House Dreams 2024

In Trångsund, 10 minutes south of central Stockholm, sits Villa Fritzell, our newly built house. It’s in an environment typical of the Stockholm archipelago; consisting of cliffs, steep mountains, pine trees, and blueberry bushes.

The starting point for the house’s design was to achieve as little impact on nature as possible, to make the most of what the site had to offer.

The result was a house anchored to the rock by pillars, floating freely above the ground in a continuous wooden structure, leaving nature undisturbed. The shape adapts to the terrain and cardinal directions, creating a living space among the treetops, somewhere between mountain and sky. This important connection is visualized in the center of the house, in the form of an open floor structure covered with netting where all parts of the house and nature are experienced simultaneously.

Based on nature and the site’s conditions, we chose to paint our house with Dark Brown Tar. The connection to the surrounding buildings, the brown brick houses, the many pine trees, and the fact that tar comes from nature, as well as its strong ties to the sea, made it an obvious choice.

Tar also has a shade, slight transparency, and luster that no other paints have. For us, it took a summer to paint the house, as we chose a facade with relief that required time and effort. The tar made things easier in many ways, as it was smooth to paint with and easy to touch up.
We are very satisfied with the result and have received many positive comments, which makes us very proud. For us, it has been a tough, fun, and educational journey.
Therese Fritzell & Simon Verstraete, @‌villa_fritzell on Instagram

Custom tar paint blend: Dark Brown Tar 9-L and Brown Tar 0.9-L