Custom cushions for Swedish summer cottages, apartments and boats

33 hours of December sun, 279 in July

SMHI's normals for Stockholm give 33.4 hours of sunshine in December and 279.5 in July. Daylight runs from about six hours in late December to more than eighteen in late June.

The north is colder. Kiruna averages 7°F (−13.9°C) in January; Stockholm's January days reach about 34°F (1°C).

In winter a cushion has an easy life: low light, dry heated rooms. Summer is the test. Long evening sun through a south or west window fades the top face and leaves the bottom as it was. Turn and rotate a window seat cushion at Midsummer; the Pattern on window seat fading explains why.

Rain is modest, about 21.5 in (546 mm) a year in Stockholm. The quieter risk is a cushion left out in the dew, then packed away damp.

Red cottages that stay closed all winter

In 2002 about 55% of Swedes said they had access to a summer house, and about 20% owned one. Around 2007 there were roughly 680,000 of them.

Many are painted Falu red, an iron-oxide pigment from the copper mine at Falun. It went onto wooden buildings in the 17th century to look like brick, and it stayed because it protects wood from weather.

Inside: a kitchen bench, a daybed, a window seat, bunks. Outside: garden chairs, the terrace, the dock. All of it waits through winter in a cold, closed house.

That is the season that decides how long a cottage cushion lasts. Closing-day advice is the same as for the Finnish mökki and the Great Lakes cottage.

Deep windows in the city, jetties in the archipelago

If your window reveal is deep enough to sit in, it is a window seat. Measure the depth at both ends; old walls are rarely square. Keep the cushion low. Height is a feeling, and in a small room 2 to 3 in (5 to 7.5 cm) feels calmer than 10. See how to measure a window seat and the window seat hub.

A daybed often does a sofa's work. Cover sets for the Hemnes daybed come with backrests for daytime sitting.

Then the balcony: small, and windier than it looks. Seat pads with ties in outdoor acrylic, and a shelf indoors for the night.

The Stockholm archipelago has slightly over 24,000 islands, islets and skerries, about 50,000 holiday homes, and a summer full of private boats.

A dock bench cushion lives in spray, dew and wind off open water. Outdoor acrylic, a tie at each back corner, inside at night. Water-repellent sheds a shower; it is not waterproof. On a boat, every berth is its own shape: trace it and write every side on the template. See the boat cushion hub and V-berth templates.

Pale rooms, one line of color

A buyer in Sweden ordered a 23.5 x 55 in (60 x 140 cm) bench cushion, 5 in (12.5 cm) thick. After ordering, they saw that the fabric looked cream in a listing photo and gray-blue on the chart. Listing photos are shot under warm light. The workshop sent real photos, and the buyer changed fabric before production.

Nordic light is cool. It pulls beige toward gray. So judge swatches at a window at noon, not under a lamp. The Pattern on screen versus daylight covers it.

For the body, something pale and warm: oat, birch white, stone. For the piping, one color from outside. Falu red. Archipelago blue. Moss.

Six hours of light in December. Eighteen in June. A pale cushion holds both.