Loft kitchen in converted farmhouse
A professional kitchen for the home: The Westphal family made their dream a reality in their freshly renovated farmhouse home. The open-plan loft kitchen with its professional kitchen appliances is the perfect space for Anna (owner of an organic bakery) to pursue her passion for baking while chatting away to her husband and children.
Who’s cooking in this kitchen?
Anna Westphal grew up with baking. She was born into an established family of bakers and, along with her two siblings, took over the traditional family bakery five years ago. The organic business has several bakeries in the area and has been in the family for four generations. Anna loves to bake at home too and enjoys trying out ideas and creating delicious new products for the bakery. Her husband Lars, who works as a Project Manager at an international software company, enjoys his role as taster of Anna’s baking creations – especially when they are made with the family’s home-made honey! Lars and their twelve year old son Maximilian signed up for a bee-keeping course a couple of years ago, just a few months before their daughter Lisa was born, and he now manages the family’s beehive.
A modular professional kitchen for four or more
The kitchen is not just the heart of the home where the whole family comes together but also the place where they can let their creativity run free and test and sample their new creations. There is space for the children to play, do their homework and, from time to time, help their parents with the cooking. Local produce is at the top of their shopping list and at the centre of the meals they cook. The selection of fresh produce is almost always complemented by ingredients from their own garden, whether herbs, vegetables, fruit or home-grown honey. For Anna, the kitchen is her haven, where she can completely focus on developing new baking recipes. That’s why, when Anna and Lars were renovating and restructuring the farmhouse a couple of years ago, they decided to make the kitchen the biggest room in the house. The kitchen is at the centre of the loft-like cooking, living and dining area in what used to be the stable.
When planning the new kitchen it was important to both Anna and Lars to retain the character of the old building and the open-plan nature of the original room. They therefore decided to retain almost all of the architectural details of the old stable. Under the open roof truss, the old ceiling and support beams still serve their original function. Unlike a traditional extractor fan, the BORA cooktop extractor system allows the full size and openness of the space to be retained so that the original simplicity of the room can be fully appreciated. It wasn’t just the clear view beyond the kitchen that influenced their design decisions. The beams did not have to undergo any structural alterations and the structure of the original building could be retained, ensuring the new design was in line with the fundamental objectives of the renovation project. The couple had completely free rein when planning their kitchen – no compromises required! They chose to place the kitchen island in the centre of the room, as a visual and communicative focal point.
In addition, Anna wanted premium equipment with high functionality. All of the kitchen appliances are therefore especially efficient, intuitive to use and easy to clean – just like in a professional kitchen. Lars wanted user-friendly appliances combined with great design. Anna and Lars found that the BORA Classic 2.0 cooktop extractor system met all of their requirements. Thanks to is modular system they could choose from a wide range of cooktops to create their own individual combination, with particularly large cooking zones for complete and even heating of food. Wanting to be well equipped for every possible cooking adventure, the couple chose the combination of surface induction, Tepan stainless steel grill and a gas hob. The hob and extractor are easily and intuitively operated using the sControl+ control system. All key functions are clearly displayed on the high-contrast digital display panel.
As a baker, Anna’s favourite part of her new kitchen is the BORA X BO steam oven. Reduced cooking odours and excellent steam extraction in the open-plan kitchen were key factors in their decision-making. Anna also loved the consistent cooking results and how easy the appliances are to use and clean. She finds the notification system really useful, so that no-one can accidentally turn the oven off when she’s not in the room. And she finds it particularly practical that the X BO has an integrated steamer so that she can easily decrystallize their home-made honey or quickly sterilise little Lisa’s bottles.
