A dream kitchen with a view

WORK: So what have you done since inheriting the house?

ALEXANDER ZIMMERMANN: For starters, we completely changed the layout to adapt it to our lifestyle. We’ve turned it into a big, open-plan space. There’s still lots of space, but the individual areas and rooms are no longer separate. We really live together and can keep an eye on Romy all the time. No one is shut away in another room when they’re cooking, and when we have friends over, we either all sit around our big wooden table in the corner in front of the window or we gather around our beautiful, massive island in the kitchen.

The kitchen, which is from Häcker’s systemat line, has just been installed. What was the most important thing for you when designing this kitchen?

We wanted the kitchen to really blend into the living area. To do this, we had to put it in the big room with the corner windows. We decided to create a big wall with lots of storage space opposite one of the windows. Now because the kitchen is black and we didn’t want it to look dark and uninviting, we talked to our kitchen studio (Proform in Weinheim) and decided to add a little niche in light oak just around the sink. The wall units have fronts made from slatted oak. They make the kitchen look modern and lighter. And they look great with the light oak floor.

Everything else, even the sink and the taps, is black ...

I think it gives a wonderful contrast. Thanks to the matt colour of the fronts, the ceramic sink and the taps look lighter. It doesn’t look as heavy and oppressive. It looks more like a dark anthracite colour. The fronts are handleless with channel handles. We love the sleek and minimalist look. It looks fantastic with the straight lines and open architecture of the house. We’ve even got our coffee machine and food processor stowed away in cupboards on shelves that we can easily pull out when we want to use them.

Why did you choose such a big island? It’s almost four metres long!

We just wanted to have plenty of space to work. There’s enough room on the longside for four people to sit comfortably. This is where everything should happen. Cooking, baking, learning, homework... we really wanted it to be the centre of the room. When you’re cooking here, you can see the entire room and enjoy a lovely view of the nearby woodland out of the window. We don’t even get any lingering cooking smells because we have an integrated extractor in our induction hob.

What material is the worktop made from?

It’s made from black granite, a natural stone. There’s actually a funny story behind this worktop. The supplier thought that it would weigh around 160 kilogrammes, but it ended up being three times as heavy, even though it looks thin. Hard luck for the four installers that had to carry it up the 48 steps to get into the house! They actually ended up bringing in a couple of other people to help. It took six of them to get the worktop into the kitchen. The boss even had to lend a hand. I bet they won’t be making any more miscalculations any time soon!