From Sweden to Your Backyard: How Canadian Businesses Bring Global Design Home

Cottage Culture understands and deeply respects the rapidly-growing movement across Canada to buy Canadian goods and services. At the same time, we believe it is important to support locally-owned and operated companies which may distribute products from other countries, even some US goods, which were likely inventoried long before the current threats of tariffs were planned.

Buying Canadian products and supporting local Canadian store owners and operators, although related, have some distinct differences worth noting. When buying Canadian, you are purchasing goods that are produced in Canada, supporting the national economy and acknowledging that they measure up to Canadian quality standards and meet all local regulations.

These may include products sold in big-box stores or carried by on-line retailers, as well as bricks-and-mortar stores. On the other hand, supporting local Canadian stores involves directly engaging with small, independent businesses within your community. This not only helps circulate money locally but also fosters personal relationships between consumers and business owners.

Local businesses often offer unique, handmade, or specialized products, and supporting them helps maintain the diversity and vibrancy of neighborhoods. And it also helps in keeping fellow Canadians employed. While buying Canadian boosts the national economy, supporting local businesses has a more direct impact on your immediate community, encouraging local job creation and a sense of community.

We recognize that you make a political statement in how you spend your dollars, but ask that if you are in the market for outdoor furniture, you consider Cottage Culture, a local family-owned company and it’s beautiful Scandinavian-designed outdoor furniture, and outdoor rugs from the Swedish company, Brafab.

It’s worth noting that Cottage Culture’s orders ship directly from Sweden. Cottage Culture also stocks Canadian-made products, including heavy-duty Canadian-make firepits, decorative faux plants and trees and unique complementary outdoor accessories.

About Cottage Culture

Cottage Culture was born mid-pandemic when the main family company, IceCulture, a small-town company with a big reputation for creating stunning ice sculptures for clients around the world, like so many other companies, had to ‘pivot’ to stay relevant during this unprecedented time. 

There were no big ice events or carving competitions taking place and no ice lounges being built to use the clear ice blocks being produced in its Hensall facility. President Heidi Bayley was searching for something to keep her staff, a team dedicated to creativity and excellence, employed.

She settled on promoting the unique Scandinavian-style outdoor furniture, with its focus on comfort and happiness at home; she started out virtually, then in-person, sharing her vision of quality outdoor furniture with unparalleled clean architectural lines, and designed to last.

Not only that, she brought in containers of Brafab furniture, establishing a ready supply so customers did not have to experience the frustrating six-plus-week delay once an order had been placed. It’s an ongoing pleasure for customers to chose their furniture and take it away with them, or know they can have it delivered within days. There is no delay in being able to enjoy our beautiful Southwestern Ontario spring and summer weather.

Heidi enjoys sourcing the perfect items for customers. ‘Sales are much more than persuading customers to part with their money, it’s about finding the right pieces to suit expectations.  And we do that well.’

When a customer is choosing the appropriate outdoor furniture for their space, whether deck, patio or backyard, it involves a great deal of thought, and Cottage Culture staff are committed to helping customers make the right choices.

We are also happy to create layouts and help customers visualize the space to see how their choice of furniture fits in that setting. There are many considerations to be taken into account during the planning process including the size of the furniture and traffic flow through the area.

Heidi’s feedback from furniture tradeshows indicates that this clean-lined style of furniture is not readily available from distributors in North America, making her connections with the Swedish company Brafab a unique opportunity for home owners in the GTA and southwestern Ontario – and indeed, across Canada – to access these distinctive designs. Every outdoor collection which Cottage Culture offers has been carefully selected for its character, style, comfort and quality.

The furniture is versatile too, allowing different lines to work together effectively, a feature that is common with Scandi style – co-ordinating and mixing styles, instead of striving to have everything match exactly. And Brafab styles look great indoors as well! As Heidi says, “You can place a piece in a living room and multi-purpose it.”

More about Brafab and Scandinavian design

Brafab’s history goes back a long way. The company started as a small family business back in the 1930s and today, Brafab has grown into one of Northern Europe’s largest outdoor furniture brands.

However, Brafab maintains a focus on the interplay between comfort, design and practicality, which is fundamental when the company develops its product line. Details, materials and perfect proportions are what create outdoor furniture you can sit in comfortably and which endures, ensuring enjoyment for a long time.

Brafab also contributes to an environmentally-friendly production process. The result is a line of outdoor furniture that is long-lasting time, both in form and function.

True to Scandi-style, Brafab has created their wide product range so it that can be combined endlessly, and this design philosophy forms the foundations of Brafab’s product development. It is one of the leading brands of outdoor furniture in the world.

In recent years, we know our outdoor environment around our home has become an increasingly important space for us all. What used to be a simple patio, has today become an extra living room to be enjoyed whenever the weather permits! Brafab draws inspiration from this outside world by monitoring and trying to predict upcoming trends and orientations.

In addition, the company believes it is important to include playfulness and hope into our daily lifestyle, which they want to reflect in their furniture, and achieves this by adding pops of colour to accent the more traditional Scandinavian neutral outdoor furniture shades. 

Scandinavian design is characterized by beautiful, simple clean lines, minimalism and functionality – without eliminating grace and beauty – inspired by nature and an emphasis on enjoying the domestic environment.  It was developed in the 1950s in the five Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.

The most-used Scandinavian colors are neutral and monochromatic – bright, warm whites with black and oatmeal – plus splashes of color added as accents. Lush pinks, true blue – think the stone, lapis lazuli, grayish blues, and colors rooted in nature – like sage – are the most popular in Scandinavian design. This year, Brafab is adding a deeper Nordic green, indigo blue, a muted brick red, and lemon to their colour range.

Organic and natural materials often take pride of place in Scandinavian design, reflecting the Scandinavian and Nordic countries relationship to nature. Wood, lightened to fit with a neutral color palette, stone, cotton, and wool feature heavily in Scandinavian design, as do house plants.

This clean but warm theme, alongside the calming nature of a large, light-filled space without any clutter, is partly why Scandinavian design is so popular. Don’t you already feel calmer and more relaxed, and breathing more deeply, as you read this?

This sort of Nordic minimalism allows people to invite peace into their home without creating a space that is uninviting or even, cold. It is full of vitality without being chaotic.

Another guiding principle of Scandinavian design is to establish harmony with one’s environment and to create things made to last. It seeks to compliment the art of living well – the concept of “the beautiful things that make your life better” –  by promoting a simple home environment that is filled with quality items and enhances an unencumbered lifestyle.

In this way it’s both important for the individual and for the planet. For the individual, it encompasses a home environment that encourages a life well lived, which is increasingly important to neutralize the pressures of modern life. And for the planet, it challenges unthinking consumerism and deepens our connection to nature.

Where to find Cottage Culture?

Our unique outdoor furniture store is worth a visit! Cottage Culture is located on Main Street, Hensall, Ontario just a short drive west from Stratford and Kitchener-Waterloo, north from London, up the Lake Huron shoreline from Sarnia and enroute to Lake Huron's towns and villages, Grand Bend, Bayfield, Goderich and Kincardine.

We are open from 10am to 4pm Monday through Saturday, and also by appointment.

If you are still feeling tentative or have questions the staff at Cottage Culture is available to help, offering free styling advice and layouts of the furniture for your outdoor space. Visit our showroom and get a feel for your new patio furniture before you buy. Delivery and installation are free (within an hour distance from Hensall). Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for you to enjoy your Cottage Culture experience and your new personal outdoor retreat!