Copenhagen
Kelsey here on a Sunday morning lounging on the couch, wearing bike shorts and a crew neck Hanes sweatshirt, browsing international photos as one does when they are not currently “international”.
In our ‘about’ section, which who really reads, Anna and I mention that Copenhagen is a treasure to both of us. In many ways, that’s where Sturdy House started to materialize, before we knew each other and before we knew Sturdy House.
For me, my obsession with Copenhagen started at age 17, with no strong reason that I articulated at the time. I suppose in retrospect my reasoning was that Copenhagen was the best place to find a tall Danish suitor, given that I’m 6 feet tall. However, if I give myself more credit, I’ll say that I was always a creative kid with an awareness of design and had heard through the grapevine (my Norwegian Grandma) that Scandinavia was known for design. I visited Copenhagen for the first time at age 23 when money was scarce and a piece of chocolate cake was my daily travel budget. Turns out, that tall Danish men had no place in my future, something I learned around that age. But design had a place in my future and my partner Kristin (5’9” and Italian, not bad) had a place. So my real experience of Copenhagen was my second visit in 2018 with Kristin. We stayed in Vesterbro, near the meatpacking district, just blocks from the first Mikkeller. On a day that we’d bar & restaurant hopped for hours, we landed at the window bar of that first Mikkeller (pictured below). Likely 7+ drinks in, Kristin reported while drinking her beer, “everything in this bar and this city is so beautiful I’m physically sick. The people, the design, the clothes, the buildings. It’s so good I could puke. How do they do it”. And she wasn’t physically sick from drinks, let’s be real we can hold our own, she was expressing the sentiment that I also feel about Danish design. Every detail of every thing and place in Copehenhagen is thought about.
That trip started mine and Kristin’s unavoidable tendency to evaluate the design details of every commercial space we enter, for better or worse. This continues to go on today. We switch off saying what we would change and how that would bring more patrons to the bar, restaurant, shop etc. It’s a game, but we’re serious. While I majored in Interior Design, I graduated with knowledge of coffee table heights and other stale details, and was uninspired by the traditional idea of becoming an interior designer. Copenhagen and Kristin (and Anna which I’ll get to soon) changed my view of design. The city and the way I was impacted by these impeccably designed public spaces, made me realize the connection I felt to commercial design.
I met Anna a year later at our corporate sales jobs. Her phone background was a photo of the original “Egg” chair that she took at the SAS Royal Hotel in downtown Copenhagen, also in 2018. We had been there a few weeks apart but didn’t know each other. I didn’t know a lot about the Egg chair but Anna did. Chairs are her thing. We started realizing a shared love for Copenhagen and design. A year later, Sturdy House Co. was born in Seattle, in a text thread between me and Anna. I told her about the ‘design game’ that Kristin and I play of ‘how can we make this better’ and she told me she has the same thoughts. Every commercial space has incredible potential and we started to become curious and confident about the impact that design has on customer acquisition and experience and ultimately on business revenue.
When our first design client had a trunk and tray from her Scandinavian grandmother that she wanted to incorporate in her space, we were elated and felt like we were headed in the right direction (shout out Ellie & Ellie’s Grandma).
Until next time, Cophenhagen. In the meantime, you’re with us more than you know.
