I’ve talked about Susan Serra on decor8 before, she’s an Interior Designer from New York who specializes in kitchen design, and from the looks of her portfolio and blog she is very talented (and busy!). What I love about Susan’s work is that it reflects her Danish heritage, she is naturally drawn towards minimalist design that is light and bright and she adores white wood floors, materials like ash, oak, teak and walnut, industrial accents, and soaring ceilings with huge windows just as many of us do.
Susan is currently in Copenhagen on business, but she took time to write to me on Friday to announce that she’s now the U.S. contact for Hansen Living (designed by Danish Architect, Knud Kapper). This is exciting news because now Susan can offer her clients a different approach to kitchen design offering flexibility of placement that most American kitchens do not offer (that is, without a sledge hammer). This is very much the standard practice in most of Europe to have kitchens that can be moved around just as you can move your sofa from one wall to the next, but here in the states it’s more common to have our cabinetry built-in. With the exception of plumbing, you have more options to rearrange your kitchen this way and I like this very much.
Here are some beautiful images from Susan via Hansen Living showing some examples of their kitchens. Though I don’t tend to discuss kitchen design much on decor8, I wanted to show you this particular brand because it’s my absolute dream to own a kitchen just like some of these. If it’s your dream as well Susan can very soon make it happen in case you’re interested so please contact her directly via her blog for more information.
Thank you so much Susan for sharing!
(images from hansen living)
February 25th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
my favorite part about these kitchens is the islands. They are so un-kitchen-like (not a word…oh well!) and combined with the white walls and soaring ceilings, make the space somewhere that I’d actually want to hang out (as opposed to my own kitchen!). Thanks for the pics!
February 25th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
what fabulous wood floors!!!!
February 25th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
I love the kitchen in photo #4, from the layout to the exposed beams. Stunning!
February 25th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
I’ve been wondering if we should go back to white walls in our kitchen and I think this post seals the deal. I love them!
February 25th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Oooh! How wonderful. The wood grain on the cabinets is so rich and beautiful.
February 25th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
What a great post, Holly!!!
I love especially kitchen on the first photo. To bad that I just finished renovation of my kitchen.
February 25th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
That first kitchen is fabulous! I love the “bookshelves” with frosted glass doors and lighting fixtures, too. I wonder if you could re-create chunks of this inexpensively but effectively using stuff from IKEA or similar.
What a fun challenge, related to your new post about that $$$ mirror, to recreate/adapt for less.
I’d love to know what Susan recommends “splurging” on when designing a kitchen (eg. counters? appliances?) and what she thinks you can effectively do on the cheap?
Thanks, Holly!
Meg
February 25th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Kitchens like these make me drool. The wood in the last one is amazingly beautiful in its own right!
February 25th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Holly…thanks for the mention!I just got back from Denmark a little while ago. So excited to see this.
I have to say, it’s the kind of thing that, yes, the pictures are gorgeous, but to see it and touch it…it’s really beautiful furniture. It’s stunning, in fact. Sort of simply elegant.
ohpickles, you know, everyone’s priorities are different, so I hesitate to use the word “should”. I will say, part of the strong philosophy of Hansen’s creator is that this can be considered to be furniture, as one has in other areas of the home, to be collected, moved to another home, to be kept.
It is another way of thinking. It is also more eco friendly to buy something for the VERY long term in the kitchen.
To answer your question, you can do it all “on the cheap.” I did a real budget kitchen for myself a few years back. Lovely, and it even got published. So, of course, it is possible. All you need is a little ingenuity and a little creativity. Rather than getting inexpensive cabinets, instead, I bought a curtain where base cabinets would be, about 7-8′ long, shirred, with home made roll out shelves underneath. I also used tiles for my countertop. So, yes, there are always great ways to save $$$!
February 26th, 2008 at 11:32 am
i’m so thrilled that you posted about hansen kitchens. i’ve been looking for ’something’ and wasn’t sure what it was until i saw these pics. all the other kitchens i’ve seen were nearly there but not quite but these tick almost every box! when i showed my husband these last night we were both totally sold on them. so i’ve been in touch with the company and hopefully will hear from them soon. i’m slightly gulping in fear because i expect something so beautiful will probably be mega-bucks, (or GB pounds in my case!)
but you never know :)
anyway, thanks so much, at least i know what look i want…better start selling some heirlooms…
February 26th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Oh beautiful! I’d love to have a kitchen like that instead of our boring white prefab little kitchen… But you need a bit of space for it, don’t you? The third picture is my favorite!
February 26th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
if my kitchen looked this good, i’d be inspired to cook! it’s so clean and spacious…
February 27th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
wow, these are definitely some really gorgeous kitchens! i’m totally inspired that one day, maybe we will get to remodel our kitchen.
February 27th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
These are great! I’d love to see more kitchen posts over here.
February 28th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
oh my gosh. these are blowing my mind. i love all the wood. amazing! thank you for showing…