We gave you a sneak peek of Fredrik Paulsen’s solo exhibition at Paris’s Galerie Torri earlier this summer, but when we saw the Stockholm-based designer had properly photographed the whole collection, we wanted to share the results. Called Mikado — a name we assume originates from the European form of pick-up sticks —  the chairs are made from simple pieces of pine that Paulsen stains a brilliant teal blue.

“I was approached by Romain Torri to produce new work for his gallery,” Paulsen tells us. “He wanted me to make seating and gave me the word ‘mikado’ to work around. My immediate response was to go to my local wood merchant to buy 100 meters of pine sections to use for constructing the chairs. I designed a simple framework that I could easily make variations on by playing with dimensions and different functions. In some of the chairs I play with historical references such as Mackintosh and Thonet. The chairs were made in my studio using only a cutter and a domino router. I am very interested in this sort of direct contact between me as the maker, the source of material and the client.”

Paulsen essentially spearheaded the watercolor trend we’ve been seeing in furniture recently (his 2010 thesis project at the RCA explored the different ways he could stain wood, including using wet paper party garlands), and we’re happy to see not only that the trend has legs — no pun intended — but that it is headed in an even more lovely and sophisticated direction.