Door curtains in Sweden

January 15, 2022 9:01 AM

I'm watching Bonus Family on Netflix. The show is set in Sweden and all of the houses have curtains in the interior doorways. Surprisingly I cannot find any information about this custom online. Is this a Swedish thing? A Nordic thing? They seem to change pretty often on the show--is that something people do, like seasonally? Are they ever pulled closed? The ones on the show are mostly from lightweight fabric so they seem to be purely decorative and not for stopping drafts. Do you only have them on doorless doorways or also on doorways with wooden doors? Tell me everything you know about door curtains, please!
posted by HotToddy to Home & Garden (14 answers total)

I haven't seen the show, but to make search easier, what you're describing are portières.
posted by jocelmeow at 9:14 AM on January 15, 2022

Response by poster: Thanks, I did search on that too, but nothing!
posted by HotToddy at 9:23 AM on January 15, 2022

As the portière Wikipedia article references, noren are Japanese curtains that are often used on interior doors. I have a couple.
posted by limeonaire at 10:27 AM on January 15, 2022

seriously hoping you get better answers here, because I'm curious what the point of these would be (other than hippie nostalgia—and if this is the case, jfc people!)
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 11:25 AM on January 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

According to my SO (who is Swedish), no, doorway curtains are not a particularly Swedish thing. But they wouldn't go "Wow, so weird that they have doorway curtains!" either if they saw some in someone's house. This is a very helpful and deeply researched answer, I know.
posted by mochi_cat at 11:40 AM on January 15, 2022 [12 favorites]

When I lived in Denmark I saw it a couple of times but only in very small apartments.

I've also watched Bonusfamiljen, and I didn't notice the curtains specifically, but one thing I did notice is that the set designers were good about making the set seem realistic for the amount of money each family had. I'm going to guess (without rewatching the series) that the interior curtains were probably not in Katja's house. She's well off, and her home didn't need expanding for extra kids. The curtains are a cheap, practical solution when a family expands rapidly, unexpectedly, or without a lot of extra money. Patrick is also not particularly handy and curtains are a foolproof DIY solution.

There's also a hippie vibe to Lisa, and curtains would help enhance that on-set. And can you see Eddie caring enough to do more than throw up curtains, even if he could afford the interior doors?
posted by liminal_shadows at 12:30 PM on January 15, 2022

Doorway curtains(not the beaded ones) hold in heat and I can see why people in cold climates might use them.
posted by theora55 at 12:37 PM on January 15, 2022 [4 favorites]

Don’t watch the show but am calling live from Sweden. Yeah they aren’t a *thing* but sure people might use them as described above. It’s not unusual in Stockholm for parents to not have their own bedroom in an apartment after divorce since the kids are only there half-time, and you might see a sleeping alcove curtained off.

My in-laws, very elderly, had a wall-hanging on a curtain rail that covered a door. I suspect it once kept a draft out but yeah Swedish homes don’t really have drafts anymore.
posted by J.R. Hartley at 4:14 PM on January 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: liminal_shadows, actually Katja does have at least one! It's solid gray to suit her modern apartment. They're also in Bigge's/Martin's house (plaid), Lisa & Patrik's house (constantly changing patterns, usually thin fabrics), and Elin's house. I don't think I have ever seen any closed, as they would be for a draft.
posted by HotToddy at 4:30 PM on January 15, 2022

My Lithuanian grandmother had a door curtain in her house between the dining room and living room. I remember it as being thick reddish fabric. I never thought to ask about it, but my mom (her daughter) put up blankets between rooms over the winters when we didn't have a working furnace and had space heaters in all the rooms instead.
posted by FencingGal at 6:06 PM on January 15, 2022

I've done this before when using window air conditioners to cool only a room or area, and have considered it to help prevent too much air movement in the winter in places I don't have doors. Not Scandinavian, though.
posted by sepviva at 7:59 PM on January 15, 2022

I (living in the midwestern USA) installed a noren in my rental house, and it has to do with privacy rather than drafts.

I installed it on an open doorframe across from living room windows that leads to a hallway, and directly across from the doorframe is the bathroom. Then there are bedrooms on either end of the hallway. The noren ensures privacy if one is leaving the bathroom nude/partially clothed to go to a bedroom, as otherwise someone in my driveway or in the neighbor's house could see into the open bathroom and hallway. I get that opaque curtains in the living room would also achieve this result, but I prefer translucent ones to let in natural light.
posted by vegartanipla at 8:21 PM on January 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

We use a door curtain in our basement family room. It is made of material so thin that you can see through it, it is enough to change then airflow and keep the room significantly warmer in the winter than the rest of the basement.
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:23 PM on January 15, 2022

I have a door curtain because our older cat needs two exits. His litterbox is set up in a jack-and-jill bathroom that opens to a hall on one end and my office on the other. I can't keep the door to my office closed because the cat will protest in our master bathroom if it's closed. So a door curtain keeps the smells out of my office.

He's also scared of the dark and won't use the box at all if the light is off, so the switch is blue-taped up because there are no outlets in there for us to install a night light.
posted by telophase at 9:08 AM on January 18, 2022