Room for creativity
IN THE OLD SCHOOL
We’re visiting photographer and influencer Mari Magnusson who lives with her family in a former school in the town of Enköping close to Stockholm in Sweden. Mari loves recycling and the house has mainly been furnished with flea market treasures. Many of the items were bought abroad because the family used to live in England and Australia. And they all love to travel. Mari shows us the big room where she does all her creative projects. This room is also her studio. Right now, she’s getting ready to decorate the home for Christmas. She always uses lots of greenery because it’s available on her doorstep, and now she’s got plenty of space for all her collections in these big, former classrooms.
Mari is an interior photographer so she gets to visit the most fantastic homes whilst working. That’s why she started dreaming of having a big house where she could bring all her creative ideas to life. The family consists of Mari, her husband Finn and the couple’s three sons, Milo, Misha and Noah, and when they saw this former school, it was love at first sight. They moved in 10 years ago and both the house and the garden have changed a lot since then. Measuring 4,300 sq2 (400 m2), and having been the vicarage for the adjoining Vallby Church for 40 years, this house was a true renovation project. The couple saw the potential of the place and liked the big windows and the tall walls. Many of the original details have been preserved, including the mirror doors, stoves and mouth-blown glass panes. The couple spent the first few years renovating.
Mari has some very precise thoughts and ideas on how to furnish the home, and she never compromises. If she can’t find the exact piece of furniture that she’s after, she’ll ask the local carpenter to make it for her based on her drawings. The interior design is rural and romantic with an industrial touch. All the walls, floors and ceilings are neutral and light, and they create a perfect backdrop for all the varicolored flea market finds. The result is a home with a bohemian, personal feel to it where everything seems nice and light.
All the bedrooms are on the top floor and they’ve also been furnished with light colors and creative details such as the hanger rail made of a branch from the forest and the work table which has been made out of an old door and two supports that have been painted white. The bathrooms are new but they’ve been furnished with old-fashioned cisterns and beautiful, freestanding basins. Whenever Mari would present another one of her numerous ideas, the workers would be rolling their eyes at her, but the result speaks for itself. It fits the former school perfectly.
One of the latest projects was building a greenhouse in the garden using recycled windows. The greenhouse flooring consists of handmade bricks that were bought from the local farmers. The bricks had been stored in the barns for several decades but now they’ve been brought back to life. Out here, Christmas is slowly starting to show, and one of Mari’s numerous wreaths has been placed above the old table. String lights make up the lighting during the long, dark winter nights that’ll be comin
