Just in! Samantha would now like to share photos of their previous apartment - total eye candy. Are you ready to pack everything and relocate to Sweden? Oh you will be. Get a load of this kitchen! The moment I saw it, I thought about Susan Serra, the amazing New York kitchen designer who loves Scandinavian design and how much she'd love cooking up something delicious in this space. I also thought about how much I love Europe and how I miss seeing apartments like this. :)

Things I love: The building architecture overall, the gothic pew seating, all the industrial furniture, white walls, the transoms to die for, and the gorgeous light in the space. This home gives me a very serene feeling - it's a look I love but in reality I realize that my love of color and animal/girl art would eventually take over and I'd add lots of pillows, flowers, and throw rugs. :) So it would be much more girly girl. But Sam and Grant have this editor's eye that I appreciate because I don't think I could have such restraint. Could be a cultural thing as Thorsten's family (my husband) in Germany and some of my Swedish friends live like this, it's part of their upbringing to be more frugal and to purchase things you plan to keep for many years. Plus store return policies aren't nearly as generous, so if you buy it you can't easily return it if it doesn't work. And Craigslist isn't all the rage. Perhaps all the options we have here in America is both bad and good. It makes it much harder to live like this Swedish couple, that's for sure.

Sam and Grant, thank you for all this sharing today on decor8, I'm basking in the glow of all this gorgeousness - oh la love!

(image from Samantha and Grant Nixon)