There are some types of houses that instantly grab our covetous nature; mews houses, Scottish castles and further afield, those all-too-charming Swedish red cottages. The UK may have the market share of lovely crumbly cottages but there is something truly appealing about the red-painted, white-trimmed, wood-clad cottages you find in the Scandinavian countryside. It's a rather brick-coloured red, which is where the origins of this now iconically Swedish building lie (supposedly, if you ask a Swedish child to draw a house, they will always colour it red).
“There are few things more Swedish than a red wooden house with white corners and a yellow door," confirms textile designer Cathy Nordström. "I think most Swedes can recollect a sommarstuga (summer house) that has in some way been part of their childhood," she continues, “whether it be their own house, a friend’s summer house or the barns/dormitories at summer camp. For a short period of time, my husband and I actually owned our own little red sommarstuga one hour north of Stockholm. It was called Lilla Bockbol and looked exactly how you would imagine it. The most picturesque little house situated amongst green fields with cows roaming outside. These red houses are just as frequent in the countryside as in the archipelago and the mountains.”
The history of the colour “stems back to the 1500s, pretty amazing!” details Cathy. Known as ‘Falu’ red (as the specific paint comes from the Falun copper mine in Sweden, on which more later) it gained popularity in the 16th century when the then King of Sweden ordered that the castle in Stockholm be painted in Falu red (or Falu Rödfärg in Swedish) to mimic the grand brick buildings of the Dutch, which were extremely popular with European royalty and stately families at the time. However, Falu red was not then in production to the mass market and it wasn't until the 20th century that things truly ramped up and the red paint became synonymous with the Swedish countryside.
For historical context, the 1900s saw Stockholm rents become the highest in Europe, forcing many out to the countryside. A bill in 1904 provided loans for people to build their own country houses, provided they were working class and sober, and this is when red exploded throughout Sweden's countryside. It simply became the colour that everyone painted their houses, its popularity having passed down the classes across the centuries with real staying power.
Falu red is more than simply an aesthetic choice, however. The Falun copper mine is where the original Falu Rödfärg paint comes from and it is created using a waste byproduct from the copper mining process. Without getting too scientific, a mass of red dust was created in the heating and cooling of the ore, and legend has it that someone dug out a wooden pole that had been lying in the pile of dust for a long time to find that it has no signs of rot or ageing. The reason for this is that iron and copper in the dust act as a preservative and fungicide respectively, meaning Falu red paint (created by mixing the dust with linseed oil and rye flour) is a brilliant natural way to treat the wood of cottages while also imbuing it with vivid colour. Of course, modern paints now have been developed with these properties but the key difference with the real thing is that it does not create a watertight seal, meaning there are no mould issues associated with it.
It's pretty much the best exterior paint out there; it preserves the wood, lets it breathe and you don't have to strip and sand it back to repaint it. All homeowners need do is brush off loose pigment and dirt and reapply the paint. There is one issue with the now iconic copper-based paint: it is not an endless resource and the mine estimates that there is somewhere between 80 and 150 years worth of rödmull (the red dust dye) left. Of course, Falu Rödfärg is not the only source of the paint now and there are many imitators, but the depletion of the original, and best, is something of concern.
The influence of these Swedish buildings is widespread, from neighbouring Finland and Norway all the way to the big red barns of America, thought to be a result of a slow but steady Swedish migration to the US. It's an amusing thought that a paint colour used to mimic the grand Gothic palaces and cathedrals of Europe, which trickled its way in popularity from the king to the noblemen, noblemen to priests, priests to soldiers, soldiers to farmers and so on eventually went full circle in becoming some of the most coveted buildings in the world, and a symbol of an entire country. Truly, there are some trends that stand the test of time.
