The first thing you notice in the Copenhagen home of designer Thilde Maria Haukohl Kristensen are flowers. They are everywhere, sometimes emerging from corners, sometimes dominating a room, but always present.
Thilde’s passion for flowers came from her grandmother, who introduced her to the world of flora. Now it is her job as well as her passion. “Flowers create joy,” she says. “They connect us to the nature we are a part of and which you can often forget about when you live in the middle of a city. At home, I use flowers to enhance the atmosphere in each room. They are small emotional enhancers that add their own magic.”
Thilde, 43, runs a design studio called Poppykalas and lives with her husband, Jens, 44, and their daughters, Iris and Sonja, aged seven and nine. Their home is on the top two floors of an old terrace house in the “composers’ quarter” of Østerbro.
Thilde likes to arrange flowers without too much greenery in a bowl, rather than in a vase that compresses them and dictates the shape. By using a fakir ring in the bowl, the flowers can stand upright, forming a wild, airy and sculptural shape. She is inspired by the Japanese ikebana tradition of arranging flowers, where the arrangement is built up in three levels, and always has a spiky layer at the top.
Thilde’s other great sources of inspiration are the Swedish visual artist Hilma af Klint, with her spiritual approach to colour schemes and shapes, and Verner Panton, because of his colourful, imaginative and playful universe.
In the open kitchen, she has set up a dining area with Panton’s Fun light pendant and a table on wheels, which can be rolled away to create space. The bench, which is built of drawer modules from Trævarefabrikernes Udsalg, a Danish home furnishings store, is painted in bright green. The curtains are from Arne Aksel, while Arne Jacobsen’s Ant chairs in fine pastels are from Fritz Hansen.
On the wall hangs a small work by Sonja, along with two lithographs that Thilde found in a secondhand shop in Jutland. She doesn’t know who the artist is, but says she fell for the powerful colours and 1980s aesthetic.
The living room is Thilde’s favourite room and she keeps the furniture to a minimum so there is space to play – for both adults and children. “The children should be allowed to run around, play and dance,” she says. “I want the feeling that you can unfold. In the past, I have had a crowded home, but I feel free in the slightly more spartan space now.”
The living room’s main piece of furniture is a large, rust-coloured modular sofa from Sofacompany, which can accommodate the whole family. The sunny yellow curtains from Arne Aksel help to set the mood and “provide eternal sunshine” (as well as hiding the TV).
“I have worked with different colours in all the rooms, inspired by older homes I’ve lived in, where the rooms had different colours, which provided different moods. My grandmother had a pink living room, which I loved. I choose everything quite intuitively. I can sense if there is a lack of good energy. It may be that there are missing light sources or that there is an accumulation of too many objects,” says Thilde.”
In the hallway between the bedrooms and the bathroom on the top floor, she has had a large wardrobe built by a local carpentry company. It’s painted in the same blue as the floor, making it a more integrated part of the room. The closet contains all the family’s clothes. The purple glass pendant is by Helle Mardahl and the work on the wall is by Thilde.
Iris and Sonja love to bathe their dolls in the pink sink in the bathroom – an expensive luxury from Aquadomo, which Thilde says was worth every penny. The mirror is vintage, bought from local shop Boho Habits and the wall lamp is from a vintage store. The bedroom is subdued and in the same lavender colour that Thilde had in her room as a teenager. The vintage bedspread has a 1980s vibe. The headboard is from Ikea, but with a new cover, sewn by Thilde’s mother.
“The important thing for me is that our home gives us good energy and tranquillity. You have to feel that it embraces us and you are allowed to dance, paint and spill – even if it leaves traces,” Thilde says.
