What about students who live far from school? How do we live in Sweden? How do our homes look like? How is the fashion in our homes? Well we are about to tell you, so please join us.

Students own apartment

Students that have more than 40 kilometres to school, can ask for a special allowance on 133 Euros. It is usually teenagers over 16 years, that apply for the accommodation, on the reason that they start the upper secondary school which may be in another town. An authority has arranged cheap apartments with two rooms and a kitchen, especially for students so they afford living nearer school. The rent is 244 Euros and that includes internet, cable TV, furniture and kitchen equipment. When we have our summer vacation, in June and July the apartments are free of payment. And that is, of course, a very good offer for us students.

Swedish houses In our little town called Örnsköldsvik the houses are cheap compared to many bigger towns. The price of a house with two bedrooms and a kitchen costs about 55500 Euros, while the same sort of house in our capital Stockholm would cost 302000 Euros. The price difference depends on the demand, which is much bigger in larger towns. In Sweden the most of the houses are build of wood. That’s because of our natural resources, but we also have houses made of brick. According the national statistics office of Sweden the majority of households and families live in houses, while the singles usually live in apartments.

This is a typical house in Sweden. This one is situated in the countryside. The colours red and white are ordinary on our houses. Isn´t it lovely?

Why buy a house?

• It is cheaper in the long term.
• You live on a bigger area.
• If you buy it is all yours. You decide yourself when you want to change something, for example: repaper or do a rebuild of a room.

Why rent an apartment?

• It is cheaper for the moment if you just want to live there for a couple of years.
• If the fridge or something else would break down, the landlord either fixes it or buys you a new one (that is because white goods enter into the rent.)
• The parking place is shovelled from snow during the winter.

How is the fashion in our homes?

This year the curtains should be coloured in nice colours. But they should only be one colour with spots or funny animals. The pots in the windows should match the curtains, like the carpet, the bedclothes, the fancy goods, the vases and the pillows. The fashion this year is also about accessories everything should match each other, the same style and the same colour. Fashion in our Swedish homes, has been more significant nowadays. People prefer nice expensive equipment rather then cheap and less nice. As you see everything matches.

The kitchen

We do not only cook and eat our food in the kitchen, it is also the room where the hole family see each other. The meal is the family’s time together. The fashion in our kitchen is also a trend. The trend now is that all the kitchen equipment, like ladle, slice and toaster, and of course our special cheeseslicer should be cromated. Most things in a Swedish kitchen today are driven by electricity. We are not using a hand mix, it is replaced by an electric mix, and we cook our coffee in a percolator and heat up our food in a microwave.

This is how a Swedish kitchen can look like	The cromated kitchen equipment

The TV-room

Our TV-room is also a room for the whole family. We spend a lot of time in there in front of the TV we and relax in our couch. Even in this room it is important that everything matches. And it should be a lot of candles in different shapes, sizes and maybe even a little touch of a scent.
	The TV-room is a special room, were we have our TV. And it is quite nice to be enjoying oneself and just relax in front of the TV and watch a really good TV program.

Now you know how we live in Sweden. What did you think about it? How do you live in your country?
© 2002 Freeway
Writers: Jessica Munther (sp04-20@park.se) and Christine Arnqvist (sp04-02@park.se).