barnkammare

Barnkammare is a Swedish term referring to a room in a dwelling designated as a children's chamber or nursery. The word is built from barn, meaning child, and kammare, meaning chamber or room, and it historically described a space devoted to the care, sleeping, and daily life of children. In traditional Swedish domestic architecture, a barnkammare could function as a sleeping room for children, a place for toys and clothing, and sometimes as a secondary living area adjacent to the parents’ quarters. The exact use varied with period, region, and the size of the household; in larger homes it might be distinctly separated from adults’ bedrooms, while in smaller dwellings it could serve multiple purposes.

In modern usage, barnkammare is primarily a historical or architectural term. Contemporary Swedish speech more often employs barnrum or simply describes the room as a child’s bedroom. The term appears in descriptions of older houses, estate inventories, and museum exhibits, where it helps convey historical practices regarding family life, child-rearing, and private space within the home.

See also: kammare, nursery, children’s room. The concept of the barnkammare provides insight into social norms surrounding family life in Sweden’s past and the evolution of private space in the domestic sphere.