Me and my new kitchen

Welcome, be my guest! I am Marie Malmenskog. This is my house in Valle, close to the western shore of Lake Hornborga in northern Skaraborg. In spring thousands and thousands of migrating cranes gather on the meadows by the lake to perform their intriguing dance.

Here we are, surrounded by an ancient agricultural landscape scattered with megaliths, stone cists, heaps, and grave fields from the Stone Age to Medieval Times. Old ruins of cloisters still stand with roses clinging to weathered walls. These are the domains of bold knight and crusader Arn from best selling Swedish author Jan Guillou’s novels. Replacing an old manor house, my house was built a century ago with solid timber from the manor’s own forest. Thus it stands on steady ground in our stony soil.

As a gift, former owners once bestowed a bridle crown upon our parish church. In my family all females wed in that crown of gold and precious stones.

How can I describe my house? I am not sure, perhaps as some sort of Romanticism on the threshold of the 1920s Classicism with Modernism around the corner, in short a flavour of famed Swedish Grace.

My glass veranda with its delicate bars and bows was cautiously renovated by our local glazier. In fact, most of the house is preserved. The one exception is my brand new kitchen, Modern Classic Steneby from Kvänum; it is obviously not the original but certainly authentic. The choice came naturally. Not only due to the fact that I happened to work with PR and marketing at Kvänum since two decades. Steneby simply proved to be the perfect match.

Also, Kvänum kitchens run in our family. We had them for generations. Today a young couple and their kids have moved into my granny’s house. She is gone but her walnut kitchen from the early 70s is still there. My own ash Linné from the mid 90s with birch drawers now resides in one of the wings of a lovely Baroque castle nearby. Drawers in my new kitchen are upgraded with Royal Oak from Visingsö, limited edition in other words.

You may say I am professionally biased, and you are probably right. Even so, I am madly in love with my kitchen – the open, ribbed shelves for storage, spacious work areas, and quartzite stone tops thin like carpaccio, the refined simplicity of the door, the smooth grip of elegant knob Frö, the mild lustre of colour Mistral in broad daylight, and the cowl that almost blesses home and hearth, my stove from Ilve.

Sometimes I have to pinch my arm; now and then I am even slightly envious of myself.