SWEDISH ABODE
Fashion designer Valerie Aflalo has blurred the lines between indoors and outdoors in a very chic way
Fashion designer Valerie Aflalo realised her vision for a fresh, pared-back and simple vibe in her family home
Bright, breezy and nestling in a garden of fruit trees, designer Valerie Aflalo and her husband Johan’s
exquisite family home, south of Stockholm, is an earthly paradise, created by the couple themselves. ‘We have three children and decided it was time to move out of the city,’ says Valerie, who is mum to Nicoletta, 13, Bianca, seven, and Leonie, four. The former Miss Sweden runs fashion brand Valerie – a favourite with Crown Princess Victoria – from her studio and store in Stockholm. She also pens a popular blog and Instagram page. ‘I was longing for a garden, and I wanted to find a peaceful place where our children could play outside and I could recharge at the end of a busy day,’ she says.
The house’s light and airy Scandi-chic interiors are a world away from the pokey, mid-1940s property that the couple purchased three years ago. ‘We bought a house that nobody wanted,’ says Valerie. ‘It was yellow and brown with tiny rooms and windows, so we pretty much tore it down and started again.’ The couple dug down and also removed the roof, so they could create higher ceilings and a feeling of spaciousness. They were clear from the outset about the kind of home they wanted to create. ‘I really wanted a stylish oasis, where I could find tranquillity in the natural surroundings,’ Valerie explains. ‘Something modern and minimalistic, but warm and homely.’
Central to this vision were the expansive metal-framed doors and windows, which open up the space and flood it with light. ‘We built the house around the windows,’ says Valerie, adding that the total renovation took a year and a half. ‘Light was the most important thing to me, so the windows were intrinsic to the design. It can get very dark and depressing in Sweden during the winter months so you need all the light you can get. I call it my “therapy” house. It gives me a sense of well-being.’ The windows also blur the lines between inside and out, bringing the natural surroundings indoors.
‘It was the garden and the ancient apple trees that attracted us, so we wanted to be able to see them from every room during the changing seasons,’ she explains. ‘They are covered in blossom in the spring and summer, and laden with apples in the autumn, and all the birds and creatures come into our garden. We never cease to get excited when a family of deer wander in from the nearby wood. We all rush to the windows.’
The exterior of the house – with its wooden cladding and industrial-feel windows – is not typical of Swedish homes in the area, says Valerie. ‘We have a lot of old houses in Sweden – or ones from the 1960s – and while you’ll see a lot of apartments in the city with this industrial look, it’s unusual here in the suburbs. It’s a unique house.’
The interior however, she concedes, is pure Scandinavian. ‘It’s fresh, pared-back and simple,’ she says. ‘We have used a lot of wood and other warm and tactile materials, and the colour scheme is consistent throughout the house.’ Apart from the entrance hall, the couple have painted all the walls white, including the beams downstairs, to maximise the feeling of light and airiness, while the wooden floor extends throughout the property, apart from the hall and bathrooms, helping to link the spaces and create a sense of fluidity.
Like most Swedish homes, there is also an abundance of cleverly concealed storage, which helps the family to stay neat and tidy, but nonetheless, it is still quite hard to believe that three girls aged 13 and under live here.
‘I am not one of those people who feels they have to wait for their children to grow up and leave home before they can have the decor they want,’ says Valerie. ‘A lot of people marvel over our house being so perfect and pristine – but it works. Most things are washable and the girls are generally quite tidy and respectful. And if sometimes things do get broken – well, that’s life! At its heart, this is a true family home.’