Best Tips to Achieve a Scandi Style at Home

With natural textures and muted hues that are soft on the eyes, Scandi design blends functionality and seamless simplicity for a cosy and effortlessly elegant look.

The key design principles of the Scandinavian style

#1 Keep your colour palette simple

Scandi design is well-known for being quite minimalist and restrained when it comes to colour, so you see a lot of whites, soft greys and light balsam blonde wood. Colour is celebrated, but only in very small amounts, and often more muted than not. This is all to maximise light, which is a hot commodity in Nordic countries where for a large part of the year the weather is cold and wintery. Whites and other light colours, therefore, become really important for creating an airy, light and flowy vibe.

scandi_bedroom_kelly_silver — Scandi Bedroom by Milray Park Designer Kelly Silver

living_room_scandi — Credit: Coco Lapine

#2 Layer soft furnishings

Those beautiful Swedes are so good at layering blankets, throws and bedding in a way that immediately makes you want to kick back with a book or take a little nap. Scandinavian interior design is well-known for incorporating lots of soft furnishings in a variety of natural textures. The one key thing to remember is that the tones of these furnishings usually follow the same muted hues.

scandi_living_room_scandi_home — Credit: My Scandinavian Home

bedroom_monica_bean_scandi — Scandi bedroom by Milray Park Designer Monica Bean

#3 Clever use of contrast

While we have emphasized using light muted tones, there’s one key ingredient that really nails it, and that’s the use of contrast for really modern Scandinavian design. Generally, while floors, walls, and soft furnishings are light, a dark accent like a black industrial floor lamp, a black vase, black woven baskets, black frames around art, or a black dining table will act as a dramatic and unexpected focal point in the home. This is Scandinavian style.

scandi_living_room_kristin — Living room by Milray Park Designer Kristin Stojcevski

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