Klaus Haapaniemi is talking to me from the kitchen of his home. A home he feels very comfortable in. Almost five decades ago, a young Haapaniemi visited this house in southern Finland for holidays. He would chase rabbits in the summer and throw rocks into the nearby frozen lake in the winter. He would come to visit his grandfather who had lived here since it was built in the 1940s.

Haapaniemi, 51, recently inherited the property and, along with his wife Mia, has spent the last four years returning it to its former glory. Pastel blue kitchen cupboards jut out from wood panelled walls with a vibrancy straight from the 1970s. Mid-century furniture stands proudly on herringbone wooden floorboards from the 1950s. A large sauna – all brushed concrete and shiney wood – drags the property screaming into the 21st century. Generations of design all make themselves visible in this rural retreat.

But what really stands out is the wonderfully flamboyant wallpaper – featuring motifs of flowers and long grasses that float wistfully up the walls. And the fantastically sculptured glassware pieces, featuring woodland animals that sit on the odd item of Chinoiserie. And the oversized cushion where an embroidered hare dances wildly in the moonlight.

This home is not an homage to his grandfather but is a living, breathing embodiment of the lifetime work of artist and designer Klaus Haapaniemi.

“I haven't touched the interior,” he explains as he talks me through the renovation process. “We renovated the old sauna just like it used to be. It was the first sauna I ever used so it's been nice to go back to use it again now.”

Haapaniemi is a quiet man. His wife, always smiling, explains much of the work they have done on the house. He occasionally interjects to highlight a detail here or with a short anecdote there.

Tucked away in this discrete property in rural Finland is one of the country’s foremost and most in demand artists – famous for his illustrated woodland scenes that emboss cushions, throws and wallpaper, in luxury homes from Paris to New York.

Born in Helsinki, he spent much of his childhood here – the Great Lakes region, close to Finland’s second city of Tampere – which he says is known for its industrial past: “It’s not picturesque, but for me, it's an important area.”

He went off to study at Finland's prestigious Lahti Institute of Design before starting his career in Helsinki. He freelanced a bit, and worked for a local design agency before moving to Italy. Haapaniemi worked as a print designer for the Italian denim brand Diesel before starting out on his own, designing for some of the other major Italian brands. His work started to draw a lot of attention, and after four years in Italy, he moved to London.

His output at that time spanned a range of mediums. He worked for Selfridges where he was given the huge responsibility of designing their Christmas campaign. He illustrated a book that had contributions from celebrities such as Madonna. In London, he also soon became a regular illustrator for the British Observer Magazine.

The high street came calling, and Haapaniemi started designing for Topshop and other major retailers. More designer brands and department stores invited him to collaborate, and after a successful partnership with Finnish glassware brand Iittala, he decided to strike out on his own.

“I realised my style was selling well and decided to start our own brand,” he says “I wanted to move to interiors and get into people’s homes and make things that would be more long-lasting – not just there for a season and then gone.

Haapaniemi started with a small inventory of throws, which he says are still his best sellers, before moving to rugs, cushions and textile accessories. He opened his eponymous store in London’s fashion favourite Shoreditch, before international retailers and distributors recognised that his unique style had a global audience.

Haapaniemi style is uniquely his. “Folkloristic, and fantasy is how it is sometimes described,” he says. “But it’s very much in the eye of the beholder.”

It’s hard to deny that elements of folklore and nature are present in his work. The woodland creatures of his childhood home appear in many of his designs. They sit amidst willowy flowers and spiralling patterns that feel part hallucinogenic dream, part children’s fairy tale. All however, with a Nordic darkness that pervades so many elements of Scandinvian culture. An edge that makes even the children’s stories not entirely safe for children. “I would say it’s part of the Nordic noir,” he pauses. “My version of Nordic Noir."

“There is a misconception of the Scandinavian aesthetic being all greys and natural tones. But the cold, and heat, and light, and dark. It’s so thrilling. The excitement, the colour, the contrasts and extremes. I feel like my work is an antidote to the blandness and the monochromatic world that some perceive as the Nordic aesthetic.”

Although Haapaniemi has lived in Berlin, Milan and London, and spent a lot of time in Tokyo and Shanghai, his Finnish roots, and that close link with nature are apparent in all of his work.

“I like to go into nature, and I walk a lot in the forests. I like to spend time in isolation, and I do find that helpful but I wouldn’t say it's my only inspiration,” he tells me. Haapaniemi talks about his love of theatre, opera, choreography (Pina Bausch is his all time favourite) and abstract art.

“I like artists based on the season. I love the large abstract paintings by Katharina Grosse, and I also love the Icelandic performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson but some of the architects I have been following are probably much bigger inspirations than any other artists,” he says mentioning Swiss minimalist architect Peter Zumthor as his current favourite. “I find so much more inspiration in different environments and locations than I do in exhibition halls.”

This environmental influence, whether man-made or natural, keeps seeping back into the conversation. It feels as if nature is such an intrinsic part of his world that it is the backdrop to his life – always present, consciously or otherwise. I ask about whether Nordic folklore is also part of that subconscious influence on his work.

“You’re not completely wrong about folklore and fantasy. It’s there in my style and it’s what I heard growing up. This used to be a Pagan country and only relatively recently converted to Christianity. This area is known for its witchcraft and there are people still practicing – healers still gather herbs here.”

“I like to go into nature, and I walk a lot in the forests. I like to spend time in isolation, and I do find that helpful but I wouldn’t say it's my only inspiration,” he tells me. Haapaniemi talks about his love of theatre, opera, choreography (Pina Bausch is his all time favourite) and abstract art.

“I like artists based on the season. I love the large abstract paintings by Katharina Grosse, and I also love the Icelandic performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson but some of the architects I have been following are probably much bigger inspirations than any other artists,” he says mentioning Swiss minimalist architect Peter Zumthor as his current favourite. “I find so much more inspiration in different environments and locations than I do in exhibition halls.”

Yet, surprisingly, Haapaniemi has managed to bring his love of theatre and modern classical music into his professional space. He has created stage designs and even created an opera with the Finnish National Opera. “I designed the staging, the clothing, all the posters as well as a product series that we made with Iittala,” he says.

“I don’t want to suffocate myself or be restricted in what I do. I want to be able to move from one side to another, to learn from completely different technical skills.”

Whether it be set designing at Finnish opera houses or creating 16-metre-long red whale lanterns in Japanese shopping malls – taking on projects that excite him is certainly his current priority. But this hasn’t diverted his attention away from his own line. “I’m doing a fashion film in the summer for our upcoming collection, and working with some Berlin creatives for our next fall/winter collection,” he tells me with growing glee.

Sitting in what was once his Grandfather’s home it is hard to imagine this gentle unassuming man as the current darling of the fashion world.

“There used to be pheasants walking through the yard,” he remembers wistfully. “This used to be forests and fields when I was growing up. We’d see woodland creatures, rabbits and squirrels everywhere but today there’s a massive shopping mall next to us.

“It looks so different from how it used to. Industry has changed, social life has changed but I still feel this area is more similar to how it used to be back in the 1970s and ‘80s. Perhaps the culture hasn’t really changed all that much at all,” he says.

Although the urban sprawl may have caught up with his rural retreat, Haapaniemi still can look outside his window for inspiration. If the Finnish culture hasn’t really changed all that much, it is certain that Klaus Haapaniemi can take credit for bringing that unassuming Nordic culture to a global audience.