Making a Rental Your Own: At Home with Swedish Artist Elisabeth Dunker of Fine Little Day

Elisabeth Dunker refers to herself as an “artist mixing art, craft, and interiors” and a “female health nerd.” In other words, she’s a cyclone of activity. While earning her masters from HDK, the School of Design and Crafts in Gothenburg, Sweden, she started a blog “very intuitively, almost as a sketchbook in public.” That was almost 20 years ago, and Fine Little Day, Elisabeth’s “simple snapshots of life, nature, and the beauty in everyday moment,” has since evolved into an acclaimed Gothenburg design studio that produces elevated everyday goods for the home.

The offerings range from artists’ prints and posters to boldly patterned textiles and bentwood trays. There’s also a Fine Little Day ideas book, which begins: “I like things that are sprawling, mismatched, and fragmentary.” Elisabeth is the brand’s lead designer, creative director, and voice, while her art school friend Ulrika Engberg “steers the boat.” Their motto is “creating, discovering, and spreading the word about art, design, and eco-friendly products since 2007.”

Elisabeth lives with her husband, Dennis Dunker, a highly specialized physician (he’s a neurointerventionalist), in an apartment in Gothenburg that they settled in eight years ago after their daughter and son were grown. It’s a two-bedroom with enough space for the family to gather, two grandchildren now included. But since it’s a rental, “a lot of it isn’t what we would have chosen,” Elisabeth tells us. “Still, we couldn’t tear out things that work, so instead, we made small changes and learned to live with the rest.” Join us for a look at how Elisabeth did far more than just settle.

Photography by Elisabeth Dunker, courtesy of Fine Little Day (@finelittleday).

Above: The apartment is in a turn-of-the-19th-century building with two apartments per floor. The landlord appears to be very permissive, perhaps because he knows and trusts Elisabeth’s work. Elisabeth, in turn, invested strategically in the space because she and Dennis plan to stay a while. In the shared hallway, she removed the existing “plastic flooring” to reveal the original wooden floorboards.

“We painted the hall floor ourselves even though our carpenter advised against it,” she confesses. “He said it would look dirty and he was right. In hindsight, I wish we had simply kept the raw wooden floor underneath.” The train-style coat rack is vintage.

Above: Their 1960s Swedish settee came with its velvet upholstery. The Fine Little Day Simply Lifting linen wall hanging over the mirror is Elisabeth’s tribute to the benefits of weight training (on her Instagram, @elisabethdunkerr,  she often shares her fitness routines for other “hormone cliff divers”). Above: The living room came with its herringbone floor and Elisabeth added the William Morris wallpaper and a Hay Rice Paper Light. The Mags sectional sofa is also from Hay (in velvet because “it’s durable and ages beautifully”) and the Berry Rain wool rug is by artist Evelina Kroon for Layered.

Dennis bikes to work at a nearby hospital year-round and Elisabeth bikes to an outdoor gym.

Above: A self-portrait by Elisabeth with her beloved Boston terrier, Ulla. She and Dennis, she says, are “deeply into music—we are omnivorous listeners.” They had a carpenter build their plywood cubes, which function as “both storage and tables.” The speaker is the MiniPod from Scandyna. Above: The dog’s gear is kept near the entry in an antique Swedish chest. The wallpaper is Morris & Co’s Chrysanthemum Toile. Elisabeth and Dennis recently built a little country retreat and the mirror is the only piece she was able to salvage from the wrecked house that once stood on their property. Above: The kitchen received the most interventions. “We removed a plastic floor mat and kept the wooden subfloor even though it was quite raw and unfinished,” begins Elisabeth.

She also added Hudiksvalls Teater, a late 19th century pattern from Duro Wallpaper “found during the restoration of Hudiksvall Theatre in 1972; it really changed the atmosphere of the room.” As did the Verner Panton VP7 Flowerpot pendant hanging over the table.

Above: The butcher block counters are another of Elisabeth’s additions to “warm the space,” as are the long wooden cabinet pulls (from Vedum Kök & Bad) that replaced “plastic made to imitate metal—incredibly uncharming.” As for their landlord’s response? “He saw what we’d done and was friendly about it, didn’t say much, really, so I’m taking that as approval.” Above: The fridge is “unapologetically American-sized.”The cabinets were already painted white and left as is. The tablecloth is “old Ikea designed by by Ingela Håkansson. Above: What had once been a maid’s room off the kitchen is now the grandchildren’s area furnished with kid-size vintage bentwood. The art view includes a black and white Gas poster by Ekta, ships by Jockum Nordström, and a black piece by Elisabeth. Above: “I found it secondhand and love it deeply,” says Elisabeth of the three figures weaving hanging over the kids’ room peg rail. “Urban Outfitters did a kind of homage to that wall hanging about 15 years ago in a collaboration with me.” Above: The star attractions in Elisabeth and Dennis’s room are a pair of hand-stitched quilts that she bought on Facebook Marketplace—the seller had purchased them in the US in the 1980s. “I liked the idea of using one as a kind of textile headboard,” says Elisabeth. “It felt natural next to the bedspread, almost like extending the softness upward.” Above: Elisabeth hangs clothes that are in heavy rotation in an Ikea Elvarli open closet of powder-coated aluminum. She keeps the rest in the guest room and Dennis has a wardrobe in the hall. Above: The two bedrooms are at opposite ends of the living room and both have what Elisabeth describes as “orange-lacquered wooden floors” that she considered sanding but ended up keeping as is. “A lot of the character comes from textiles—rugs, cushions and fabrics that soften the spaces and tie the rooms together.”

The wooden futon platform is Danish brand Karup’s Japan Bed. The checked pillows are Fine Little Day’s Field Cushion Covers and the rug is an old Ikea design.

Above: Find a similar Chrome Commercial Folding Garment Rack at The Container Store—and consider adding your own basketball.

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