The story of KOAK Design

"We are certainly not a standard kitchen supplier"

"Grab your saw quickly!" For example, Sandy Sonnemans often greeted her husband when he came home from his regular job. That is now a thing of the past. Due to the success of their kitchen company Koak Design, they can now fully focus on their specialty: creating customization based on IKEA cabinets.

If you're looking for a modern oak kitchen, but don't have a solid wood wallet, you should take a look behind the scenes at Sandy Sonneman's farmhouse. Her own cooking room is also the exemplary kitchen of Koak Design. The home company makes solid oak kitchen doors and panels based on mostly IKEA Metod kitchens. An affordable solution with an exclusive look. Sonnemans: "Based on a design by the customer, preferably with the help of the IKEA kitchen planner, we make the oak parts for a new kitchen. This can also be done with another brand or an existing kitchen."

Into the real estate

Originally Sonnemans (44) has nothing at all with kitchens. She followed the HBO training in Personnel and Organization and worked for a year in the P&O department of a law firm. During a winter sports holiday she met her current husband Frank and after a while the two decided to leave for France for eight months: to enjoy themselves and to think carefully about how they would spend the rest of their lives together. "We are both handy. We love odd jobs and had gained the necessary experience in renovating our own house. When we returned home we decided to devote ourselves to project development. At the time, The Hague, where we operated, had an enormous demand for houses for sale. Then I am talking about the period 2002-2008. "

Ball started rolling

The tide turned. During the financial crisis, consumer confidence declined, with known consequences for the housing market. "My husband was forced to look for a permanent job again, which he was really enjoying. When we came up with the idea of ​​Koak Design - which stands for Kitchen Oak Design, he just did the kitchen work next to it. But after a while it went away. that really no longer, the requests via the website kept rolling in. In April 2011, Koak Design was featured in various housing magazines and the RTL4 program 'Bouwval Gezocht.' Nowadays Frank no longer stands with a saw in his hand, we have it's too busy for that. We are now dealing with sales and planning. We engage people for physical work.

Tragic

Contact with customers is something that suits Sonnemans well. She takes pride in the trust people place in her. "It often happens that people buy from us without having visited. I find that very special." She will never forget a customer in particular: "He was too busy to come by, but we had very nice contact by email and by phone. It even went so far that he asked me for advice on all kinds of odd jobs, such as whether or not by tiling to the ceiling. I enjoyed helping him, he was a really friendly man. Unfortunately we were never able to deliver, he died in the terrible accident with the MH17. I think, I get goosebumps again. And the bizarre thing is: the last e-mail with questions that I received from him was from the night of the disaster. Calculating back, I think he sent it from Schiphol ... "

Animal stuff

Sandy doesn't have much trouble with her own kitchen functioning as a showroom. "That is due to the type of customers we attract. They are people who like high-quality goods, but who do not want to pay the main price.

The fact that a showroom in a private farmhouse is quite different from the standard kitchen business is clear even more quickly to customers with children. "We have twins of twelve," says Sandy proudly. "I always jokingly say that the girls are not the entertainment team, but when children come over, they usually take care of it. They are immediately taken to our animals. In less weather they hang from the play rings in the living room. By the way, I also found a customer dangling there! "

TEXT MIREILLE RAMEAU / PHOTOGRAPHY: RUBEN SCHUMACHER

Kitchen & Design Magazine for the Kitchen Professional