Colour Class #13 — Embracing the Joy of Colour

Photo credit Céline Hallas

For the 13th session of Colour Class, we explore a charming apartment in the historic part of Amager, Copenhagen, filled with natural light and crafted from the finest materials. This home belongs to fashion designer Mathilde Prins, better known as @myrainbowfeeling, her husband Mikkel, and their two young sons.

The goal was to design a space that captures the family’s creativity, playful use of colour, and carefree approach to life. The brief was simple yet imaginative: “What would Pippi Longstocking’s home look like if she lived in 2024 with two children and a husband?”

Join us in this edition of Colour Class as we discover how bold, playful choices can blend seamlessly with a sophisticated home, proving that embracing your inner child can still result in a balanced and grown-up space.

Location: In the old part of Amager, we find this beautiful, classic apartment with stunning natural light, built using the finest materials. This is the home of fashion designer Mathilde Prins, better known as @myrainbowfeeling, her husband Mikkel, and their two young sons.

Mission: The task was to create a home for this young family that reflects their immense creativity, playful love of colour, and a certain dose of a happy-go-lucky attitude to life. In many ways, the brief was: "What would Pippi Longstocking’s home look like if she had grown up, was living in 2024 with two children and a husband on Amager?”

Colours: For this colour project, we began with a blank canvas, as the apartment was completely renovated when Mathilde and Mikkel took over. This gave us the chance to play with every surface in the home. In this Colour Class, we dive into the colour choices for the living room – a space not only used for dining and cosy evenings on the sofa but also as a link to the former hallway and entrance. With this layout, many of the room's colours had to meet here, and there weren’t always obvious places to begin or end the respective colours. After much consideration, we decided to give all the walls a base colour and instead focus on playing with colours in the details. The base colour chosen was a creamy white, from which we began to layer additional colours.

We started with quite a statement ceiling – a bold, deep pink reflecting the family’s playful life while presenting as a mature choice. To highlight and define the beautiful bay window, we painted everything a mid-tone pink, though with the same cool undertone as the ceiling. More colour splashes were added in the form of red and brown tones for the storage cabinets, which house both practical and beautiful items. A brown sofa was introduced, along with an orange dining table, and a green chair. An ongoing dance between bold, vibrant colours and brown tones was used to balance the brightness.

Layer by layer, this modern-day Pippi Longstocking home took shape, until we thought we were finished – but we weren’t. After the family had lived in their newly renovated apartment for some time, there was a need to add another layer. This time, the wish was to add wallpaper to what was originally the hallway, which would also tie into the living room’s aesthetic. The choice landed on Josef Frank’s playful ‘Paradise’ print, where fish, birds, flowers, and berries coexist. Just like the pattern itself, the wallpaper is also playful in its colours, but the striking red ties it all together with the other red details already present in the living room.

The lesson this time has been to embrace your inner child. It’s perfectly possible to make bold colour choices without compromising on the feeling of a grown-up home. Furthermore, the living room serves as a great example that the decorating process isn’t always complete when you think it is – and that’s perfectly okay. The feeling of home is something you build up over time.