Obsessed with Swedish Design

My ethnic roots are showing.

As I gear up for Passover this year, buying some new dishes to accommodate the insanely large crowd we'll be hosting, I keep getting obsessed with the idea of redecorating.

We are already in the middle of re-covering the dining room chairs, which, thanks to the toddler, are no longer cream but sporting a Jackson-Pollockesque treatment. Not really my thing. (Don't worry, I made him a red Thomas-the-Train cover to prevent reoccurence on the new look.)

The new fabric for the chairs (greyish-blue) and my plan to strip and stain them white, to match our older cafe chairs, got me thinking about drapes. Long simple ones, in a pale greyish blue. And painted furniture. And new pictures for the walls. And, before I knew it, I realized where I was going:

Gustavian design (Swedish country dolled up for the city-dwellers).

For example:

Isn't this great? Can't you imagine sitting here and having a leisurely scone and cup of coffee, with no children to interrupt you or job you have to go to? (I'm pretty sure those perks come with the look. As does the butler who brings your scone and coffee.)

In the next shot, I think the chairs actually have the same fabric we have on the old cafe chairs. Ours, however, are re-habilitated remnants from a coffee shop that Bad Cohen bought on sale shortly before we met. I re-did those (they used to have turquoise plastic covers) about eight years ago.

Something about the pale, painted wood and chandeliers says, "Hell no, you don't have to scrub the bathtub today!" This particular layout also comes with a maid who will keep all the toy cars and trains neatly put away in the separate children's wing.

And really, is that too much to ask?