This is how Carl Larsson invites us to the table in his book ”A Home”. Common mealtimes were important for the Larsson family, when children and adults ate together, something that surprised many of their visitors, who were used to children and adults living separate lives.
  We are told of lively dinners, coffee parties with the neighbours, and card parties on dark winter evenings. Carl and Karin had adopted the French habit of socializing for a long time at the dinner table after eating. And to this day the dining room is still a gathering place for the Larsson family and their friends. The room exudes hospitality.
  The dining room was finished in 1890. The red furniture, the red details in the room and the green panels– such a room had never been seen in Sweden. Karin had had the panels put up while Carl was away, but the painting had to wait until he came home.
  There are odds and ends and decorative plates on the shelf above the panels. Everything was on display! The light that filters through the leaded stained-glass windows makes the atmosphere warm och cosy. Above the sofa hangs a richly coloured tapestry designed and executed by Karin.
  The stark colours of the dining room may not seem all that remarkable to us now, but writers and critics of the time were merciless when it came to the ”raw” colours and the simple chairs that the Larssons had ordered from carpenter Arnbom in Sundborn. A conventional dining room at the end of the 19th century ought to have dark furniture and make a dignified impression.