through some serious cravings: salt licorice, cider, pepparkakor, salmon, räkost (prawn soft cheese), daim cake, lingonberry jam and cordial, chocolate balls, damsugare (chocolate rapped with marzipan), etc. The list could go on.
Ikea is great because they have everything! They have wide ranges of furniture with various levels of quality and price. Now there are even companies that will assemble the furniture for you if you don't have the patience. And those of you looking for even cheaper Ikea furniture can find them on the various second-hand Ikea furniture homepages.
Anyway, here are some of the inspirational photos from Ikeas 2011 catalouge.

I always thought you were odd - Living areas

Dining room put together by "Design by hand".


Living room mix with rocking chair from the 50s by Charles and Ray Eames.
Dining room in Villa Stoor by Malin Stoor.
Dining room by Tony Solur.

Living room with various white painted metal chairs by Synnöve Mörk.

This is from Elle Interiör and designed by Anna Kraitz.
This is a living area by Elle - interiör.
This is a living area by Elle - interiör.

Colours II

Second edition of the blog entry I did yesterday about Alcro's paint suggestions. Here are some more of their inspirational photos.
Some clear trends is the use of grey, the use of several tonalties of of the same colour in a room, and the use of green. I joked about the use of the colour green a few years back. When the big "green trend" as in eco-sustainable building, low energy, bioarchitecture, low carbon, etc, housing became popolar. I realized that very few people actually knows what it means to have a "green building". And not just the average person but even architects who claim to be building with low-energy systems and materials. The proof of this, in a very ironic way, is the fact that so many products are now green. As if that will make it save energy!
But luckily the colour green also has soothing effects and has been used in bedrooms for a long time. The difference is perhaps the tonality of green which is either lime-green or olive green and used as highlights in living areas.

Colours...

Alcro paint has a great homepage where you can find inspirational photos like these below and also download a "colouring programme" where you can colour walls and floors with the paint that they sell. They also give you suggestions with which colours fit well together. For example if you chose a main colour they'll tell you 3-4 secondary colours that you can combine them with. This is a simular thing to what I did for my mum last month (Architectual daughter). In fact when I go back home for Christmas my job will be painting her living room and kitchen! Can't wait.