Want to hear a funny story?
When Adam and I moved into our Toronto Victorian home, so many appliances didn’t work.
The washer and dryer were both broken, my dishwasher was a glorified drying rack, my freezer was frozen shut. At one point, I opened the island cupboard and the door completely came off in my hand. The previous owners didn’t even put screws to attach the hinge! It was comical!
We knew the house needed work when be bought it but I didn’t expect our appliances to be in such bad shape when we moved in. Thankfully, Adam’s response to this series of unfortunate events was to give me the green light to start planning an entire first floor renovation which, if you haven’t already guessed, included a new dream kitchen and a slew of new appliances.
KITCHEN INSPO
Now, something you should know about Adam is that he loves to cook as much as I do so designing a ‘chef’s kitchen’ and upgrading the range was a must for us. This meant I could splurge on a gas range with high BTU’s and a large electric oven but didn’t need nor want to go for expensive designer brand appliances for everything. As a matter of fact, if there is one thing I learned from the research I did comparing price to function to design for each appliance, it’s that there are tons of really beautiful, sleek appliances out there with great consumer reviews at palatable prices. You don’t need to spend $17,000 on a fridge to have the best kitchen appliances, trust me.
Fast forward to today and your girl has ordered all of her appliances! Since I know first hand how grueling the process of picking appliances can be, I though i’d come back and share a few tips for purchasing appliances, what I found to be the best brands for each appliance category (research backed) and what I ended up purchasing!
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TIPS FOR PICKING THE BEST KITCHEN APPLIANCES
TIP 1: FIGURE OUT YOUR NEEDS & BUDGET
If you are looking to buy the best kitchen appliances my first piece of advice would be to figure out your needs and budget before visiting showrooms, and doing your research. Appliances come in a range of prices and designer brands like Sub Zero and Wolf, La Cornue, Miele, Bosch, and Thermador offer super sleek designs with superior functionality but can come with a hefty price tag.
On the other hand, brands like LG, Samsung, Kitchen Aid and GE are considered more affordable and offer a larger range of products with great ratings at decent prices. These more affordable brands still offer great appliances with good capabilities but they tend not to have as many bells and whistles as the designer brands and aren’t as ‘sleek’; although they have gotten way better in recent years!
Adam and I ended up giving ourselves a healthy budget for kitchen appliances knowing that we wanted to splurge on a designer duel range while also still needing a new microwave, dishwasher, fridge, hood vent, washer and dryer. We also knew mixing and matching designer appliances brands with non-designer brands would help us keep our cost down significantly while still allowing us to build our dream kitchen with the best kitchen appliances.
Kitchen Inspiration - Sourced from Pinterest
TIP 2: PICK WHICH APPLIANCE TO UPGRADE
Once you have outlined your needs and budget you can then pick which appliance you feel you would benefit the most from upgrading (if any). Do you hate doing dishes? Perhaps a high performance dish washer will be the most beneficial. Do you love cooking and need a stove with high BTU’s for searing? Perhaps a designer range is the item you should splurge on. Do you have a big household and need a larger fridge or freezer to accommodate all the groceries you buy? Asking yourself these questions will not only help you pick the right appliances, but will also help you narrow down budget allotments for each appliance.
SINGLE VS. DUEL RANGES
One thing I learned while visiting showrooms for the best kitchen appliances is that designer ranges tend to offer higher BTU’s than more affordable brands. Additionally, many designer brands also offer duel systems meaning you can have a gas range AND an electric oven. The benefit of having an electric oven is that the temperature for baking is more accurate and even compared to gas because the temperature is measured using inferred in gas ovens, making temperature harder to control and less accurate relative to electric. However, when it comes to the range, gas allows you to cook at higher temperatures and brings things to a boil faster than electric. For this reason, duel ranges tend to be more expensive than single ranges and since this was the kitchen appliance Adam and I decided to splurge on we allotted the largest proportion of our budget to it.
A La Cornue ConfuFé 110 duel range in white with brass trim
Although Sub Zero Wolf, Thermador, and Miele all offer great gas ranges, I fell in love with the look and capabilities of the La Cornue CornuFé 110. The range itself features 5 powerful burners - one 17,500 BTU central burner, three 12,000 BTU burners, and one 6,000 BTU burner for simmering; two electric convection ovens - one of which is a seven mode multifunction oven; and one large storage drawer. We ended up going with the classic French dark navy blue with polished brass trim accents which we plan to build the rest of the kitchen around. It’s like a piece of art you can cook with! Adam will have the searing power he loves and desires while I will have the two electric ovens for optimal non-stop baking. I can’t wait!
TIP 3: GET CONSUMER REPORTS
Once you have figured out your budget and what appliances you would benefit most from upgrading, I would highly recommend going online to Consumer Reports to check out the rankings and reviews for each appliance category you are interested in. Doing so will help you narrow down which brand is making the best kitchen appliances for that specific category and make choosing the right one for you less overwhelming. I love going to this website when purchasing any electronic or kitchen appliance because it ranks its performance, its reliability, how environmentally friendly it is and the overall customer satisfaction with the product.
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I turned to Consumer Reports for help choosing the remainder of the appliances and that’s how I ended up going for another designer brand appliance - the stainless steel Bosch Ascente SHX3AR75UC dishwasher. The reviews for this dishwasher were amazing and the price was surprisingly reasonable for a designer brand appliance. According to consumer reports, Bosch makes great, high performance, reliable dish washers with great load capacity that are super water and energy efficient. After watching a few review Youtube videos and seeing how well it ranked, going with the Bosch Ascante was a no brainer. In addition to Bosch, Thermador also rose to the top as one of the best kitchen appliance brands in the dishwasher category according to Consumer Report rankings.
TIP 4: GO INTO THE SHOWROOMS
After doing your research and narrowing down which brands make the best kitchen appliances in each category, you should then go into the showroom and check them out in person. Doing so will help you visualize what your kitchen will look like and help you narrow down the features and visual aesthetic you want to go for. I actually learned a lot more about fridges by doing this including the difference between ‘counter depth’ and ‘cabinet depth’.
MORE KITCHEN INSPO
COUNTER DEPTH VS CABINET DEPTH
One of the biggest differences between designer brands and non-designer brands (other than the massive price difference) was that designer brand appliances come in ‘cabinet depth’ whereas non-designer brands tend to be ‘counter depth’ or deeper. This means that designer fridges are shallower in depth and look more seamless or flush when installed alongside cabinetry. I also noticed that designer fridges tend to be taller then non designer fridges and the compressors usually don’t eat into the freezer space as much as non designer fridges. Just something to think about…
Although important, a designer fridge was not something Adam and I thought we needed to splurge on (they can go beyond $17,000). This, in addition to not being fussed about it sticking out beyond the counter by three inches or not having extra height (finally it pays to be short), we decided something more budget friendly would suit our needs and aesthetic which is why we started looking at non-designer French door fridges.
Three Birds Renovations - Kitchen Inspiration - Sourced from Pinterest
To my surprise and after further research, I learned that LG actually outperformed many of the designer brands when it came to overall customer satisfaction. Although their fridges may not be as tall or shallow as a designer fridge, LG makes great, energy efficient fridges that have temperature uniformity and are reliable. Adam and I ended up choosing a counter depth french door LG (LFCC22426S) fridge in stainless steal which not only matched our Bosch dishwasher quite well but performed really well against other top non-designer brands in this category like GE, Samsung and Kitchen Aid, in addition to designer brands like Dacor, Thermador and Jenn-Air.
TIP 5: MATCH AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE
My last tip for picking the best kitchen appliances for you is to try to make your appliances match as much as possible. This will add a cohesiveness to the space and make it look more visually appealing. You can do this easily by picking all stainless steal appliances, by going with the same brand for everything, or by choosing appliances with similar looking handles. Adam and I chose to get everything in stainless steel to make matching them together easy and lucked out with our fridge handles matching our dishwasher handle despite being from different brands.
Further, for our washer and dryer, we ended up going with matching LG units because not only does it give a cohesive look but the reviews were really great. LG recently came out with new front load washer (LG WM4500HBA) and electric dryer (LG DLEX4500B) with 5.8 cubic feet load capacity - the largest yet. It got a 5/5 for washing performance, energy efficient and water efficiency and can easily be stacked on top of one another if you want to eventually put it in a closet like us.
Lastly, for our microwave, we wanted to have something that looked built in so we went with the Panasonic NNST663SC and added on a stainless steel trim kit so it would match our other appliances. It was more expensive than what I expected a microwave to cost but Panasonic as a brand performed well in this appliance category especially when it came to defrosting evenness, speed of heating and overall reliability. Other brands that performed well in this category include GE and Oster.
So there you have it! My tips for choosing the best kitchen appliances and recommendations for kitchen appliance brands in each catagory. I know figuring out what appliances are reliable and high performing can be a daunting/grueling process but the last thing you want to do is spend your hard earned money on complete crap that has to be replaced in a few years. I hope this blog post helped you along a little bit and provided additional knowledge on the differences between designer brands and non-designer brands, as well as which brands are performing the best in each category. Feel free to share what appliances you ended up going with below too! I would love to know!
