Is Scandinavian design the same as minimalism?

No. Minimalism removes things. Scandinavian design keeps plenty of things, it just keeps them pale, low and unpatterned. A Scandinavian room usually has more in it than a minimalist one, including books, textiles and plants.

Does it work in a small room?

It is one of the better styles for a small room, because the pale palette and the raised furniture both make the floor read as larger than it is. The thing to watch is scale: the furniture should be low, not small.

What is the difference between Scandinavian and Japandi?

Japandi is Scandinavian design with Japanese proportion and a darker, earthier palette. If Scandinavian feels too cold or too bright to you, Japandi is usually what you actually wanted.

Style

Scandinavian interior design

Scandinavian rooms are built around a shortage of daylight. Everything in them is arranged to keep what little there is moving around the room, which is why the style works just as well in a dark British flat as it does in Copenhagen.

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Scandinavian interior design is a light-first style: white or off-white walls, pale wood, low furniture on visible legs, and almost no pattern. The point is not minimalism for its own sake. It is that every surface in the room is chosen to bounce daylight rather than absorb it.

An ordinary room photographed on a phone before any redesign — Your photo

The same room rendered by RoomGPT in Scandinavian — RoomGPT design

One ordinary room, rendered in Scandinavian. Every image on this page is a RoomGPT result rather than a stock photograph, which is the only way to show a style on a room that looks like yours.

What makes a room Scandinavian

Pale wood, warm not orange

Ash, birch and light oak. The wood is the warmth in the room, which is why the walls can stay cold white without it feeling clinical. Avoid anything that reads yellow or red.
Furniture on legs

Sofas and cabinets sit up off the floor rather than boxing into it. You see more floor, the room reads larger, and the light gets under things instead of stopping at a plinth.
One texture doing the softening

A wool throw, a sheepskin, a flatweave rug. Texture rather than colour is what stops a pale room feeling bare, and one or two pieces is the whole budget.
Lamps, not a ceiling light

Several low warm light sources at different heights instead of one overhead. This is the part people skip and it is the part that makes the difference after four in the afternoon.
Restraint with pattern

If there is a pattern it is one thing, usually a rug or a single cushion. Everything else is plain, which is what lets the wood and the light be the subject.

Palette: White and chalky off-white on the walls, pale wood floors, greys from dove to charcoal, and black used sparingly as a line rather than a mass: a lamp arm, a frame, a chair leg.
Materials: Ash, birch and light oak, wool, linen, sheepskin, matte ceramic, powder-coated steel. Nothing high gloss, nothing ornate.
Where it struggles: In a room with almost no natural light, a fully Scandinavian palette can go grey and flat. The usual fix is to warm the wood and the textiles rather than the walls, or to look at Japandi instead, which handles low light better.

In the app this style is called Sea Scandinavian.

Scandinavian, room by room

The same style applied to different rooms, so you can see what stays constant and what the room itself decides.

Scandinavian, answered

Is Scandinavian design the same as minimalism?: No. Minimalism removes things. Scandinavian design keeps plenty of things, it just keeps them pale, low and unpatterned. A Scandinavian room usually has more in it than a minimalist one, including books, textiles and plants.
Does it work in a small room?: It is one of the better styles for a small room, because the pale palette and the raised furniture both make the floor read as larger than it is. The thing to watch is scale: the furniture should be low, not small.
What is the difference between Scandinavian and Japandi?: Japandi is Scandinavian design with Japanese proportion and a darker, earthier palette. If Scandinavian feels too cold or too bright to you, Japandi is usually what you actually wanted.