A peek inside: indie home tours with Camilla Engman

One of my favorite things about this blog is my series called A Peek Inside: indie home tours. It’s so fun to see inside the homes of the creative people I admire. People like the artist Camilla Engman, who I just love. Camilla is a Swedish illustrator and painter who has done work for The New York Times, Converse &  Google among others.

For today’s edition of A Peek Inside, Camilla throws open the doors to her cozy home in Göteborg, which is the second-largest city in Sweden.

How would you describe your designing style?

I’ve never thought of it as a particular style. Nowadays, I try to add things that I think I will keep forever. Living in Ikealand it is hard not to fall for the…well, “I’ll buy this cheap sofa now until I find the one I can afford and the one I really want” sofa, or the “I don’t like this 100 %, but that doesn’t matter, I’ll buy something better next year” table. I have, of course, been there and I will probably go down that road again, but my purpose is not to. My goal is to only add things I like and intend to keep.

I do like my decor to be light and easy to clean, since I don’t like cleaning very much. I like my home to be such that if I by some flowers and put them on the table, visitors will pay attention to the flowers.

Tell us about your home. Is it an apartment or house. Is it newer or a refurbished older home? Did you completely redo it or just add some new paint?

I live in an apartment with my husband and my dog. There is a kitchen, living room, bedroom, two small bathrooms and then my husband and I each have a room of our own. It’s two smaller apartments merged into one. We refurbished it totally when we bought it, I had help from an architect friend. Opened up here and closed there, painted it all white. Voíla.

You have so many wonderful little nooks. Did that happen organically or did you plan it out that way?

I would say pretty organically most of the time. I have things that are priceless (for me), if they would be stuffed in a box they wouldn’t be anything–worthless. So I just put them somewhere thinking that I should give them a place later on. That’s how those nooks started.

Pick a treasure or two and share what’s special about it/them to you.

The stitched elk picture on our kitchen wall. It is made by my mother in law. When she died they threw it on the dumpster, but was saved by my husband that has different taste from his sisters. So there it lives on our wall (see above).

Also, the apricot cloud, made by Lisa McNamara. It’s the only thing a wall needs. It is made as a carpet and is tufted (see in the first picture above).

What’s your favorite room and why?

I’ll have to say my own room, my working room. That is my favorite room right now. I’ve bought a daybed that is big enough for both Morran and me, I can bring a lot of papers, books and spread them around and there is still room. I can lay on it and watch a film on my computer or just look at what I’ve been up to during the day. It feels like my own cave now when it gets darker and darker here.

Any current or upcoming home projects?

Right now, the only project is to un-mess things after a long period of too much work

Who is your big furry friend?

You can’t refer to my husband, he’s not that furry. I guess you mean my dog, Morran. She is small, only about 7-8 kilo’s /15-17 pounds. She’s soon 12 years old and she’s a Danish/Swedish Farmdog. Morran and I are together almost every hour of the day. She makes me a better person (and so does my husband0). 🙂