Swedish home lures you with its cute details, pleases your eyes, and wraps you up in its blankets, but then never lets you go. You fall in love delicately but firmly, and it has nothing to do with IKEA. Houses, which I had pleasure to visit, were not simply light and ample. In each and every one of them you could feel thoughtful and attentive (though not at all scrupulous) owner's regard to it.

Pots and vases with flowers, paintings on the walls, quaint tableware, many different light sources, such as torchieres, tiny lanterns and candles, antique copper utensil, hand-made coverings – that's what you'll find in pretty much every Swedish house. Here, house (and home at the same time) is a status symbol. Germans, for example, consider an automobile to be a status symbol. That is why Swedes spend around 20% of their income on interior design items.

Different sorts of influence are implicated here. First, the country has been living in peace for three hundred years, and therefore home is considered to be something permanent, and many things are hereditary. On top of that, to buy a house on credit is much more profitable than to sign a lease.

Besides, we cannot but mention Swedish writer and feminist Ellen Key, who sorted out the Swedish mode of life by publishing her work entitled 'Beauty for All' (Skonhet for alla) in 1899. This quite thorough instruction with examples and recommendations was reissued several times. Key's main belief was that if each person makes his or her surroundings beautiful, then the life of the society would change for the better as well. It should be pointed out, that Key considered beautiful everything that is practical, beneficial, has a distinct function and expresses its author's identity.