An Artist’s Natural Habitat: Casual Nordic Elegance of Ditte Isager

Arya

ditte isager

Ditte Isager truly has an eye for detail: the photographer’s Nordic-inspired portfolio is a stunning case of camera craft meets natural knack for textural, light, and hue experiments, and it includes masterful pictures featured in { It’s All Good } { It’s All Easy } and Noma: Time and Place in Nordic Cuisine. Isager’s client list is another awe-inspiring aspect of her professional life, starring world-famous brands such as Bang & Olufsen, Hemtex, Bulthaup, Ochre, H&M, Kinfolk, and Fritz Hansen. But work is not all that the Danish Photographer loves passionately: photos of Isager’s Copenhagen home reveal yet another dimension of her fascinating personality, evidencing that her outstanding talent for visual art spans both photography and décor.

Kitchen

Nordic Kitchen Design With Small Dining Table

Isager’s kitchen is a textbook example of Nordic style: with abundance of sunlight and minimal visual noise, the room exudes sophistication and an industrial feel. Custom-built Blendwerk cabinets accommodate everyday kitchen clutter, and were it not for the cleverly concealed oven and pastel-hued bowls playfully scattered on the shelf, the artwork-infused kitchen would have easily passed off as a studio. Lighting, too, fits the Nordic formula perfectly: overhead pendants and adjustable desk lamp provide ample luminosity at nighttime, whereas naked windows offer lots of natural light during the day. “I’ve never really had curtains. There is such little light in the wintertime that you want to have all the light you can get,” Isager says.

Dining room

Casual Nordic Dining room

The dining room also draws on the recognizable Danish minimalist vibe, with the table, bench, and safari chairs crafted from natural materials. The fireplace, Poul Kjærholm daybed, and piano are the few visual elements that add a dash of coziness and warmth to otherwise very industrial room look. Here too, the curtains are absent, but unlike in the kitchen, sleek overhead pendants are replaced by an imposing Ochre chandelier which overlooks the seating area. The dining room, kitchen, and living area are seamlessly merged into a single unit, and the open-floor layout creates a sense of flow and comfort. “We have a piano, a fireplace, a day bed, our dining table, and the kitchen in one room. I like that I can be part of the action when I’m cooking: I can still talk to our guests, or play with my son,” the photographer remarks.

Living room

bookshelf and studyroom design

living room wall painting decor ideas

The living room is stylistically contrast to pared-down Nordic décor that reigns the remainder of the ground floor: the artwork-covered walls are painted deep sea green, and custom Blendwerk shelves embrace the door, showcasing Isager and her husband’s treasured book collection. “I use lots of grey, green, and blue tones in my work and think the color on the wall makes a great contrast to the white moldings,” Isager explains.

Studio

Small Space Design Studio

Wooden Base Small Space Office in Home

Isager’s studio with a platform area is the latest addition to the house (an excellent idea for folks set on flipping houses to increase property value), and it is connected to the rest of the home by a repurposed staircase leading from the living area and into the garden. Studio walls and ceiling are covered by Dinesen’s Douglas Pine wooden planks, rendering an impression of an isolated cocoon fit for the queen of visual art. “We wanted to make a little wooden box, without trying to make it look like the original house, but as a nice contrast to it — the modern and the new melting together.”

Bedroom

Simple Small Space sea blue wall Bedroom

The sea-blue bedroom exudes serenity, and its modest dimensions are compensated through abundance of sunlight and minimal furnishings. “The bedroom is pretty small, and it’s basically just our bed, but I love that room: It’s north-facing so we get a nice soft light all day,” Ditte notes.

Bathroom

Bathroom Marble Wall

Casual Nordic elegance style bathroom design

Another light-filled area, Isager’s neutral-hued bathroom does not exactly look like a bathroom: it is packed with various bits and ends, and the Gubi desk lamp, artwork, and an upcycled clock add a creative, personal touch to the room. “The upstairs is small and has lots of light coming in from a big window, so we had a wall made with glass in it so the light would come into the hallway, too,” Isager states.

Nice work there, Mrs. Isager! The photographer’s home is real eyecandy and a bottomless well of ideas for imaginative experiments and reinterpretations of recognizable Nordic minimalism.

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