We found some great finds in Stockholm at the Stadsmission while we were waiting for our boat to Helsinki. We haven’t had as much luck as we’d thought while we’ve been on this trip, so this was a rare occurrence.

I picked up a beautiful ceramic Fox, designed by Lisa Larson in 1955 for Gustavsberg’s Lilla Zoo series. I’ve always wanted one, so I had to pay more than I would have wanted. $60 cringe… I just wanted to have a souvenir from Sweden.

We found a folksy bird candle holder from Denmark, only 2 dollars.

We were especially excited about this 1950s Danish toy by Hans Bolling, only 4 bucks!

What are the odds of finding an Arabia plate the same year as Juli’s birthday? Pretty good apparently since we got this one for around 8 bucks.

Like I said before, thirfting in Scandinavia isn’t what you think… It’s more like this:

This is Jacksons, and this is the reality of vintage in Scandinavia. The showroom was beautiful with some amazing pieces that were so expensive you would think that they would have no business and have to close down.

That glass apple there is designed by Ingeborg Lundin for Orrefors in 1955, it is an extremley rare example and are known to be sold anywhere between $6000 to over $10,000. Maybe if I get an honorary doctrine in Scandinavian design history I’ll treat myself to one of these.

Wowzers, a leather Bruno Mathsson rocking chair, Arne Jacobsen egg chair, and Poul Henningsen artichoke light. How can you afford insurance on a place like this?

My dream dining chair by Poul Kjaerholm, unfortunately at $6000 a piece, (fritz hansen pricing) I will sadly never own even one of these.

This is more our speed! This is the Stockholm Stadsmission, and we went to every one in Stockholm with absolutely no luck. Until we came to the Gamla Stan location (old town). It was raining all week, but the sun came out for our last day in the city.

Really cool Swedish toys, next time we need to bring a bigger suitcase so we can have an excuse to buy things like this. Also, children.

That teak sofa was only $120!

Can you spot the blue Stelton vacuum jug? It was a bit out of our price range at $35.

There seems to be cool art everywhere, but we don’t have the space to lug it around with us.

Last meal: The best Swedish Meatballs in all of Stockholm at Pelikan! (Sorry, we forgot to photograph it before digging in.)

Olso was a bit of a headache at times (like when Juli face planted into a bike lane, spraining her ankle and shredding her knee), but it was by far the best for thrifting. We got some great finds for under $25 bucks.

The scolding grandmother we found for 5 bucks. We’re still trying to find out where it was made, we saw a few of these in Denmark already.

This candle stick was similar to the one in Copenhagen, it has a blue stamp on the bottom and was only $4. It reminds me a little of the Raw Candelabra by Jens Fager. It also could be from a 90s department store, we don’t really care.

This was a really cool plate that features some of Oslo’s iconic areas, it was modestly priced at $12.

chooo chooo!

We found this great canvas organizer for a mere $2, it’s made in Denmark and will definitely come in handy at the cottage.

I love the leather straps…

All of the above items were from a store that is equivalent to Goodwill.

I got my leather on with this vintage bomber jacket, everyone here wears leather jackets! There are even some cool vintage shops that take old leather jackets and repair them, add hoods, and cool purple linings. This jacket was  $100, but it’s hard to find fitted jackets, plus it’s versatile! The fur is easily removed. Also, can I remind you of the cool factor? There’s nothing cooler coming back to Canada with some vintage Norwegian leather.

We took a visit to PurNorsk. If you go to Oslo it is a must visit. Everything here is by a Norwegian designer, right down to their typeface. You can find anything from the Scandia chair to illuminated plastic moose heads (for the outdoors no less).

Utopia is one of Oslo’s best vintage furniture stores, it was highly reccomended so we just had to check it out. There were actually a few great shops along the way that had some wonderful Cathrineholm pieces, that I really should have photographed. Next time!

If you’re in the area the street is called Markveien, in the hip indie Grünerløkka neighborhood.

Lot’s of good stuff here that you won’t find in Canada.

That coffee table was amazing in person, and matched with that leather chair… My god. Those molded birch chairs were also very beautiful, they reminded me of Robin day, but they’re from Denmark.

Eye spy a Quistgaard Pepper mill! It’s so interesting how rare his stuff is in Scandinavia. Dansk products were mostly only shipped to North America, so it felt like these countries were buying their designs back, but at a premium.

I would’ve bought all three of them if I could afford it.

Yay Copco, and Dansk!

All in all Oslo was a great city to visit, small enough to see a lot, but never boring. Unfortunately since we only booked 3 days, we have a few regrets:

Not going to the Fuglen Cafe. We saw it in a copy of Monocle that we picked up at the Toronto airport and completely spaced out. We remembered while we were shopping in Grünerløkka and by the time we remembered and rushed back to our hotel to find out where it was (yes, we checked the newsstand, the new issue was already out), it was closed.

As such, we missed out on the Design & Architecture Museum. We were going to go after Grünerløkka because it closed at 8pm but once back at the apartment, we ran out of time.

Not taking a walk along the river just off of Grünerløkka. Apparently it’s a beautiful walk.

Not eating a traditional Norwegian meal. Even a mediocre meal here would cost $200-300 CAD for the two of us, that’s why we got the apartment.

We’ll see you in Stockholm!

PH 5 lights for about $200 each!

The thrifting here isn’t exactly what we had in mind. We had envisioned store after store of mid-century modern for next to nothing (and sugar plum fairies dancing in the streets). Not so much. Actually, we only came across a couple of kind of sort of affordable mid-century modern shops, otherwise, they are selling it at a premium, or not at all. Oh and it’s not like they have tons of different things on offer here either. Actually, I feel like Rogue Gallery in Toronto has a more diverse and extensive collection of Scandinavian artifacts than they do here!

The one thing they have plenty of is Poul Henningsen lighting. Maybe it’s because it’s in virtually everyone’s home, but you can find the PH lights in many shops.

We picked up these two PH 4 lights for $90 a piece! These things go for $500 minimum on ebay. We came to Copenhagen with the hopes of buying them at a lesser price and we are definitely happy with what we found. Now we just have to get them home without damaging them!

(I’ll have to update later with a store name and location).

Months ago we were coveting a magazine rack on ebay but it was set at the ridiculous price of $350 so we obviously had to let it go. The store was giving it a loose attribution to a french modern designer, but we couldn’t find any information to back it up. The only other image of it was in a midcentury modern book that we have, but even there they make no mention of where it’s from.

Sometimes things are meant to be and I guess if you wait long enough, they pop up in random places for $24! No brainer.

Well we finally got a chance to take a peek at Rogue Gallery’s infamous storage locker (check out StyleNorth’s post here)! The first thing that caught our eye was a set of 5 teak stools.

The whole set was only $5o, that’s only 10 bucks a pop. A similar IKEA version of this sells for $16.99

Stamped made in Denmark, the maker is still a mystery. According to my Scandinavian Design Book, Soren Hansen designed a stool that is strikingly similar.

Here’s the before picture, they were in pretty rough shape, really dry and worn with some staining.

It was a beautiful day outside so I poured a bit of teak oil into a handful of steel wool and starting working at the teak following the grain. The results are pretty amazing, now if we could only do the same with our deck…

Here’s a sneak peak of some of the objects we’ve been collecting for the cottage in our predicable colour scheme of white, blue, red, and black.
I could say that we had a really amazing thrifting adventure
over the long weekend, but…

Finel Heart nesting bowls from Ebay.
Blue Rosti jug from Ebay.
Blue Rosti and Dansk utensils from Rogue Gallery.
Blue Dansk Fondue Set from Ebay.
Black Arabia tea pot from random thrift shop.
Quistgaard cutting board from Ebay.
Red Turkish coffee pot from Value Village.
Porcelain toothbrush holder from Value Village.

It’s taken a couple of months to find all these objects, some of which we’ve been wanting for a long time (especially that Dansk Fondue Pot).

We don’t want to give up the goods just like that, so here are some teasers of the more substantial items we recently got delivered to the cottage over the weekend.

I may have accidentally told a few people what this was out of sheer excitement (you know who you are) please don’t spoil my fun by telling everyone!

I think Juli and I both are especially excited about this find, it’s going to look amazing!

Oh man, you guys are gonna hate us after you see this…

Hope you’re enjoying your Tuesday!

-John-