Swedish Allmoge Furniture and the Painted Farmhouse

What allmoge means

Allmoge is the Swedish word for the rural peasantry, and allmogemöbler is their furniture: the chests, cupboards, beds, benches, tables, and clocks made in farming communities, mostly in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is usually pine or spruce, joined with dovetails, frame-and-panel, and nails, and painted: linseed oil paint or distemper in blues, greens, reds, and ochres, often decorated with flowers, marbling, initials, and a date. Rural makers picked up city fashions, Baroque and later Gustavian, and translated them into local wood and paint.

Common forms:

• Kista: a painted chest, often a dowry chest with initials and the year.
• Skåp: a cupboard, wall-hung or standing, often with a painted door panel.
• Bänk and sofa: benches, some convertible to beds.
• Long-case clocks, including Mora clocks.

The Hälsingland farmhouses

In 2012 UNESCO inscribed the Decorated Farmhouses of Hälsingland as Sweden’s fifteenth World Heritage Site: seven farms, Kristofers, Gästgivars, Pallars, Jon-Lars, Bortom Åa, Bommars, and Erik-Anders, chosen from about 1,000 preserved farms in the region ¹.

• Houses: large, often multi-story timber dwellings, mostly 19th-century, with profiled roof bases, ornate joinery, and decorated doorways ¹.
• Interiors: painted walls, stencilled decoration, and expensive wallpaper. Biblical scenes mix with local themes, influenced by painters from Dalarna ¹.
• Why so lavish: farmers grew rich from forestry and flax and linen, and built and decorated rooms for celebrations as well as for family life ¹.

The furniture belongs with the rooms: built-in beds, cupboards, and benches painted to match the walls.

Mora clocks

The Mora clock is a long-case clock from Mora in Dalarna, made from the late 18th century through most of the 19th ². Krång Anders Andersson (1727-1799) of Östnor is traditionally called the district’s first clockmaker ².

• Cottage industry: clockmaking was supplemental income for farm families, each specializing in particular parts ².
• Scale: by one estimate, more than 50,000 movements were made in the 19th century, peaking around 1,000 a year ².
• Cases made locally: movements were often sold without cases, and buyers had cases built and painted near home, which explains the huge variety of shapes ², from straight cases to the curvy, waisted “hourglass” form.
• The end: within about 80 years, cheap German and American clocks killed the industry ².

Building a painted pine cupboard

A small wall cupboard (hängskåp) is a good allmoge project:

1. Carcase: pine sides, top, and bottom, through-dovetailed or rabbeted and nailed with cut nails; a shiplapped back nailed on.
2. Door: frame-and-panel with a raised or flat panel, or a single board with battens clinched on; hung on iron strap hinges or pintles.
3. Moulding: a cornice cut with hollows and rounds (see Mouldings with Hollows and Rounds).
4. Paint: linseed oil paint in a base color, with a contrasting panel, simple flowers or marbling, your initials, and the year (see Making Linseed Oil Paint and Rosemaling and Kurbits in Traditional Paints).

Try it

Build a wall cupboard about 24 in. tall from pine: dovetailed carcase, battened or frame-and-panel door, hollows-and-rounds cornice, and linseed oil paint with initials and the date on the door.

What to take from this

Allmoge furniture is Swedish rural furniture, mostly painted pine from the 18th and 19th centuries, translating city styles into local wood and color. Hälsingland’s farmhouses, rich from forestry and linen, hold the finest painted rooms and were inscribed by UNESCO in 2012. Mora clocks came from farm families around Mora, with cases built locally. A painted pine cupboard brings the course’s joinery, mouldings, and paint together.