Anna Olson's kitchen

When Anna Olson planned her kitchen, she didn't know it was going to become a TV star. The chef, cookbook author and host of cooking shows Sugar and Fresh with Anna Olson did what any professional cook would: She drew on years of experience in commercial kitchens to design a lively space that accommodated her non-stop kitchen activity and her fondness for cooking with others, especially her husband, Michael, who is also a chef. Later, when she decided to shoot Fresh with Anna Olson in her home, set designer Elisa Sauve helped make it camera-ready, but the kitchen remains a working space that Anna uses virtually every day.



In addition to having a starring role on her show, however, the vibrant, colour-filled space turns out to be the star of the Olson home as well. The house, an 1880 heritage building in Welland, Ontario, features typically Victorian elongated shuttered windows, a central turret and a deep wraparound verandah. Anna and Michael renovated the house six years ago, and decorated with a combination of old and new, pairing contemporary stream-lined furnishings with a vibrant colour palette to ease the gracious space into the present.

A succession of wide doorways offers views of the kitchen from anywhere on the light-filled main floor, and the kitchen's bold robin's egg blue adds a retro accent to the mix of vintage dining room table and modern oversized living room sofa. "For every day, I would probably go for a more muted shade, but I like living with it," Anna says. "It's bright—even in winter."