These days, residential interior design is more varied than ever, from the crazy designs of tiny homes to utterly minimalist modern houses. However, regardless of what you want your home to look like and how you want to decorate it, one thing is still constant: the kitchen remains the heart of your home. It’s where you prepare all your meals, and your family gathers to eat them. It’s the place where you receive guests and get them a cup of coffee or drinks. Plus, it’s the most crucial room for casual yet meaningful conversations.
Simultaneously, kitchen appliances are some of the most important devices you use in your entire home. That’s why we’re quick to call appliance repair when our precious kitchen appliances malfunction; we can’t go without a dishwasher, toaster, or fridge for even a day. This makes such appliances the focal point of our home life and an essential piece of our kitchen design.
Considering that, let’s look at some of the most exciting interior design trends related to kitchen appliances.
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Smart Devices
Technology is quickly making its way into every segment of our daily lives, including our kitchen appliances. Less than a decade ago, smart TVs were a novelty that few people were willing to pay for, except for tech enthusiasts. Fast forward to today, and the “Internet of Things” has already reshaped our world through tech-embedded appliances.
Today, you can buy a relatively affordable fridge that has an LCD screen and a user interface; it’s connected to the Internet, and you can use it to download recipes, create grocery lists, or set reminders to buy things you’re running out of. Heck, you can even use a smartphone app to control the temperature inside; it’s a brave new world, and people are joining it in droves.
The same goes for newer stoves; their tablet-like screens also let you download recipes and control the device remotely. Yep, you can start preheating your oven while you’re still grocery shopping. In many ways, the future is already here – if you want to, even your toaster can be “smart.”
Hidden Hoods
In a modern home, it’s all about tasteful minimalism – and any large appliance that sticks out is just begging to be concealed. However, while we’ve had built-in fridges that seamlessly fit with your cabinetry for a while, kitchen hoods stubbornly stuck out for years. That’s all changing because more and more designers are finding clever ways to hide larger kitchen hoods as well, giving you all the functionality of a bulky hood while also hiding it just as efficiently as they would a smaller one. You get more space to move around freely, and the entire kitchen seems bigger too.
Noiseless Dishwashers
Dishwashers are an absolute life-saver; most of us look at the days when we hand-washed all of our dishes as the Victorian days of old or something from a Charles Dickens story about a Christmas past. However, there’s just one problem – they’re quite loud. There’s nothing more annoying than starting to binge your favorite show after dinner, only for its sound to be drowned out by the noisy dishwasher.
Today, high-end models have been perfected, and they hardly make any noise at all. They’re stunning appliances – you won’t even be sure they’re running.
Four-Door Fridges
While the aesthetic design is important for a kitchen appliance, ultimately, we’re all still looking for functionality. That’s why four-door fridges have become so popular lately. You’ve got a few options, but two drawers for the freezer and two doors for the fridge are the most usual combo. And it allows you to organize your food much more neatly. Plus, you get to micromanage everything and fine-tune the temperatures for each zone. That way, none of your food will dry out or spoil.
Industrial Materials
In the past, kitchens were designed to look “homely” – a lot of wooden cabinets and surfaces, which positioned your home life as a stark contrast to your life in the office. However, we’ve practically eliminated that in today’s kitchen design; most modern kitchens are just as sleek, minimalist, and industrialist when it comes to their aesthetics.
Appliance designers have taken note of these long-term interior design trends, which is why our kitchen appliances are looking less “wooden” than ever. They’ve been shifting towards materials you’d only see in industrial spaces just a few decades ago, like stainless-steel mat finishes you can find on most modern fridges.
Less Clutter
A minimalist design won’t do you much good if you’ve got stuff lying all over the place; they cancel each other out. That’s why eliminating clutter has become such a priority for modern interior designers; particularly in the kitchen, where there’s always tons of stuff everywhere. However, contemporary kitchen units and cabinets have become great at hiding everything from utensils to small appliances.
The designers of larger appliances have also taken this approach – you’ll see fewer buttons and dials on your appliances these days, as everything’s been transferred to screens that are seamless with the surface of the object.