Line and Jonas were kind enough to let me visit their small allotment garden house (40 m2/430 ft2) in Aarhus. They have used a lot of time and energy renovating the house and have just moved into their home for the summer. Line is very creative and loves decorating and painting. Examples of her work can be seen throughout the house. Furniture and accessories are second hand and upcycled materials mixed with pieces of modern and classic Danish design. You can follow Line on Instagram.
During renovation
The dining table is made of used scaffold boards
The wooden monkey by designer Kay Bojesen is very popular among Danes and can be found in many Danish homes. (Sorry about the bad quality of the photo).
Desk and shelves are made of cheap OSB board and the noticeboard is made from reinforcement mesh
The laptop holder was bought at a secondhand market. Line is not sure what it was used for originally.
The bathroom
An inexpensive way to add some industrial style to your home: place a huge light bulb in a wired basket et voila, a cool lamp.
A clever way to store shoes
The Danish allotment gardens are a concept that started in 1778 and later spread to the other Scandinavian countries; first Sweden, then Norway and Finland.
Today most allotment gardens are on land owned by the municipality which rents the land to an allotment association. The association in turn gives each member a plot of land. To preserve allotment gardens as something that is available for all kinds of people the membership charge is set significantly below what a market price would be. Since allotments are often placed on attractive plots of land, this has led to huge waiting lists for membership in many allotment associations.
Although the main purpose of the allotment is gardening, most allotment gardens have a pavilion built in them. These pavilions can range in size from an old rebuilt railway car to a small summer house. Many people grow so fond of their allotment gardens that they live there the entire summer. In most cases, however, members are not allowed to live there the entire year.
In 1904 there were about 20,000 allotment gardens in Denmark. 6,000 of them were in Copenhagen. During the interwar years the number of allotment gardens grew rapidly. In 2001 the number of allotment gardens was estimated to be about 62,120. (Thank you Wikipedia!).
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