You’d never guess it’s new! This home exudes 100-year-old charm but was built in the 2000s

When Mia and Hans Ahlskog drove to the Lufolk homestead for the first time, they found an overgrown, brambly garden and half of a home. A massive rowan tree had fallen on top of it, pressing down the roof under its weight. The timeworn outbuildings, such as the granary and root cellar, hinted at the property’s beauty. To their own surprise, the couple decided this was where they wanted to settle.

“The partially demolished house couldn’t be saved, so we tore down what was left. We saved the logs and furniture we found inside. Then we decided to build a new house on the same spot. We had always dreamed of an old house and wanted our new one to fit in with the surroundings and look like it was 100 years old,” Mia explains.

The entire family—Mia and Hans Ahlskog and their children, Ezra and Savannah—on the steps in the early-summer warmth. The children love biking around the property or to a neighboring homestead, where Mia’s sister lives with her family.

The Lufolk homestead was built in 2009 and is located in Lepplax in Ostrobothnia, Finland. The house has five rooms, a kitchen, and an attic, totaling 200 square meters. The elongated house is painted with red ochre paint. The windows with their wide frames are set flush with the walls, imitating the original style. There are many different trees on the homestead, such as birches, bird cherries, lindens, and rowans.

Mia and Hans knew that there had been a house at the Lufolk homestead since the 17th century. They found a photograph of the homestead taken in the early 1900s, which served as the model for the new house. The couple wanted their future home to be a balanced mix of old and new, and they sketched out the plans themselves.

“We wanted the house to exude the original atmosphere, so we drove across Ostrobothnia searching for old doors and floors,” Mia says.

They spent countless hours scraping the reclaimed doors clean and then painted the windows, doors, floors, and molding by hand with linseed and glue paint. The ceiling panels were nailed in place with forged nails.

“Very few professionals are willing to first drill holes for the nails and then hammer them in one by one. Or install a floor whose every plank is a different thickness. Doing the work ourselves was the best solution.”

Mia and Hans had saved the old floor planks and the organically textured window glass from the demolished house that had sat on the property. Even though the window frames of this roughly ten-year-old house are new, they feel ancient thanks to the century-old glass.

“The glass is alive and creates wonderful reflections that only old glass can create,” Mia says.

Hans explains that they wanted a log wall in the house to reinforce the sense of an old home. Therefore, they saved a wall’s worth of logs from the demolished house. Surprises were inevitable.

“We had forgotten to number the logs during the demolition. The numbers would have helped us reassemble them in the correct order. Another surprise was that the floor planks were too short. We had to add extensions in the middle and on the sides to make the floor whole,” Hans says.

Mia rescued the reddish-brown cupboard from falling into disrepair. After restoration, it now holds the family’s kitchen porcelain and large dishes. The Swedish children’s chair was purchased at the Juthbacka market. The rag rugs were custom-ordered from a local artisan.

Mia rescued the Bellmann chair from the landfill and restored it in a workshop.

There are many mismatched chairs around the dining table that Mia built.

The kitchen windows offer views in three different directions. Hans and Mia found the old plate rack on the wall in a chicken coop whose roof had collapsed. The couple got the old porcelain dishes from Hans’s mother. There is a built-in bench under one of the windows.

The couple store items bought at flea markets and auctions, such as old tin boxes, jars, and dried butterflies, in the hall wall cabinet. Mia discovered some of these treasures while she was sourcing items for her shop Lundagård.

The open fireplace is mostly used in winter. The Högfors wood stove is only used occasionally. This impressive ensemble was created by a local mason.

Hans and Mia placed the main living room—or the kitchen—at one end of the house, unlike in traditional Finnish farm layouts, in which the main living room is in the center of the building.

“We used the elongated floor plan of the old house, but avoiding narrow corridors between the rooms was challenging,” Hans says.

Recycling is second nature to Mia, and the house is furnished with old furniture and items. When Mia and Hans examined the outbuildings, they found many old items, such as an 18th-century measuring container used for buying potatoes. The wall cabinet in the entryway was discovered in the summer shed. Mia repaired it on a restoration course. The bedroom dresser was also found in the same spot and has been given new legs to replace the old rotted ones.

“Our house project is lifelong. Building is part of our life. We have no timetable or a completion deadline. Right now, we’re planning to build two bedrooms and a small sitting room in the attic. I’m really looking forward to decorating them,” Mia says.

The couple found the doors in the hallway when they bought the living room floorboards. Mia restored the doors and replaced the window panes with old blown glass. The doors were painted with a combination of Ottosson linseed paint shades.

Enjoying coffee on the glazed porch is deligtful. The couple got furniture was at auctions, and the tablecloth is a flea market find.

After the porch, you enter the hallway. Its wooden floor has been washed with soft soap so that it will only become more beautiful as it ages. The rustic table was found in a maid’s room in the attic of a demolished house. The glass cabinet was restored by Mia and was discovered in the summer shed in the garden.

The upstairs library also serves as Hans’s study. The writing desk Hans built is placed in front of the window to the eye rest on the garden. The chair is a flea market find. Hans also built the fixed bookshelves, which Mia painted green.

The Chesterfield sofa was ordered from Sweden. The photo shows Mia, Hans, and Ezra dressed in old-timey outfits. The 1930s floor lamp was purchased at the Juthbacka market.

The piano in the living room dates from the 1930s. The wallpaper is by Pihlgren and Ritola. The military trumpet is a souvenir from Mia’s trip to Hungary. The couple found the globe, which is originally from a closed-down school in a neighboring village, at the Juthbacka market.

The wallpaper in the upstairs bedroom is ‘Messina Aqua’ by Colefax and Fowler. The couple bought the bed in 2004, around the time they got married. The small door leads to the closet. The door handles date back to the 18th century. The dark cabinet had stood in the summer shed.

The octagonal porch is perfect for afternoon coffee breaks. The window panes are made of old blown glass, which gives their surface a lively feel.