The multi talanted couple Charlotte Öström and Rikard Gartmyr spend almost all of their time together: The live together with their children Alice, 5 yrs, and Karl, 6 yrs, in a house in Bromma, Sweden. They also run the company CharlieCharlie together. A company that is all about stop motion animation, character design and illustration. With big clients like MSN and Greenpeace and the Swedish Postoffice they do really good for themselves. And all is produced in the basement of the house.
After they have taken their kids to school and daycare, in the morning, they return home, make themselves a cup of coffee and go downstairs to the studio basement and start working. And of course the dog Arne tags along to the cool basement where he has his own little nest. The basement, however, will not be covered by this slideshow, I will post it in a separate slide.
The house is built in 1937, designed by Edvin Engström. This family moved in 2004 to find the house in very good shape. The person living there before them was actually the daughter of the original builder of the house. Underneath the linoleum carpet they found beautiful wooden flooring in perfect condition. All the walls got a fresh coat of white and the kitchen was left untouched. The bathroom, however, got redone and the garden needed a loving hand.
Like myself this couple like to buy a lot of toys for themselves, not only for the kids. They seem to love Tim Burton, who´s characters are found all over the house.
But best of all is this family´s passion to create and build things and that is seen all over this house.
Like the customized i phone docking station that Rikard made out of an old transistor radio. Or the wooden R2D2 or the amazing tree house in the garden. I was so inspired by this creative couple and I think you will be to.
Enjoy!
Click the image below for the whole slideshow or the small thumbnails for single photos. Related posts: CharlieCharlie´s dollhouse click here! Rikard´s brother and family´s visit AprillAprill click here! And Studio-basement sooon here!
I am working on a new visit for you. The home of the family behind the company Charlie Charlie. They live and work in a really nice house outside of Stockholm. Going through the photos I found the family´s dollhouse and decided it deserved a post of it´s own. So here it is.
I am pretty sure that my grandmother´s house did not hold as many toys as mine does.
And now that the house is nice and clean I wanted to look into what kind of things Viola needs storage for in her room.
Costumes! Viola loves to play with them and I love to buy them, therefor we have quite a few.
She has one big container that holds a lot, but unfortunately mixing it all will lead to some of it getting ruined.
Like shoes and wigs. Not a good mix. And the nice dresses should be on a hanger.
I emailed Elisabeth over at the Swedish webshop www.anyhow.se and she told me about two products in her shop that might be what I was looking for.
She was nice enough to send me a sample.
First a hanger in the shape of one big circle and it was perfect for the dresses. We will keep one in our livingroom cause it looks so nice.
And second: a fabric bag with print for wigs and hats and such. This made me think of all the bags Viola has in her room. I gathered them, filled them and hung them together with the one she sent me.
Now the only thing missing was something for Viola´s dress-up shoes.
I tried to fit them in a box that I got last Christmas. And it was perfect.
All set for make believe.
PS: Anyhow.se is offering free shipping this weekend inside Sweden!
This autumn I am going to do a new TV program for SVT (Swedish National Television) called Fixa Rummet.
I am going to help kids build their dream room and i’ts going to be a blast!
Now we are going to start the casting so if you know any great swedish 7-11 year olds with crazy design ideas -
direct them to this page svt.se/fixarummet!
Some of you properly already saw this at Design Sponge when we guest blogged there, but since I have done so many kids-related posts lately I thought this would fit right in. Later this week I have a new visit for you.
“A Secret Basket”
It is really easy.
Viola´s grandmother made her this basket, she is a very talented and crafty lady, but you could use any basket. Size or shape.
We bought some rope, screws and a pulley at the local hardwear store. Tied the rope to the basket and attached the pulley to a beam in the ceiling of her room.
You can use the same principal on a regular ceiling or outside in a tree. For safety precautions make sure to use small screws that would not be able to hold anything heavy. And tell your kids about the hazards surrounding a rope or even better don´t let them play unattended.
Next time Viola is going to have a friend over she is going to prepare the basket with some snacks. And when her little friend is in the mood for a snack Viola will swing the secret basket down in a blink of an eye.
She can not wait.
