Oven Profiling

Before designing that perfect kitchen, the appliances, especially the cooking units must be chosen. Sounds easy, but unless you know the lifestyle, budget and decor of your client, your choices are overwhelming and confusing, to say the least. There certainly is no room for error.

I am very familiar with the appliances I have reviewed, and had fun profiling the consumer to fit each one. You can use this guide or not, but if you do, let me know if you agree.

TurboChef Wall oven offers high speed convection that cooks food up to 15 times faster than a conventional oven by combining bursts of microwave heat with convection heat blown up to 60 miles per hour, transferring heat into the food quickly and evenly through dozens of holes in the top and bottom of the oven. With hundreds of pre-programmed recipes, this oven not only looks great, but makes it easy to prepare a gourmet dinner in under 10 minutes. The curved, hearth-shaped upper oven is available in stainless steel as well as six exciting colors.

Consumer Profile:
The TurboChef oven caters to time-crunched, design-conscious consumers who crave gourmet meals but do not always have time to prepare them. They enjoy having friends frequently gather in their high tech home for group cooking. Money is not an issue. Quality, technology and performance are foremost on their shopping list.. The Escalade is one the family vehicles, big screen TV’s are a must and their children are active in sports.

Gagganeu’s 24” Lift Oven with automatic elevating glass ceramic base opens with the push of a button, lowering directly from the oven to the countertop. With no door to open, the heat remains in the oven cavity resulting in a minimum of heat loss. Eleven heating methods including convection are featured in this fully integrated oven, in addition to automatic temperature recommendation and precise electronic temperature control. The Lift Oven can be installed with or without wall cabinets flanked on each side since the oven is totally encased in stainless steel.
The height of the oven installation can be determined by the height of the consumer…higher for a taller person or even lower than standard for a more petite user. Note: If lower application is used, the countertop below the oven must be lower than 36” above the floor. This oven is ideal as an auxiliary oven in a butler’s pantry, for a small kitchen with limited space or for an ADA compliant design.

Consumer Profile:
The seasoned, professional couple who enjoy cooking but not too often. They have downsized from their suburban ranch to an urban, contemporary loft without clutter. They hang out at the museums and the theater enjoying quiet times together. They traded in their SUV for a Miata..

Sharp Insight Range offers a 30” ceramic glass cook top with a warming zone, a microwave drawer that opens with the touch of a button and an oven with true European Convection with a third heating element and fan that circulates the heat for even baking. The door remains closed with convection broiling helping meats to brown while sealing in juices. The microwave’s sensor technology eliminates guesswork when cooking or reheating foods. Easy access to the microwave makes it ideal for young children, and vertically challenged and special needs adults. This range answers the age-old question, “where do I put the microwave?” Practical and very stylish, the Insight is attractive to any budget. Available in black, white and stainless steel.

Consumer Profile:
Retired consumer thinking of maintenance-free living for the future. Downsized and de-cluttered the home; enjoys cooking easy, quick meals, leisurely reads and watches TV, takes life easy. The Prius is the car of choice.

Light Up Your Life

We’ve come a long way since good old Thomas Edison invented that utilitarian light bulb way back in 1879, making our lives easier, safer and glitzier, too. Hmmm, a word he might never have thought of in describing his incredible invention.

The elements of interior design include cabinetry, flooring, tile, plumbing fixtures and the like. But lighting, from task to mood, has jumped into the forefront of importance over the last several years.

As designers, it is our responsibility to fill the space with light and to use the light and its fixtures as an integral part of a room’s design. This critical design element adds drama and elegance. For years, lighting manufacturers have continually produced a plethora of fixtures for designers to incorporate into their designs for every room in the home. Now, in the spirit of “green living”, they are including energy-saving product-benefits into all of them.

Light layering - ambient, task and accent lighting used together – provides the room with more dimension, depth and visual interest. The first layer of light is general — or ambient — light. It is an overall wash of light that making the room safe to walk through. This layer can have a subtle, quiet presence through the use of recessed cans. Or, it can be an impressive statement by using chandeliers.

Task lighting – light’s second layer - provides the kind of intense light required to perform tasks like reading or cooking. It can be under-cabinet lighting or simple pendants immediately above the work area giving brighter, more direct light to the space.

The third layer of light is accent, or mood, lighting. Accent lights generate interest and insert a bit of excitement to the room. Generally, accent lighting should cast at least five times more light to an area or object than the existing light of the room. Rope lighting placed above crown molding to accentuate architectural features is an example of accent lighting.

Today, standard 6” cans or down lighting are being replaced by mini pendants, both fixed and on movable tracks, for many areas of the home. Placing these lights over an island or vanity sink not only brightens up the workspace, but also adds color, texture and interest to the décor.

A fun way of providing light in hallways, stairways and baths is to use wall sconces in lieu of ceiling fixtures or stair step lighting. These fixtures can compliment the design of the home with color and texture.


Did you know that…

Using dimmers on incandescent bulbs increase its life and decreases the energy used?

The newest compact fluorescents (CFLs) don’t flicker and hum, and are dimmable, and provide a warmer color temperature than in the past. Visit earth911.org to learn how to dispose of these bulbs properly.

If every American home exchanged the 5 most-used bulbs with energy star-qualified bulbs, 1 trillion pounds of greenhouse gases would be kept out of the air providing a savings of $6 billion in energy.


Americans have saved $16 billion on the energy bills in 2007 with the help of Energy Star.