Better Living Blog

You know the feeling you get when you walk into a friend or neighbor’s house and they have the “perfect” butcher block and the “perfect” blender and the “perfect” slow cooker out for the entire world to see. You probably have the exact same items at home, but hers are black and silver and yours are white and red, so something must be wrong. You need yours to be black and silver, don’t you?

In reality, you’re not seeing products that are any different from your own and those products are not any better than the exact same (only differently colored) products that you have in your own house.

So what’s the difference?

The difference you notice is actually in the well-designed, organized and thought out kitchen.

The size, design and use of each of your kitchen appliances, whether they are large kitchen appliances, like an American style refrigerator or dishwasher, or they are small kitchen appliances like microwaves and slow cookers, are all extremely important aspects of your well-designed kitchen. Using a kitchen planning guide can take a lot of the guesswork of building the perfect kitchen, but if you don’t have a kitchen planning guide handy, you can follow a simple method to keep your kitchen and your appliances in visual order.

You’ve probably gone through extreme pains to make your kitchen as perfect as it can possibly be. But when you replaced the countertops with red marble and got new oak cabinets, you also got a brand new, silver-steel American style refrigerator to replace your old, worn out one. But you kept the white dishwasher and the black oven and range. The color difference in these major appliances is extremely noticeable when you walk into your kitchen.

Also, when you’re choosing your major appliances the style is important as well. You can’t simply walk into a department store and purchase three items of the same color. You also need to make sure that you are purchasing the same style class—classic, modern, sophisticated, etc. Do you want your appliances to be textured or smooth? Shiny or matte?  Believe it or not, each of these components is key in determining whether your kitchen will meld together or clash like the Titans.

Once you have your major appliances selected, compared and stamped for approval in your newer, well-designed kitchen, you can start focusing on your small kitchen appliances.

While your small kitchen appliances are not as important in terms of design and color, their use and where they are going to be kept is critical to keeping your kitchen looking well-designed and well-organized. If you have small kitchen appliances, such as a blender, that will be used frequently and will be on your countertops for the duration of its life, you may want to consider purchasing a blender that has a sleek design and also features the same colors on its base as your major appliances. This will help your blender blend in, especially as it gets older and is not as appealing to look at.

Small kitchen appliances that will be kept on top of your American style refrigerator should be just that: small. If you can avoid it, you should never store your larger small kitchen appliances on top of your refrigerator. This location is extremely visible and will look cluttered if you cover it with larger appliances. This problem becomes increasingly worse when you place items in varying colors together in this highly visible location.

One small appliance that must follow the same rules as the major appliances for a well-designed kitchen is your microwave. Whatever style, design and color you select for your major appliances should be the color, design and style you select for your microwave.  If your refrigerator, range, over and dishwasher all feature push button technologies, you should select a microwave that follows suit, rather than a microwave that utilizes dials and knobs.

But a well-designed kitchen is not just about your major and small kitchen appliances. The look of your kitchen is also determined by the cutlery you use and how you display it. Two of the most popular ways to display your frequent-use and major cutlery, like butcher and chopping knives, are 1) a wood block and 2) a hanging rack.

If you have small children in your house, your best bet, surprisingly, is probably the hanging rack. Small children can’t reach the hanging rack, but they can reach a wood block full of knives placed carelessly on one of your countertops.

However, if your kitchen doesn’t sport an island, a hanging rack for knives, pots and pans will only create a visual mess in your otherwise well-designed kitchen.

If your cutlery is older, you should invest in a wood block or a new set that comes with a wood block. But you’ll need to be sure that you keep your wood block looking new for as long as you intend to keep the set. Also, you’ll want to make sure that you find a wood block knives set that has a block color complementing that of your kitchen. Most wood block sets come in a variety of colors, so this should not be a problem if you’re willing to look around.

Your other, less appealing option is to keep your cutlery in a drawer. Beware of this option as it can lead to laziness. If you throw all of your knives in a drawer together you can expect them to become dull and scratch years faster than they would if you used a wood block.  If you do choose the easy way out, be sure to keep a knife sharpener on hand, preferably in a different drawer.

When all is said and done, your matching major appliances, well-kept cutlery and small, well thought out small kitchen appliances will keep your well-designed kitchen in perfect visual order.

Tags: American style refrigerator | kitchen planning guide | kitchen planning guide | kitchen appliances | countertops | countertops | cutlery

del.icio.us Digg Furl Reddit

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 1:49 pm and is filed under Bedroom furniture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.