We all adore the Scandinavian style: It’s simple, refreshing and chique. It is the perfect design choice for the urban, modern lifestyle. Scandinavian homes are small; most of their houses are no larger than 75m2. But how do make their rooms look so spacious?
Due to the limited space, Scandinavian designers view every bit of space as valuable and useful. Whenever a piece of furniture or furnishing is placed in a room, the item fulfils a specific purpose, or it serves multiple functions.
What is a Scandinavian Sofa
Scandinavian furniture is symbolic of minimalism and functionality. The flexible design and multifunctional accents of Scandinavian sofas have made this furniture design iconic across the world. Scandinavian Sofa designs can make the best lounging choice for your home if you are scouting for quality craftsmanship, premium quality materials, and clean lines.
If you are on the lookout for timeless elegance and comfort, there’s no match to the Scandinavian Sofa. The luxe designs make a perfect statement in the living area. Scandinavian couches, crafted in a variety of leather and fabric upholstery, are customised to offer comfort.
For those looking for extra comfort, you can also find various luxurious Scandinavian designed sofas modelled to deliver more.
Scandinavian sofas are narratives created by blending function and aesthetics, and they continue to inspire innovation for interior design. These Scandinavian sofa designs, offering a balance with textures, contrasts, newness and comfort, create a cleaner and tidier living space.
What Makes a Room Scandinavian?
When we recall the Scandinavian style, we often think of minimalistic designs, largely white walls, open spaces and a limited colour palette.
While these are recognisable features of the Scandinavian style, they are only a part of the trend. To add Scandinavian elements into our living rooms, we must understand the concepts and principles behind its features.
Functional, a Scandinavian sofa may have storage compartments to make full use of the empty space, or have pullout to double as a bed. As a result, plenty of room is freed up for people to roam around in a small space. Even the pure white walls have a purpose.
Because Scandinavian countries, such as Sweden, Norway and Denmark, mostly experience winter months, they often don’t receive much sunlight during the day. To compensate for this lack of light, white walls are used to amplify the brightness of the room.
Natural, Most people often forget this element in the Scandinavian style, yet is one of the most important signatures of this trend. Since Scandinavians are experiencing cold seasons most of the year, they often don’t see a lot of greeneries around their area. To bring life inside their daily lives, natural items such as large potted plants and wooden featuresare brought inside their homes. This adds a natural coziness to the room. It also eco-friendly design feature that contributes a step towards a greener Earth.
Comfort, a home should be place where you can cuddle in a blanket, watch the latest shows and sip a glass of wine after a long day at work. Hence, the Scandinavian designs focuses on the comfort of the residents over design. Aside from the natural elements and open spaces, elements in a Scandinavian style are placed to bring a warm homely feeling. For example, Scandinavian Sofas are often stuffed to the brim with plenty of throw pillows and fur throws for the coziness sitting experience. Lush rugs are also used to ease your sore feet.
How to choose a Scandinavian sofa?
Sofas are always going to be the feature furniture in any living room. Which is why choosing the perfect Scandinavian Sofa will give you the perfect base to start redesigning your home.
But the thing is: there is no prominent Scandinavian style in furniture. This is because the Scandinavian style mainly uses Mid-century Movement (MCM) furniture as part of its interior design.
MCM furniture features clean lines, a large variety of materials and a priority on functionality over designs – they are characteristics that cross over with the Scandinavian style. In fact, a number of Scandinavian Interior designers influenced this movement!
By choosing an MCM sofa with the right features and colour palette, you can turn it into a Scandinavian Sofa. You can do this by looking out for these 5 features:
1) Wooden Features
While most sofas do not prominent show its wooden structures, Scandinavian sofas will have wooden-like textures as part of their design. This can either be an exposed sofa frame or a subtle design choice on the sofa’s legs.
Rich wooden frames are sturdy. So not only do wooden frames tie into the principle of nature but they also give you a sense of security.
2) Multipurpose
Remember: one of the core principles behind the Scandinavian style is functionality.
While you shop for a Scandinavian Sofa, look out for a sofa that has additional features such as or storage spaces, ottomans, L-Shaped sofa or additional side tables – just like Sofa Erik.
Sofa Erik’s wooden beams can be used in many ways: they can be used as additional arm rests, platform for additional sides or even mini-tables for your cups of coffee or your phones.
By choosing a sofa with multiple functions, you will further enchance your living experience and comfort of your home.
3) Simple Designs
MCM is an experimental design trend. Many MCM furniture will have unusual geometric shapes, curves and unique structural features.
However, this clashes with the simplicity of the Scandinavian Style.
While there is nothing wrong with choosing a Scandinavian sofa with curves and unique designs, it is best to get one with clean lines and the most minimalistic design. At most, it should have one or two unique features.
Sofa Boris is a good example of a simplistic yet unique design.
While it does not seem to stand out as much as Sofa Erik, its high backrest that surrounds people and compact design makes it unique enough to be a feature piece while sticking to the simplicity of the Scandinavian style.
4) Thick cushioning
Another amazing feature of Sofa Boris is its purposeful positioning of a variety of cushions, designed to give you maximum seating comfort.
Having plenty of stuffing in your sofa cushions is a fundamental element for a Scandinavian sofa. Your sofa is your go-to place for relaxation, so choose a firm, pillowy sofa that lets you sink into its soft embrace.
5) Muted Colours
Finally, you should choose a sofa that matches with the Scandinavian colour scheme.
The sofa colour can be white, peach, pastel pink, teal, azure ble, light greys and browns etc. so long as it is a base, muted colour you can build upon.
Household tip: if you do want a bold pop of colour, try a rich blue colour like royal blue or eccentric blue. It’s cool colour that blends with the white environment while giving off a mild brightness.
Usually with most sofas, there is a very limited colour scheme to choose from. At most, you have to choose between 2 – 3 standard colours that may not match with the Scandinavian style. There are some sofas that only come in one colour as well.
If you’re looking to create a Scandinavian-inspired interior design in Singapore, be sure to check out SHEinterior. We offer furniture, color palettes, and accessories that will help you achieve the perfect scandinavian aesthetic for your home.
