That’s not to say the house didn’t need work. The previous owner, who has become a good friend and regularly pops in to check on the garden, had lived there for decades and had made few changes in recent years. Bodil and her two children, now in their teens, decamped to the basement for a year while the main three floors were rewired, replumbed and straightened out. ‘All the ceilings and floors were crooked,’ she says, explaining that everything was restored as carefully as possible to ensure none of the character was lost.
With the building work done, Bodil could start bringing personality into the house, which began with the art. She started her career in the art world – it was while sourcing pieces for people’s homes (which she still does) that she decided to move into interior design – and has accumulated an impressive collection over the years, including works by Keith Tyson and Damien Hirst.
An old butcher’s block sourced through an antique dealer is complemented by kitchen cabinetry in a rich chocolatey brown. The units are repaintable – ‘I’m sure in a few years I’ll decide I want a green kitchen,’ says Bodil – and the moonstone worktops will work well with ant colour. The pendant light is an Italian vintage piece.
Christopher Horwood
Rather than taking inspiration from the art, Bodil focused on creating the right backdrop. ‘If you do your job well as a designer, the art will just melt in,’ she says. ‘I put a lot of the art in the hallway because it’s very neutral, but also because I feel hallways need art.’ She was similarly restrained in the first-floor sitting room, painting the walls in a creamy white to showcase a pair of Keith Tysons, an exquisite chandelier made by Stuart Haygarth using thousands of spectacle lenses, and a mix of furniture old and new. ‘I think there’s a sense of displacement in me that I’ve now lived abroad longer than I lived in Norway,’ says Bodil. ‘So if you look around this room, there’s French, Italian, even Moroccan pieces. I don’t feel my style is purely Norwegian anymore, I like to think it’s more eclectic.’
This shift away from a typical Scandi aesthetic is also reflected in some of her bolder colour choices. If you look up as you walk through the front door, your eye is immediately drawn to the bluey-green gloss that frames the doorway to the study; venture upstairs and you will find a dressing room in the most uplifting yellow. ‘All my houses have had a yellow room,’ adds Bodil. ‘It’s somewhere you can go if you need to feel the sunshine.’
The holiday spirit continues in her bedroom, painted in a warm terracotta inspired by trips to Tuscany and Morocco, while her daughter’s blue bedroom is a homage to island life (specifically the film Mamma Mia). The driftwood-style bedside tables are one of a handful of pieces that Bodil designed for the house, following in the footsteps of her father’s family, who were all furnituremakers. She also designed a few of the fabrics dotted through the house. ‘I was always looking for fabrics I couldn’t find, so I decided the best way to solve this was to make my own,’ she explains.