A new house that cherishes the old: seven kids, a church pew, and a 100-year-old floor
It doesn’t take much to set the mood, even if this busy entrepreneurial couple leaves Christmas prep to the last minute. The kids get to decorate two trees, and the forest around the house is a treasure trove for evergreen decorations.
For Elina, the best thing about the lofty living room–kitchen is the atmosphere. “Cushions and the large wool rug make lounging on the floor irresistible. Even though the ceiling is high, the acoustics are great. The white corrugated metal ceiling dampens sound incredibly well.” Audo Copenhagen’s Dancing pendant is made from recycled plastic bottles. The wool rug is from the Swedish online shop Mattor.se. The brushed and waxed oak parquet, imported from Norway, is by Tremiljø.
residents Entrepreneurs Elina, 41, and Lauri Vähäjylkkä, 41, and children Frans, Ralf, Rudolf, Clara, Olga, Magdalena and Roy and Tenho the cat. Instagram: @elina_vahajylkka and @pihatehdas.
home Kannustalo’s Lato model from 2014 in Ylöjärvi, Finland. The home is 216 square meters (about 2,330 square feet).
A clear vision of a dream home started to take shape for Elina while the family was still renting a compact rowhouse in Tampere. When she described her dream home to a colleague, they tipped her off to Kannustalo’s Lato model. The pared-back, dark-toned house with its shutters felt like the perfect shell for the family’s dream. And so the Vähäjylkkä family built a modern home with an old soul in the rural landscape of Ylöjärvi, Finland.
In this home with seven children you’ll find rugged brick surfaces, old wooden interior doors, and upstairs a hundred-year-old plank floor originally from the Näsilinna palace in nearby Tampere. The couple knew they’d succeeded when visitors weren’t quite sure whether they’d stepped into an old house or a new one.
Elina removed what she felt were unnecessary, unattractive legs from the vintage leather sofa she found on the Tori online marketplace. The wall lamp is Lampe de Marseille by Nemo Lighting. The painting is Elina’s own. She DIYed the coffee table from an old crate. Make a similar tiled table with our tutorial!
Most of the home is furnished with secondhand finds—Elina loves flea markets and antique shops. When the home needs a new piece of furniture or a light, she always looks pre-owned first. Almost all of the newer design pieces were found used as well. To Elina, the old and timeworn looks its best alongside something modern and in good condition. The couple also builds furniture themselves when they can’t find what they want ready-made.
“When you know your style well, you don’t make missteps—everything you bring in works together,” Elina says.
This year Elina used lots of evergreens in her decorating. Designed by Thomas Heatherwick, the playful Magis Spun chair was an online flea-market find. “You can rock side to side and even spin all the way around. It’s incredibly comfortable to sit in.” The wooden lounge chair came from an Instagram thrift sale. A mason built the open fireplace with a concrete plaster finish to Elina’s design to bring in ambiance. Wool rug, Mattor.se.
The wall behind the piano is plastered, just like the fireplace. Thanks to the interior window, light reaches the kitchen, while any mess stays out of sight from the living room. The family’s most unforgettable Christmas gift was their own child’s recovery from a difficult surgery that took place on December 23. That year the house wasn’t fully dressed for Christmas, but the couple realized the holidays can be perfect with far less effort.
Elina chooses Christmas flowers by feel. Sometimes they’re traditional; other times she turns them into modern arrangements.
“Our yearly Christmas tradition is small surprise bags for the kids under the tree on Christmas Eve morning.”
Elina wanted a touch of ruggedness in the kitchen, so the couple clad a section of the wall with antique brick. The brick was too red for Elina’s taste, so she skim-coated part of it. For the DIY island on casters, Elina chose a concrete countertop. “During parties, the island is usually somewhere else. We always make the home’s big, heavy furnishings movable because it expands how we can use them.” The statue and candleholders are from flea markets. The minimalist candle chandelier above the island is Senja Lehtola’s design. The Afteroom bar stools are by Audo Copenhagen.
A window was added to the kitchen partition wall and made with textured glass. An important family Christmas tradition is eating rice porridge on gold-rimmed Arabia plates. They’re used only at Christmas. The candelabra is by Star Trading.
The kitchen island was designed by Elina and built by Lauri—like so much else in this house. It was originally rough-sawn wood until Elina grew tired of it and tiled it.
“We always make the home’s big, heavy furnishings movable because it expands how we can use them.”
Lauri built the dining table using old structural logs from a demolished house. The salvaged bench is originally a church pew. “I didn’t see any need to restore it,” Lauri says. Next to the bench is Hay’s About a Chair, opposite sits Vitra’s Panton chair, and at the end an Ikea junior chair.
There’s a second Christmas tree, decorated by the kids, in the upstairs landing. The open space has served as a play area, and now also as a sleeping spot for the family’s youngest. Elina divided the large room into zones with bookshelves. The hundred-year-old plank floor once belonged to the Näsilinna palace in Tampere. It was headed for the dumpster, but a site foreman they know offered it to them. Roy’s bed and the Artek stools are secondhand finds. Wool rugs, H&M Home.
When the narrow drawing desk Lauri made needed more surface area, Elina extended it with Ikea tabletop pieces and tiled them in white. The school chair in the girls’ room, the other furniture, and most of the decor are secondhand finds. Bed linens, Ikea. Rattan headboard, H&M Home.
The kids choose the tree ornaments, which usually include their crafts and even stuffed animals.
Even though the busy entrepreneurial couple leaves most Christmas prep to the last minute, they start setting the mood early: paper stars go up in the windows in November, and they bring the tree home before the first Sunday of Advent. The bedside table in the parents’ room is an old potato crate. Bed linens and the paper star are from Granit. The lamps are Zara Home, and the vase is H&M Home.
“Elina made a massive entryway mirror from mirror tiles and an oversized wreath on an old hula hoop.”
Elina wanted a massive mirror near the entry. Inspired by an idea on Pinterest, she assembled it from Ikea mirror tiles and applied tinted film on top. At Christmas, the mirror is adorned with an oversized evergreen wreath Elina made on a base of the kids’ old hula hoop. The old shopping cart found at a flea market has always been a favorite toy of the littlest ones.
The bathroom vanity top is live-edge birch finished with black wood wax. The walls are coated with renovation mortar and a wet-room compound. The marble sink is handmade by Gemlook. The ceiling light is Lantern by New Works. The mirror is from Ikea.
In the office–atelier of the couple’s joint company Pihatehdas, the olive trees spend the winter there; in summer they thrive on the terrace. To Elina, the studio’s little olive grove, with grow lights, suits the creative interior perfectly. The desk chair is a flea-market find.
The large lot is a creativity lab for the couple, who run a yard and garden design–build business—they try all sorts of ideas there. Bordering the forest, the property includes not only a yard and kitchen garden but also a natural wildflower meadow, rocky outcrops, and boggy woodland. “The yard is an extension of our interiors. There, too, we test different solutions, drawing on nature, reuse, and our know-how.”
The Vähäjylkkä family’s detached house in Ylöjärvi is 216 square meters (about 2,330 square feet).
