Kitchen Creating A Contemporary Kitchen

Date Published:

03/06/2008

With so many styles, colours and textures it can be difficult to chose the appliances to go with your new kitchen.

Colour's back, but steel is so versatile. What to do? It's a hard choice, and if you can't decide, go for black instead. Look out for flexible ovens, such as combis that can steam food, too. If time is pressing, you need a Stoves Genus cooker, which cooks up to four times faster than a conventional oven.

The must-have appliance is an induction hob, which is super-efficient and speedy and only gets hot when an iron-based pan is placed on it. Otherwise, look out for mix and match hobs- just select the elements you need, such as a barbecue hob and teppan yaki plate and line them up in a row. Try Neff's Domino hobs.

Fridge freezers have moved on some. You know you want the over-sized, American-style fridge freezer, with the icemaker but you can go one better with Whirlpool's Insight fridge freezer which has a coffee maker as well.

Like Cinderella, extractors have emerged from grim hoods to sparkling chandelier styles, and impressive stainless steel ones that raise and lower over the worktop, with lighting incorporated- try Elica for a good range.

Hide an LCD screen behind a unit door for TV while you wash up. Alno's version is invisible when switched off. Once you've got the coffee maker, you'll need a wine cooler too, to keep bottles at optimum temperature.