The author visited a Hembygdsgården, where they were most impressed by the interior decorations, especially the carefully made textiles and artwork, which showed the time and energy spent beautifying their home despite their busy work schedules. While homes got dirty easily in the past, people still decorated with textiles and paint, demonstrating how important creating a beautiful environment has always been to humans and why we continue spending time and money on home decor today.

1. Painting by Winter Carl Hansson, The queen of Saba, 1801.
On the visit to Hembygdsgården the most memorable thing for me was the interior,
especially the textiles and the artwork. They were very beautiful and carefully made, you
could see how much time and energy they must have spent on decorating their house.
Similar to how we live today, the interior is very important. Given that people in the past
had to spend more time working with animals and doing other tasks, there was not much
time left to create beautiful homes. Even though the rooms got easily dirty from the smoke
in the fireplace and the furniture got worn out they still put time into creating textiles and
colors to paint with.
To me that's proof enough on how important it is to us humans to surround ourselves with
beautiful environments. I mean, why did they even bother decorating? What is it that makes
us humans so concerned about our home? Why are we spending so much time and today
also a lot of money on changing furniture, panting and wallpapering?
Johanna Gyllsén
2011-04-12