This 580-Square-Foot Stockholm Apartment Is a Lesson in Patience—and Saved Searches

Erika Owen
·6 min read

Erik Lefvander

Cristina Poelk, the art director at Hem, is the person you want to join you at an apartment walk-through. “Whether it’s for work or something private, I know immediately how I want things to look and feel,” she says. “For my own apartment, I knew exactly where everything had to be—and it’s still the same after nearly four years of living here.” The 580-square-foot home she owns with her husband can be found in Södermalm, a neighborhood in the central island of the city.

Hem furniture—like this cobalt Palo sofa—can be spotted throughout Cristina’s one-bedroom apartment.

“This is a really, really small space,” Cristina says. “When we bought this space, it was already perfectly laid out—an open kitchen connected to the living room that’s accessible to the hallways. It’s almost like one big room with a separate bedroom, a walk-in closet, and a tiny bathroom.” These details are important to keep in mind when looking at the one-bedroom apartment, which feels immensely bigger than it is. “There’s no space to grow here, but it’s good for this time in our life. Every room has its perfect purpose.”

“I’m very drawn to a primary color palette—not only yellow, red, and blue but also clear greens, oranges, and bright pinks. I don’t want muddled colors,” Cristina explains.

CRISTINA POELK

“I’m very drawn to a primary color palette—not only yellow, red, and blue but also clear greens, oranges, and bright pinks. I don’t want muddled colors,” Cristina explains.
Erik Lefvander
“If I had more space, I would feel the need to change things up more often—but I really can’t do that,” Cristina says. “I’m almost happy that I don’t have that wiggle room.”

CRISTINA POELK

“If I had more space, I would feel the need to change things up more often—but I really can’t do that,” Cristina says. “I’m almost happy that I don’t have that wiggle room.”
Erik Lefvander

The home has a history with palpable signs of previous life—for example, there are patches of stone where ovens used to heat rooms before radiators were a thing. “I’d like to get a historian in at some point because they must have planned the apartment for very specific purposes,” Cristina says. “I like the contrast between modern living and very, very old. I like to feel the history of the house and furnish it with very modern-looking things.” Cristina’s definition of modern is loose, though, allowing for classics like the Wassily chair and Flos lighting to make a statement on the space. “Those will always be with me,” she says, noting that she doesn’t mind if the process of finding new things takes time. “At some point, you see a new table or a new lamp and think, This is absolutely fantastic design. You just spend a lot of time on inspirational platforms that you might source from using saved searches—it can take years and then it starts popping up on eBay or whatever. And if I still love it then, I know it will be a lifelong love story. When I get something new, I almost have ‘in love’ feelings for it.”

“Even the electrical outlets were so well placed—it was obvious where things needed to be. It all fell into place pretty immediately,” Cristina says.

CRISTINA POELK

“Even the electrical outlets were so well placed—it was obvious where things needed to be. It all fell into place pretty immediately,” Cristina says.
Erik Lefvander

When it comes time to talk favorites, Cristina can’t entirely bring herself to call out single items. “I pride myself most with the curation of all my little things coming together—the balance of material, shape, and color,” she says. “It’s a balance of chunky texture versus cold and shiny metal, a feeling of eclecticism. Weirdly enough, even if you feel like, Oh, I don’t know if this is a good fit, it always comes together because it has a personal signature.” When pushed just a little bit, she does reveal one of her most precious (and recent) finds: a bedframe, a vintage design by IKEA from Knut Hagberg called the Kromvik. “I had it shipped from Malmo, but it turned out that the bedframe was designed to upsell one of the mattresses that IKEA made—and it’s a mattress that they don’t make anymore.” It became a labor of love, sourcing a new mattress that fit the chrome frame’s dimensions. “The work makes me love going to bed even more—it’s an example of one of the treasures I will love for a very long time.”

“I’ve always wanted it,” Cristina says of the massive Uno, La Mela poster by Enzo Mari for Danese Milano in her kitchen. “That wall next to the hood has the exact dimensions of this poster, plus a little bit of wiggle room. It’s almost like this poster was designed for the wall.”

One space that brings a bit of the cold and shiny vibes is the kitchen, a part of the home that has long been a focal point of Cristina’s life. “I spend the most time in here,” she says. “When people come over, we always end up in the kitchen; it’s always been like that in my family. We love to cook and eat and gather everyone up.” To equip the heart of the home, she looks abroad. “I love industrial kitchen spaces and tools—and the first thing I always do when I go to New York is visit the industrial kitchen stores. We don’t have those in Europe.”

The perfect layout of the home was the one reason the couple went all in on the space. “We just had to find items that fit the apartment perfectly,” Cristina says.

CRISTINA POELK

The perfect layout of the home was the one reason the couple went all in on the space. “We just had to find items that fit the apartment perfectly,” Cristina says.
Erik Lefvander

While many things in Cristina’s home have come from a lot of patience and more than a few saved searches, one piece of iconic art, in particular, seemed to fall into her lap: a vintage print of Vitra’s Chair Collection posters. “That was purely an accidental find,” she shares, after spilling that she paid a handful of dollars for it after finding it rolled up and crinkled at a basement sale. “Everyone who comes to my home, especially kids, spends half an hour in front of it. I love that exposure to design, especially for people who don’t work in the design world—you can see the chair designs changing throughout the century.” This piece lives on the wall among favorites from Hem X, a branch of the company that Cristina built up with a colleague to create limited-edition art in collaboration with curators, designers, and artists. “I feel more for these art pieces because I’ve seen them come to life; it’s sentimental for me to look at them.”

The home has the intention of curation that’s always existed just so—but Cristina is the first to admit that life is long, and style has phases. “If we had met eight or nine years ago, everything would have been black, white, or grey—that was the Swedish minimalist style wave back then and I loved it,” she says. “Now, I don’t ever want to go back. It’s like looking through your parents’ photobook from the ’80s—like, ‘How could you wear that?’ ‘Well, it was the ’80s.’ I get that now that I’ve lived long enough to see myself go through certain phases. I think it’s charming.”

The vintage IKEA bedframe is one of Cristina’s greatest finds: “The bedframe was one of those three-year-long Saved Searches.”

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

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