Are there any other countries outside of the Nordic countries that have similar red wooden houses? These houses where I live (Finnish west coast) are all 100-200 years old, but thoroughly renovated. We have a lot of them in this village - looks like Sweden, because they are typically Swedish (we were a part of Sweden for almost 700 years). The red paint originated from the copper mine in Falun, Sweden, and became very popular during the 17th-19th century. They wanted the houses to look like the more "luxurious" tile walls in Europe. Most houses in Sweden were wooden.