Aftonbladet Härligt hemma! 120721
By: ANNA-KLARA ASPEGREN
Photo: BÖRJE THURESSON
It´s life on the bridge that starts when Helen Sjöholm takes her holiday. With self-colored cushions, home-made quilts and lots of rugs, she arranges the perfect holiday days on the bridge.
The sun has just won over a looming stormcloud and the water sparkles triumphantly next to the jetty. Down by the lake, just a few meters below the gable, Helen Sjöholm and her family have their own little paradise. On the large wooden deck, they have enough place to sunbathe, swim, swing in a hammock – and turn somersaults and cartwheels if they like to. It´s spacious and generous with both swimming ladder and brick barbecue. Thanks to a fence with a childproof gate, they can enjoy life close to the water without worrying that someone falls in. – There is still a bit of a future dream to be able to use the bridge completely. With small children in the house you have to plan and pull down a moving van to go around a couple of hours! Then it’s perfect.
It´s now five years since the estate agent called and told them about the red house with white trim on a lake close to the city. The bridge, which extends as an extra floor on the water, already existed. The view of the lush greenery is nature’s embrace, and the bridge is only part of the idyll. Helen really enjoyed it in the apartment in downtown Stockholm too. She grew up in a builder’s family in Sundsvall and is herself something of a renovation enthusiast. She had spent some years to renovate one apartment after another and she was far from eager to start over with a new project. But she was also raised by the water, and longed to live like that again. – When this appeared, it was simply impossible to resist, she laughs, and says that it was renovation and interior design that she and her husband David talked about at the dinner when they first met. – I remember that it was what particularly impressed me; that he was as interested as I was! So the old house by the water became their common and – at least for a long time yet – last renovation project. This year it’s basically finished. – Now I can devote myself to small home fixing that I like. To dye cloth, for example. It’s nice to have practical work because it is so concrete. I believe this is necessary when one has a more abstract work that you’re not really going to touch. I’m not that creative except when it comes to music, but at home I like to compose with colours, Helen says.
When it’s time go to the bridge it´s a colorful and imaginative moving van that goes. It’s nicely bohemian in purple, moss green and pink with upholstery made of velor, velvet and plush. Home colored pillows and blankets and lots of rugs provides a sense of reuse and redesign. – I really love rag rugs. They are vivid and simple. They create a special atmosphere that I cannot put my finger on. I really like everything that is old, not just furniture and things, but also folk tales and the rustic life.
After Helen’s recent success in the critically acclaimed film role as Karin in “Simon and the Oaks” she enjoys being “completely vacant and outdated.” It´s been only five months since the family’s twins were born, and everything must revolve around them this summer. As an aside to the artistic life, she has also recently entered her husband David’s business idea “Green moving boxes”, a sturdy plastic box that can be reused instead of cardboard boxes. – It´s also connected with my interest in preserving old things. Being aware of your environment makes total sense. We live by no means ascetically at home, but we try to think one step further in all our choices. We are sorting our garbage, sorting our food, recycles and reuses. We switch off lights and nothing is on stand-by. I want to make a statement. The environment concerns me a lot. Rag rugs are one way, moving boxes another, according to Helen, who happily fits with both.
Enjoying the jetty!
FAMILY: Helen Sjöholm, her husband David Granditsky, a five year old and two five months old twins.
LIVE: House with bridge, Nacka
TIPS FOR A GOOD DAY AT THE BRIDGE: Just to be! That’s probably what you should, isn´t it? Where you dream and read!
HOW I PREFER TO DECORATE: With colour and with things that have history. I like old things and I mix in my own unique way.
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