With the likes of offices, restaurants, bars and pubs, and cinemas closed for long periods of time, we were suddenly doing much more at home. Will this multifunctionality continue in 2022, and what are going to be some of the most popular design trends for the year ahead?
You can’t quite top that feeling of warmth and snugness at home on a winter’s evening, but what if your home isn’t geared up for the season? These 5 clever ways to make your home cosier will give you some inspiration on how to create that warm feeling in style!
If you’re looking to equip your kitchen with the top of the range Mercedes of the oven world, look no further.
The Kitchen Pantry is one such creation. Popular from the 1920’s onwards, this essential piece of kitchen furniture stored consumables such as eggs, bread and milk. Some even had pull out tables so that the family could sit around them for dinner. This was an innovative and important space saver often found in the shared housing of the big towns during the war.Today’s Kitchen Pantry has changed…a little! ‘The Kitchen Pantry Unit’ is to today’s kitchen, what the ‘Little Black Dress’ is to fashion. Think storage with style, practicality with panache.
Forget the conventional base units where you get down on your knees, hoping to locate the tin of tomatoes you know is hiding somewhere at the back. Today’s kitchen pantry is a joy to behold for those who love a bit of storage. Typically fitted with drawers, racks and lighting, some even have the toaster, coffee machine and espresso cups neatly stored away behind closed doors, ready to get your day started.
Today’s kitchens often have storage considered for the pots and pans, drawers for cutlery and baking supplies and cupboards to house the cereal and dry goods. What they often don’t have, is a place to hold the often-large number of recipe books that are required to create these tasty morsels. Books are one of those things that just don’t seem like they should be tucked away at the back of a regular kitchen cupboards or stowed away in drawers. We all need somewhere to store those precious books with ease of access. A place where they are visible, as well as adding colour to your kitchen. We believe such a place exists – welcome to the Kitchen Island Library.
Needing to wait for the pot to boil is thankfully a thing of the past, thanks to the ingenious invention that is the Quooker.
For many these questions may not be up there with ‘To be or not to be….’ but if you are looking at having a beautiful, modern kitchen installed and you want to avoid the age-old issues of a home filled with odours of garlic and old cooking oil, then these questions will be as important to you as the colour scheme you’ve spent hours if not weeks mulling over.
The Extractor Hood has been around for many years, removing airborne grease from the cooking process, eradicating unwanted smells such as re-used cooking oil and the sometimes too strong stench of garlic, not to mention heat and steam using ether a flexible or rigid duct. There is no regulation stipulating that you have one as such, however the benefits it brings to your overall cooking experience should not be underestimated. Styles have evolved from the traditional wall-mounted canopy hood, to more linear steel and glass designs. These pieces of kit are not just functional(stopping your house smelling like last night’s dinner) they can be a real stylish addition to your kitchen.
The creators at BORA have produced a hob with an inbuilt down-draft extractor that pulls steam and odours down and away at four times the rate that they are produced. In BORA’s own words they describe this as ‘UNLIMITED FREEDOM. – MAXIMUM FLEXIBILITY FOR THE KITCHEN’.
We’d love to discuss how we can incorporate this amazing product in the design of your new kitchen, get in touch today and let us help you breathe fresh life into your kitchen space.
Home is definitely where the heart is and for many of us, the kitchen is the heartbeat itself. It’s the first port of call for many after a hard day’s work. Some will head straight to the sink, armed with the kettle for a well-deserved cup of tea. For others a glass of chilled white wine could do the trick and then there’s those who grab themselves a beer, flip off the cap and let the stresses of the day disperse in a nice, cool glass of beer. Whatever your ‘poison’ at the end of a busy day, this now versatile room with all its amazing gadgetry and Wi-Fi technology has become the mainstay of many a home. So, we thought we’d take you back to a time when the kitchen was a little humbler, than it is now.
We may think that the modern-day kitchen is just that, inspired and formed from modern day living, a creation from the ‘noughties’. ‘Quaint and outdated’ we may think when we look back at images of kitchens from previous decades, however these cooking spaces from yester-year have played a part influencing the spaces we now cook and socialise in. Each era has brought with it, its own obsession from that time.
In early 1900, Fred W. Wolf of Fort Wayne, Indiana, invented refrigerators for home and domestic use with models consisting of a unit that was mounted on top of an ice box.
The 1920’s were viewed as ‘sanitation conscious’, think all-white kitchens that are clean enough to eat your lunch off.
The advent of early ‘appliance technology’ in the 1930’s, brought with it a real change in how we were able to prepare food and beverages. Thanks to appliances from General Electric, such as the electric kettle with automatic cut-out, making a cup of tea became a whole lot easier.
The 1940’s introduced us to food storage in the format of Tupperware containers, developed by Earl Silas Tupper in Massachusetts. Due to rationing because of the war, preserving also became popular in this decade.
The 1950’s saw the first non-stick pan produced and the invention of the microwave oven.
The 1960’s brought a leap in change for the humble kitchen. New technology enabled most fridges to have a freezer compartment below the refrigerator. Ovens and hobs were built into cabinets, both portable and inbuilt dishwashers becoming the norm, Washer and Dryer machines were now able to clean and dry clothes in less time and with fewer wrinkles than before.
The 70’s brought with it the Breville toasted sandwich maker, the Swan Teasmade and the Soda Stream.(who didn’t want a Soda Stream maker?)
The 1980’s bought with it the birth of television cooking shows such as Food and Drink, followed by Ready Steady Cook in the 1990’s, in early 2000 Saturday Kitchen launched and is still running to this day.
That leads us back to the modern-day kitchen….stunning floor to ceiling cabinets, concrete work surfaces, high speed ovens that clean themselves, induction hobs that go from cold to hot to cold instantaneously, music piped seamlessly through invisible speakers, boiling water straight from the tap with no need for a kettle and a flat screen TV to catch up on the latest Netflix box set.
Yester-years kitchens have helped to create the kitchen of today, get in touch with us on 07496 099446 and we will help to create your kitchen of the future.
Lime Interiors Specialise in high end quality home renovations. We are based in St Albans, Herts UK. If you are looking for a bespoke renovation or are simply in the market for a high end, quality home, please contact us.
We are an experienced high end property developer based in St Albans, Hertfordshire UK. We carry out new build and renovation projects in the London, Greater London and Hertfordshire areas.
We are always interested in acquiring land, older buildings & any type of property that requires modernisation, so contact us if you have an asset in the St Albans, London or Greater London area.