House Beautiful 2019 Kitchen(s) of the Year

Grab you favorite beverage and nestle in for the most amazing eye candy. World-renowned Interior Designer Michelle Nussbaumer  of Ceylon et Cie shares her new Dallas warehouse home within the pages of House Beautiful as part of their coveted Kitchen of the Year feature (#koty).

There are those who travel, and those who travel well. Michelle Nussbaumer is most definitely in the latter category, as one can easily observe when looking at the items she  surrounds herself with.

Nussbaumer stuck to a mantra—“Do things that are not trendy, things you actually respond to”—while outfit­ting the newly converted warehouse home she and her husband, Bernard, own in Dallas. She installed what amounts to four kitchens: The main one (with a walk-in porcelain pantry) and a speakeasy occupy the first floor, while upstairs is a full art kitchen and a cocktail bar for entertaining.

The theatricality of it all should come as no surprise: Nussbaumer studied set design in college. “For me, it’s fun to have fantasy moments.

The Main Kitchen

“There’s an Art Deco vibe throughout the whole house,” says Nussbaumer, “but I still wanted it to feel like a warehouse.” Unpolished concrete walls and exposed steel beams are juxtaposed with glossy surfaces, bold color, and antiques.

“I love that you don’t see most of the appliances—they’re all behind lacquered doors. There’s something glam about it.”

The Speakeasy

“The whole room has a sexy, smoky vibe,” says Nussbaumer. Literally: “You can have a cigar here if you like to smoke.”

The Pantries

The Porcelain pantry was inspired by Denmark’s Rosenborg Castle. “I like to use my grandmother’s dinner plates mixed with salad plates from Target,” Nussbaumer says. “It makes it all feel so new and fun.”

“When I was designing this years kitchen of the year for House Beautiful I decided to try to make my dream china room fantasy come to life.”

The Art Kitchen

In her art studio, Nussbaumer created an ode to the cook spaces of Paris: “It’s this little tiny thing, but everything you need is in it,” she says, pointing to covert fridge drawers. The walls, stock cabinets, and even the range hood are wrapped in a custom vinyl printed with Nussbaumer’s own ikat pattern.

The Cocktail Bar

Nussbaumer created this Art Deco delight in a room with 18-foot-high ceilings. “Surrounding it with fractured geometric Silestone by Cosentino was so fun,” she says.

Although the porcelain pantry is a heavy contender, the cocktail bar is my favorite space. The Silestone facade draws me in and I could site for hours taking in the grandeur of the space.