38,517 Kitchen & Dining

Invest in good appliances

The pillar stones of any kitchen are its appliances. Large kitchen appliances such as ovens, hobs, fridges and dishwashers should be decided on and positioned before you think about adding anything else – you don’t want to leave a gap for your oven after installing your cabinets only to find your chosen appliance doesn’t fit. Invest in quality, too. These appliances will probably be used daily so you don’t want them failing on you all the time. Once you’re sure they’ll do the job you want them to, then you can think about their appearance and how you want the rest of the room to look. Will you go with standard stainless steel, traditional white, contemporary black or a whole other colour altogether?

Add timeless elements

Kitchen tiles and lighting may be next on your list to tackle. While kitchen tiles are still ever popular as splashbacks, especially metro tiles, there are now plenty of glass sheet and mirror splashbacks, too. If you plan on having a splashback all around your kitchen, then make sure you’re 100% sure on your chosen design – they can be expensive to replace and you don’t want to get bored of the look after a year or so. Kitchen lighting can make all the difference when baking and cooking – you’ll be surprised at how much easier it is to chop, slice and dice when you have bright and clear light. Look at under cabinet lighting, pendant lights and ceiling lights to see which would best suit your kitchen.

Consider your kitchen gadgets carefully

It’s so easy to be enticed by the latest gizmos and gadgets, and new kitchen gadgets are being developed thick and fast these days, but try not to go too crazy with your small kitchen appliances. Are you really going to use that automatic egg peeler every day? Are you going to use all the functions of your super-fancy coffee machine or just press the latte button every morning? Pick out gadgets that fit with the design of your kitchen but will be useful and helpful to you – if you’re not going to use it at least once a month, then it’s probably not worth the investment.

Don’t forget the staples

To have a functioning kitchen and a place to serve your food, you need the basic cookware and tableware. Make sure you have a good set of pans, including a frying pan, a few baking trays and tins, a sieve, colander, and chopping boards (as well as some good kitchen knives). When it comes to tableware you’ll need dinner plates, side plates, bowls, glasses, mugs and a good cutlery set. But you probably know all of this! If you’ve got all the basics, you can then have fun with colourful cutlery sets, handy graters, potato mashers, ladles, peelers and all the extra bits and bobs that will make your kitchen feel like yours.

Organise, organise, organise

With all these appliances, products and food in your kitchen and dining area, you’ll need somewhere to store it all. Dining room and kitchen storage items can give you ingenious ways of hiding away lots of items at once. Take a look at pot racks, kitchen trolleys, pantry cupboards, cupboard organisers, utensil holders and food containers, all of which can offer great storage solutions in the kitchen. In the dining room you can add glassware and plate storage, cutlery organisers and drawer dividers to help you tidy aware tablecloths and napkins.

Start exploring the kitchen and dining section today on Houzz to discover all the products that could improve your cooking and eating experience at home.