CouCou Katarina Matsson

The portal shelf changes rooms, is moved around and expanded or remodeled for new purposes. That's exactly what we love about them. Today we say CouCou to Katarina Matson, whose shelves have accompanied her through several homes over the years.

Katarina's shelves 1 & 2 have been two incredibly appreciated combinations of the Portal shelf, but that was a while ago. What has happened to them since then?

It's only been five years, but so much has happened, both in our lives and in the world (it's acutally mind blowing). Our shelf 1 has moved to our countryhouse @roslagshuset, it's amazing how it can fit as perfectly in a 50's row house in Stockholm as in a former chapel from 1926 in the Swedish countryside! The former owner was quite a character and left a lot of his stuff, we're slowly working through it, but one thing we've kept is his esoteric library. Those books, on everything from palm reading to lessons to learn from Atlantis, take up almost half the shelf! Our shelf 2 is moving in there too (after first having transformed from bookshelf to wardrobe in our former house) but we haven't installed it yet. We will keep using it as a wardrobe.

Katarina's first shelf and in @roslagshuset

How are the interior design ideas for the new house going?

So, we just downsized to a smaller house in our neighborhood – less square meeters, more freedom! We knew that we wanted our record player to play a central roll in the living room, we might even buy a CD player – it's just such a social and nice way to listen to music. I kept looking for the perfect shelff, until I realized we already had it! There just isn't a smarter storage solution for old school records than the Portal shelf, and the lightness and structure of it fits so well with our new smaller space. The design is distinct, yet discrete, which is perfect for the ”homey gallery” vibe I wanted to create. This time we wanted the shelf in camel, to fit with the color scheme (the walls are the perfect neutral in Greige 01 from Toniton!). I was inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe’s summer house in Abiqueue, and although I've since moved more towards Italian grandma, I love that dirt-ish color scheme. We even painted our kitchen in the same hue!

Buy small bookcase 158 cm Camel

If your Portal shelf could talk, what would it say about life in your home?

I guess our Portal shelves know a little to much about us! Like how messy my underwear drawer is and how seldom we use our duster ... They know where I hide my broken diamond ring, where my phone is when it's lost and what the kids are reading right now. What treasures they dig up in the country side garden, the insane amount of candles we use and what art we like. And that we still haven't plugged in that record player ... I guess they would talk about a somewhat disordered existence, lined with lots of love and laughter.