Villa SkogVilla SkogVilla Skog

The plot had nine birches worth keeping. We drew the house nine times, once for each, and the version that kept all nine is the one that got built. It is 11.6 metres wide, which is narrow for a family of five, so it is two storeys.

The house is set 900 mm into the slope on the north side and stands clear on the south, which puts the living room floor at the height of the lowest branches.

Nothing here is unusual: 48 × 223 studs at 600 mm, 223 mm of mineral wool, 19 mm pine outside and painted board inside. The one move is the chimney, a 900 × 900 brick stack that carries the ridge beam and lets the upper floor be open from gable to gable.

There are no gutters. The eaves oversail 760 mm, the plinth is 400 mm above the ground, and the water goes into a gravel channel. Four winters in, the cladding at 1 800 mm is as dry as the cladding at 3 000 mm.

The upper floor has one window in the gable, 1 600 × 1 400, set high so it throws light onto the stair rather than into anyone’s eyes. Below it the living room has a single 4 600 mm opening in three panes, and that is all the glass on the south face.

Everything inside is painted pine except the stair, which is oak, and the oak is the only warm thing in the house. It was a fight, and Tomas won it.