Michael Gruzuk and Carolina Soderholm are used to the bustle of kids, both their own and their neighbourhood's, passing through their kitchen. "Our house is Villa Villekulla," says Soderholm of their Parkdale home in Toronto's west end. "No one knows what that is, honey," interjects Gruzuk, although Soderholm disagrees, "They do! You know Pippi Longstocking? It's the house on the street that all the kids come to. That's us."
Iittala Origo serving bowl, $128 from Studio Brillantine (studiobrillantine.com).
Gruzuk, a senior director at CBC News, and the Swedish-born Soderholm, a partner and creative director at creative studio Field Trip & Co., landed at their current address in 2012. Their favourite room, the kitchen, was among the couple's first projects – and a high-priority one. "This is the centre of operation with kids and all the neighbourhood kids are always in this kitchen. You need it to be high-performing," Gruzuk says.
They enlisted the help of a neighbour and architect to open up the space, install custom IKEA cabinetry so most items were within easy reach for their daughters, Calla and Rio, ages 14 and nine, and add special touches such as a lit alcove with Cole & Son wallpaper. "It's so lovely to have a view of something while you're working in the kitchen, so this is our fake window into the woods," Soderholm says. Another alcove and workstation features a floral watercolour wallpaper from Anthropologie. "We like a minimalistic aesthetic, of course," says Soderholm, "but it has to have personality and a story to it."
The stories come in the form of meaningful items gathered over the years. Copper pots are from a childhood summer home in Finland, delivered by Soderholm's parents in a suitcase ("like Mary Poppins, out they came, one after the other," she says). A watercolour by Yellowknife artist Alison McCreesh called The Commute was picked up by Gruzuk en route to an assignment in the Arctic. And a pair of framed 1970s surveillance photos, a prized possession, were taken by Gruzuk's father, a narcotics officer, while on stakeout.
Beyond these heirlooms, old and acquired, the space is outfitted with design objects both Canadian and Swedish in origin. The turned-wood candlesticks are from Kokito, a favourite shop in Bloomfield, Ont., that, according to Gruzuk, has "got this Canadian nostalgia vibe that is so trendy now, which I love, but mixed with this clean-lined Scandinavian look that is so Carolina." Iittala and Moomin are favourite household names. Mugs by the former, a Finnish design brand, are given a place of prominence in the alcove. Books featuring Tove Jansson's beloved Moomins, troll-like characters that graduated from comic strips to cutlery and even themed cafés in Hong Kong, are tossed about but always close at hand. The wooden horse, perched in the transom window, is a Dalahast – an iconic symbol for the Swedes. "I overcompensate because I live so far away from home," Soderholm says. "I'm gung-ho at trying to influence everything we do with some Swedishness. It makes me feel like I have a piece of home with me."
Moomin Friendship serving bowl by Arabia, $47.60 (U.S.) from Moomin (shop.moomin.com).
"I say [to the kids], Mommy was born in a meadow and raised by baby ponies," Gruzuk says. But the pair feel lucky to be where they are, in their own Villa Villekulla by way of King Street West. "[This street] is truly special. The neighbours know each other and sit on their front porches and say hello in the morning," she says. That may not be meadows and baby ponies-bucolic, but for downtown Toronto, it's still pretty delightful.
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