Hassle Skola is the Wiking family’s home in a converted school building in southern Sweden. Filled with vintage design, cocooning colours and an abundance of flowers, Sophie and Gustaf’s house is the embodiment of the Scandinavian dream.
Sophie is a floral designer creating installations for weddings, events, and museums, while Gustaf works at a tech company. The couple used to live in Malmö, but always wanted a quieter lifestyle in the countryside. “I wanted to grow my own flowers for my business and I wanted to live in a brick house with high ceilings,” says Sophie.
They searched house listings constantly and were losing hope when the Hassle Skola building turned up. It has so much space – more than they had imagined, with plenty of room for Sophie’s business and a garden to grow her own flowers, too. It was also just a 45-minute drive from Malmö, so they could still be close to their friends. When Sophie saw it, she knew it was the one. “At the viewing, I had already decided and walked through the house really fast. I knew this was going to be our house. And I thought it would be really cool to live in an old school.”
It was built in 1927 and remained a school until the 1980s. There were three big classrooms on the ground floor and a gym on the second floor. “There are still people who live in this village who went to this school,” says Sophie.
Staying true to the building’s history was important, so the couple made sure that the foundation and architecture remained the same, and focused renovations on the interiors. Blending earthy colours and graceful silhouettes, they feature a mix of vintage finds, natural materials and industrial elements. Traditional styles – hinting at the house’s past – are complemented with romantic Bohemian accents.
In the kitchen, an old shop counter is repurposed as a kitchen island. Vintage dish racks from India and an old painting of a man they found in a flea market hang above the steel counter in the kitchen. “I wanted to create a big contrast to the oldness of the house,” says Sophie, explaining her vision for the room. “I wanted it to look industrial, but simple. My inspiration was the control panels of spaceships.”
The open-plan space extends to the dining and lounge areas, with tall windows offering views to the patio and garden outside. The long dining table and bench were custom-made for an office in an old brewery in Stockholm and were found in an online marketplace. A couple of vintage white Universale chairs by Joe Colombo complete the dining area.
Beige Togo sofas by designer Michel Ducaroy and secondhand posters form a cosy lounge area next to the dining space. A large Roma film poster is the centrepiece of the art wall, which Sophie got at an American online auction site when she was 23. “I actually haven’t seen the movie. I love the poster so much and have had it for a long time,” she says. “I’m afraid that if I don’t like the movie I’d be stuck having to look at the poster all the time.”
Two large adjoining rooms – the former classrooms – now function as the workspace of Florista, Sophie’s floral design studio. “What’s so nice about working here is that I was so used to having a small space that now I can fit an entire forest into this one.” Massive dried palm leaves stand in one corner, while a large tree branch with gypsophila branches attached to it – an exhibition piece – stands in another.
Strings of fairy lights hang from the ceiling, adding a magical feel to the space. Large open cabinets are filled with glass vases and house her collection of lace ribbons. These ribbons are naturally hand-dyed using colours from The Natural Dyeworks in Kent.
The studio has an otherworldly feel mainly because of the pink light that bathes everything, thanks to the blush-coloured curtains. “It gives a Wes Anderson-feeling to everything,” says Sophie. The custom 3.5 metre-high curtains were made by a seamstress in southern Sweden. The space also features a round table from the 1800s found in a Danish online marketplace and Gustaf’s collection of bicycles. A friend, who’s a carpenter, made the bicycle racks for him.
The hallway is Sophie’s favourite part of the house. Beige curtains – which she jokingly calls “nylon-stocking curtains” – line the windows while a circular table holds vintage treasures. The bust of an unknown woman is a vintage find, like many of the decorations and pieces of furniture in the house. The shell chandelier comes from Bali, but she found it in a shop in Stockholm. A German anatomy poster of an eye from the 1800s hangs on one of the walls.
“What’s so special about this room is the paint on the walls,” says Sophie. “I painted it in my favourite colour – a pinkish brown – and it subtly changes throughout the day, depending on the light, because the paint has so many natural pigments in it.”
The bathroom walls are painted warm brown and tiled halfway up. A bathtub with clawfeet stands in the corner with a Millesgården museum poster above it. “I like having artwork in the bathroom,” says Sophie. “I think it’s an easy way to make the room feel nicer and more characterful – a place you really want to be in.”
The second floor contains the former school’s gym and the high ceilings still have the hooks used for rope exercises. Now, multiple paper lamps from Granit hang from them, framing a cosy, enveloping living room.
The long-haired rug is unique. “It’s designed by my friend Marie Olsson Nylander and comes from goats in the Caucasus mountains.” The seating comprises a Mags sofa from Hay and two round lounge chairs from Granit. Wooden logs – stored in an antique shop counter from the Netherlands – fuel the fire to warm the room in winter.
The guest bedroom is painted in a warm beige colour, with two beds decked in floral textiles. The eye-catching wall decoration is actually a bamboo beaded curtain from Urban Outfitters. The main bedroom has a sloped ceiling and reaches a height of 5m. The vintage wooden dressing screen with intricate carvings comes from Asia. The brown sheer curtains add a dreamy, romantic feel to the space.
The house is inviting and dreamy. It’s Scandinavian at its heart, but glowing with warmth and openness.
Styling by Karolina Vertus/Living Inside
