The first time Agnethe Glatved, a freelance photo creative director, and her photographer husband Matthew Septimus, toured their Ditmas Park, New York, home in 2014, Glatved was positive it wasn’t the house for them. The walls were painted murky shades of pink and pale green, the kitchen was shrouded in fluorescent lighting, and there was blue carpeting everywhere. “I was like, ‘Definitely not. This is not us,’” Glatved recalls. So, they kept on with their house hunt, but all along she had a gut feeling that she needed to go back to the circa-1910 property for a second look. This time, Glatved did something she hadn’t during their first visit: she opened all of the curtains. “I was like, Oh my God, there’s a whole bank of windows! Once I realized that was there, I could see the room being filled with light,” she shares.
Glatved knows good lighting when she sees it—and not just because she and Septimus work behind cameras for a living. She grew up in western Norway where glowy, airy spaces are the norm. “There’s a certain quality of light in Scandinavia; there’s a softness that I’m always trying to bring into my life,” she says. Right away, Glatved removed all of the window treatments. Fast forward 10 years, and she still hasn’t brought them back. She even tasked their contractor with plastering the walls so the sun would always have a textured surface to bounce off, and she swathed (almost) every room in Benjamin Moore’s White Dove.
But there was more than just cosmetic updates to be made. Septimus and Glatved tapped an architect friend for advice on how to liven up the dingy kitchen. Their suggestion: move it. “It was not worth saving,” says Glatved. “They said, ‘If you’re going to rip it out, maybe you should rethink where in the house it is.’” The then-dining area had tall ceilings and easy living room access going for it, so they decided to shift the kitchen in there and turn the old cooking zone into a cozy TV room their kids, Ezra and Nora, can enjoy.
Still, they had to utilize every inch of the narrow space. The stretch of wall cabinets is only 12 inches deep—just big enough to hold dinner plates. Glatved went so far as to measure her tallest pots to determine the exact measurements for the drawers. Over the years, they amassed a collection of ceramics, starting with a slew of vintage Cafe au Lait bowls, and later adding pieces from Mud Australia and Gleena Ceramics to the mix.
After wrapping up a book project years ago, Glatved put her whole paycheck toward a piece of furniture she would cherish forever: a Hans Wegner dining table. “That’s a decision I never regretted,” she shares. Even when the couple isn’t entertaining, it feels like all of their loved ones are over: pieces by their artist friends’ hang all over the house, including above the buffet table alongside photographs by Septimus. “It really adds to the spirit of the room. I constantly feel their presence,” she says.
The shelves are jam-packed with the couple’s collection of photography books. Glatved is quick to reach for Georgia O’Keeffe: A Portrait by Alfred Stieglitz, which features portraits of the artist taken over a period of 30 years. Septimus’s favorite, Robert Frank: Seven Stories, has extra special meaning to him: he got to visit Frank in Nova Scotia a handful of times. “We love collecting photography books, it’s something that we often gift each other,” Glatved says.
They aren’t the only creatives living in this house. During the pandemic, Glatved gave her then-teenage daughter a stack of magazines and suggested she make a collage on one of the walls in her bedroom. “She was actually into the project. Over time, it expanded and grew to every corner,” Glatved shares. There’s little room now to add any more images, so Glatved focuses on maintaining what’s there while her daughter is away at college. “To this day, I go in, and I’m like this is so interesting,” she adds.
While Glatved has a similar collage brewing up on one of the walls in her third-floor office, she hasn’t been as quick to decorate their bedroom. Believe it or not: “It takes me a long time to commit to hanging anything on the wall,” she admits. For her, the windows offer enough interest. “It has the most beautiful light. It feels a little like a tree house when you’re up there,” she says.
With all the light Glatved has found in their house, it’s no surprise that she’s become a bit of a green thumb. The sills of the front porch are dotted with plants. “I never used to be able to keep things alive,” she says. A friend got her started with jade, aloe, and geraniums. Now, everyone is thriving.
