Houzz Tour: Pastels and Greys Take Over This Family Home

Photos by Camilla Skøtt

House at a Glance
Who lives here: Visual merchandiser Trine Rødsgaard, her husband and their two children
Location: Assentoft, a small town outside Randers, Denmark
Size: 145 square metres (about 1,560 square feet)
Year of construction: 2008

Not all decor works well in a detached house with a classic layout. Old, heavy furniture stands out too much, bare walls are no good, and too much design can be impersonal. What a house like this needs is a good mixture of colour and artwork on the walls, soft furniture and personal trinkets. At least, this is how Rødsgaard approached her home’s decor.

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“My husband often says it’s like staying at a hotel, because the rooms are changing all the time,” Rødsgaard says.

The couple found that one of the advantages of a relatively new house is that there is no need to do much renovation work.

“The house was new when we bought it,” Rødsgaard says. “We moved here from Holstebro because my husband got a new job. We sold our old house in just three weeks, so we had to act fast to find something new.”

“My requirement was that it had to be new, because we are by no means do-it-yourself people. Here, there was nothing we had to do and the house met our needs in terms of number of bedrooms, an eat-in kitchen and a good living room. In fact, we didn’t have to make any compromises buying this house,” Rødsgaard says.

The house is no longer all alone: The vacant lots around it have since been built up with homes, and Rødsgaard and her husband like their neighbours.

It was Rødsgaard’s husband who found the house, and he thought she wouldn’t be willing to live so far out of the city.

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“I said, ‘We absolutely, without a doubt, have to take it,’” Rødsgaard says with a laugh. Both of them were initially nervous about moving to an unfamiliar city, but it went well, and the family quickly felt at home.

This way, Rødsgaard has the chance to unleash some creativity while she gives the house new life again and again.

Except when spending time with her family, however, Rødsgaard rarely has a chance to lie on the couch. On days off, she takes care of things around the home. There are always fresh flowers to be arranged, and she has a garden shed full of decor trinkets that she switches up according to her mood. It’s a very smart way to renew the decor without spending a lot of money, although Rødsgaard admits that she also likes to shop for new things for the home.

Sometimes they also work on bigger projects. Right now, Rødsgaard wants a new vanity top for the bathroom, and a couple of years ago, she finally got her husband to put subway tiles in the kitchen.

“We had a semicircular backsplash plate on the wall behind our stove, which I had never been excited about,” Rødsgaard says. “I really wanted tiles, so I researched how to do it, made detailed instructions and bought the materials, so it was all ready by the time [my husband] was finally persuaded. When he was, it was just about getting down to work.”

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However, Rødsgaard rarely has to persuade him. She can change things more or less as she wishes, and he appreciates that she makes the house lovely.

Although there are colours on the walls and in parts of the decor, Rødsgaard has a very firm view on the use of colour in her home:

“I’m quite black-and-white in my decor, and it’s not because I do not like colour. I think it’s great and bold when people decorate with colour, and I’ve tried it myself, but it didn’t work out. I need peace when I step into my home, so I decorate in the tones that I do. They make the rooms peaceful,” Rødsgaard says.

“Good decor is also about being true to oneself, and that’s how I am with the style and colours I have here at home. They are very me,” she says.

Rødsgaard made the highly embellished calendar pictured here.

In the end, for Rødsgaard good decor is about having a nice time at home: Her decor is certainly exactly as she wants it. A couch or chair can be quite smart, but if it does not radiate coziness or is not practical, then it will not fit in here. Things should not only look nice but also work, and although Rødsgaard is interested in decor, for her the home is, first and foremost, a place for her family.

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