Healthy Cakes? No longer a day dream thanks to Miele!

If you thought that delicious cakes were off the menu – think again. Miele has come up with a way to make baking healthier – as demonstrated by chefs at Steam Patisserie - the world's first patisserie where everything is cooked with steam.

The Steam Patisserie was part of a pop up event which took place in July on Regent Street. Rachel Khoo showed off some of her super healthy patisserie techniques using Miele combination steam ovens. Proving that baking doesn’t need to be unhealthy, she cooked up a delicious selection of cakes, brioche and tarts to show just how easy it was to steam cook sweet treats.

Cooking with steam means that there’s no need for cooking oil or fat and so the resulting cakes are much lighter. This method of cooking also helps to retain the nutrients in food that some cooking methods can destroy.

In combination steam ovens like the ones used at the Steam Patisserie event, the steam comes from the humidity setting, which can range from 0-100%. There are three ways you can use it:

• Keep the humidity at zero and use it like a conventional oven.
• Switch off the ‘oven’ function and only use the ‘steam’ function – making it into a steamer.
• Use both the humidity and oven functions to get a combination steam oven.

The resulting cakes and pastries received a vote of approval from the bloggers and testers, including Su-Yin from the Bread et Butter blog (well worth a look if baking is your passion) and Rachel was keen to point out that cooking with steam didn’t result in any loss of flavour – in fact she thinks that steam cooking can actually improve their taste. She explained;

'Steam ovens are perfect for delicious patisseries and breads - anything where 'rise' is important.

'The moisture injection function helps not only to create lift and rise, but also produces a lovely thin, light crust together with the lightest pastry imaginable.'

Miele’s marketing director, Dominic Worsley added that he thought cooking with steam was a real innovation.

'Steam is a powerful tool in the kitchen and it's not just for cooking your vegetables. There's virtually no limit to what can be cooked in a combination steam oven.'

(image from http://breadetbutter.wordpress.com/)

Two Kitchens Kate?

Two Kitchens Kate?
It’s a bit of an unfair name, but Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, has been in the news lately for deciding that she wanted two brand new kitchens in both her Kensington Palace apartment and at a completely new kitchen at her and William’s Norfolk retreat
The kitchen at the majestic Anmer Hall in North Norfolk was said to be worth a pretty impressive £38,000 when pictures were posted online by the couple who installed it in the mansion six years ago. Their dream kitchen featured £17,000 worth of gorgeous hand-crafted worktops along with a fashionable inset Belfast sink, an Aga costing £11,495 and a fridge that was worth over £8500.
There was even a state of the art espresso maker in the original kitchen, and a chopping block worth an eye-watering £200. We hope they went to a good home!
Royal sources have said that the kitchen at Anmer Hall will be ‘unrecognisable’ once Kate and Wills have redesigned it.
The couple seem to have a bit of a penchant for redesigning kitchens, given that they added a completely new second kitchen to their apartment in Kensington Palace recently, after already upgrading the existing kitchen, designed by Lord Snowdon. The couple said that they wanted to have their own family kitchen just for the three of them as well as the enormous 350 square foot kitchen they would use for entertaining. We wonder if Kate uses her family kitchen for microwave ready meals and Pot Noodles and the big one for ‘proper cooking’.
It’s hard to imagine just how luxurious the Royals’ new kitchens will be, but we can pretty much assume that they will be installing state of the art appliances and that everything will be high quality and absolutely bang on trend.
If you’re thinking about upgrading your own kitchen facilities, but like most of us, your budget is considerably smaller than the Cambridges, we’d love to talk to you. We stock high end appliances from manufacturers like Miele, Gaggeneau and Sub Zero, and we can cater for kitchens of all sizes with our fantastic designs and space-optimising storage options from SieMatic.
You don’t have to have a budget the size of Kate’s to get a top quality new kitchen from Paul James Kitchen Design…

Two Kitchens Kate?

It’s a bit of an unfair name, but Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, has been in the news lately for deciding that she wanted two brand new kitchens in both her Kensington Palace apartment and at a completely new kitchen at her and William’s Norfolk retreat.

The kitchen at the majestic Anmer Hall in North Norfolk was said to be worth a pretty impressive £38,000 when pictures were posted online by the couple who installed it in the mansion six years ago. Their dream kitchen featured £17,000 worth of gorgeous hand-crafted worktops along with a fashionable inset Belfast sink, an Aga costing £11,495 and a fridge that was worth over £8500.

There was even a state of the art espresso maker in the original kitchen, and a chopping block worth an eye-watering £200. We hope they went to a good home!

Royal sources have said that the kitchen at Anmer Hall will be ‘unrecognisable’ once Kate and Wills have redesigned it.

The couple seem to have a bit of a penchant for redesigning kitchens, given that they added a completely new second kitchen to their apartment in Kensington Palace recently, after already upgrading the existing kitchen, designed by Lord Snowdon. The couple said that they wanted to have their own family kitchen just for the three of them as well as the enormous 350 square foot kitchen they would use for entertaining. We wonder if Kate uses her family kitchen for microwave ready meals and Pot Noodles and the big one for ‘proper cooking’.

It’s hard to imagine just how luxurious the Royals’ new kitchens will be, but we can pretty much assume that they will be installing state of the art appliances and that everything will be high quality and absolutely bang on trend.

If you’re thinking about upgrading your own kitchen facilities, but like most of us, your budget is considerably smaller than the Cambridges, we’d love to talk to you. We stock high end appliances from manufacturers like Miele, Gaggeneau and Sub Zero, and we can cater for kitchens of all sizes with our fantastic designs and space-optimising storage options from SieMatic.

You don’t have to have a budget the size of Kate’s to get a top quality new kitchen from Paul James Kitchen Design…

How to Pick the Perfect Fridge Freezer

Essential appliances for a modern kitchen, fridges and freezers have come a long way. No longer are you restricted to a boring, white chest freezer that needs to go in the garage, or a fridge that just keeps things a bit cold. These days, fridges and freezers come separately or combined and in such a variety of designs and features that it can be hard to make your mind up. Come and speak to us at Paul James Kitchen Design if you want expert advice on the right appliances for your kitchen…and here’s our guide to picking the best for you.

Size Matters

The most obvious consideration is – where will you put it? Most fridges will fit neatly under a work surface, or if you have a big kitchen you could opt for a tall larder fridge.  Fridge sizes are measured in litres, and the higher the litre, the more you will fit in it, something that anyone with a large family needs to think about.

Built-in or freestanding?

A built-in fridge and freezer are great for seamless looking kitchens and can be elegantly integrated into your kitchen – you could even choose a door to match your existing kitchen cupboards. Free standing fridge freezers work well for flexibility, they are easier to move about and cater for bigger families.

Features

Flexible storage, wine racks, egg trays and removable shelves are available in most fridges – just have a good look inside before you buy. Some have add-on extras too. Auto-defrosting is a must for fridges and freezers to stop ice building up and keep them working properly.

One great addition to a fridge/freezer is a temperature warning light, which alerts you if it’s getting too warm.
Jargon Buster

Deciphering the jargon on a fridge or freezer description can be tricky so here’s a handy guide.

• 4* freezer  -  this will freeze down fresh food as well as store frozen food for up to 12 months.
• Automatic defrost - this just stops frost build-up so you don’t need to manually defrost the fridge – a horrible job!
• Climate controlled zones - this feature lets you to have different temperatures within the fridge, so you can keep your meat very cold or your salad slightly cooler to keep it crisp.
• Energy rating – all fridges and freezers are energy rated, look for the lowest ratings. A++ is the most efficient and A+, A, B or C are all fine.
• Humidity controlled crisper - helps keep fruit and veg fresher for longer – just choose high humidity for vegetables and low humidity for fruit.
• Antibacterial coating - stops germs colonising your fridge and prolongs the life of your food.
• Frost free - No frost build-up, no defrosting needed.
• Air cooling -cool air is circulated by a fan for an even temperature throughout the fridge.

Take a look at our fantastic range of high quality kitchen appliances for inspiration.

Six Kitchen Tools You Need To Replace Right Now

Cooking in your own kitchen can be a great way to make healthy meals….but at the same time, the equipment used in home kitchens isn’t controlled by the health and safety laws that keep us safe from germs or other contamination with pre-cooked food. If you’re still using these you might want to consider replacing them…

Non-stick Pans

We all have a few of these in our kitchen cupboards, but did you know that heating a non-stick pan too high can release toxic fumes? OK, they won’t kill you but they can make you feel poorly. The heat needed to release the fumes is much higher than we’d usually need to cook our eggs in the morning, but older and damaged pans will start releasing fumes at lower temperatures. The solution – don’t keep old, scratched or damaged non-stick pans, and as newer versions produce less toxic fumes, if you have any pans dating back to before 2010, get rid of them, too.

Grill Brushes

It’s barbecue season, but don’t get out last year’s brush and think everything will be fine... Bristles fall off old brushes and end up in your food – not nice. Especially when you consider that bristles can puncture your throat, stomach or intestines. They aren’t exactly expensive, so just get a new one…

Plastic Food Containers

These have been under the spotlight in the media because some older food storage containers can contain bisphenol A, a compound that has been linked to all sorts of things, like cancer, heart disease and more. If your food containers are a bit old and decrepit, treat yourself to some more; experts believe that BPA can seep into your food and cause all sorts of problems. Newer containers are less likely to contain the compound.

Chopping Boards

You really do need to make sure that you replace your chopping boards regularly, whether they are plastic or wooden. Soap and water will get the surfaces clean but not the cuts and gouges that they inevitably pick up. These little crevices will be the perfect place for germs to breed, and can be very hard to disinfect. As soon as your board start looking a bit scratched, bin it and get a new, clean one.

Kitchen Sponges

The perfect place for bacteria to multiply, sponges are damp and porous.  You can try rinsing it in hot water and even blasting it for 30 seconds in the microwave, but remember to replace it regularly otherwise you’re just spreading germs around with it. Experts suggest two weeks is optimum time for sponges to be binned.

Dish Cloths

Just like sponges, these are bacteria magnets.  If you’re like many people (oops) and you also use the cloth to wipe over your kitchen surfaces, you are potentially asking for trouble. Wash them on a high temperature frequently and replace them often,

Easy Ways to Spruce up your Kitchen without Spending the Earth

When you’re on a budget, it can seem as if the interiors magazines are trying to taunt you with their beautiful kitchens and top of the range gadgets.

The kitchen can get a little neglected at times, even though it’s arguably one of the most important rooms in the house. It’s easily damaged,  tables, work tops and appliances are used on a daily basis and there’s always a kitchen designer or TV makeover show expert telling you that what’s ‘in’ at the moment most certainly isn’t your kitchen.

Don’t worry about all that – even if you can’t afford a complete redesign, there are ways to save money on revamping your kitchen. Even on a budget, you can find ways to make your kitchen look good again, and you won’t have to spend huge amounts of cash on the project.

It really doesn’t matter if the kitchen you have at the moment is retro or simply old-fashioned, modern and minimalist, rustic or just tired and bland looking. The first thing you can do to give it its pep back is give it a lick of paint.

Depending on the size of your kitchen, you can really go to town with the colour palette. If you’re feeling a little hesitant, why not try painting a coloured splash back? If you find a colour you absolutely fall in love with, paint wooden cabinets with it and give the room a completely new personality!

If you get a lot of natural light in your kitchen, you can get away with a bold, vibrant colour in a way that smaller, darker kitchens might not, so experiment away. If you have a small space, you can play with using bright white on cabinets to reflect the available light around the room and make it look bigger.

Changing the cabinets can be expensive if you have a lot of them – why not hunt around for new doors instead? You can revamp them, sand them down and/or paint them so that they look like a new kitchen! Alternatively, look for a retailer that’s having a sale, who might be getting rid of old stock, and see if you can bag yourself a bargain. As luck would have it, Paul James Kitchen Design are having a cabinet and appliance sale at the moment, so why not contact us or drop in and we’ll see if we can help you spruce up your kitchen for less?

Choosing Kitchen Appliances

While features and performance are the main thing you’ll be thinking about when you’re choosing the appliances for a kitchen, you naturally also care about how they are going to look, and might be led by current trends, too.

The old style white appliance never really dates, and stainless steel is also a classic. There are some amazing patterned fridges and freezers on offer that will give your kitchen a splash of pizazz, but you might find that simple black is all you need for your cooker.

Most cabinet manufacturers offer coordinated cabinet fronts and storage options to help camouflage appliances if you need to and with the amazing range of options available from professional kitchen designers nowadays, you can let your imagination run riot and find the appliance that suits your style, your budget and your needs.

Cooking appliances

The traditional range or stove comes in a single unit with a hob above and an oven below. These are coveted and fashionable with people who have larger kitchens, and they can be useful as space-savers too. Another way of making the most of your space is to look into modular hobs that you can add extras to like griddles, deep-fry and steamer units, grills and more. If you’re a consummate entertainer and like to be able to do everything, this approach might well work for you.

Modular is definitely popular with a lot of home owners these days, with wall-mounted ovens which are separate from hobs, double wall ovens which stack two ovens and even two-oven stoves, with one oven below the hob and the other at cabinet height.
If you’re stuck for room, built in ovens are another way forward, and easy to accommodate in most modern kitchens.

Fridges

When you’re choosing a fridge, the first question you need to answer is - how big do you need it to be? Some experts say that you should allow 12 cubic feet for two people and two more cubic feet for each additional person, but that’s not the only thing you’ll need to think about.

If you like buying BOGOFs or love to cook for family and friends, you should go even bigger, if you have the room. Side by side fridge freezers are popular but you can lose out on freezer space. It sounds obvious but you need to make sure that it can fit the kind of food you like to buy; will your Friday treat pizza fit in there?

Dishwashers

Dishwashers are made to be hidden away or at least unobtrusive; and if you can find one that helps you cut your energy costs, that’s even better. Look for a dishwasher that has internal water heating to save energy and your home’s hot water.

You can still find standalone dishwashers but these days most models are designed to be built-in. If you’re feeling indulgent, opt for a top of the range stainless steel model with electronic touch-pad, and a choice of washing programmes. Cheaper versions come usually offer three cycles: light, normal, and heavy.
If you need advice about the best appliances for your kitchen, talk to the experts kitchen designers at Paul James Kitchen Design.

Making the most of a little kitchen

Have you got a small kitchen that’s desperately in need of brightening up? If you think a small kitchen limits your options when it comes to kitchen design – well, obviously there are a few restrictions. You do have to use creativity to make an impact in a tight space, but with a little imagination, practical advice from kitchen design experts, and realistic expectations, you can have a fabulous kitchen at any size.

Top tips from kitchen designers about maximising a smaller kitchen space include:

1. Plan the room carefully. It’s actually harder to design a smaller kitchen and fit everything in than it is to let your imagination run wild with a huge space. Think of maximising storage using clever solutions like the MultiMatic system from SieMatic which really makes the most of awkward cupboard spaces and restricted rooms – and is completely customisable to suit your room.

2. Make a wish list. Get busy on Pinterest and come up with ideas for everything you’d like in your dream small kitchen. You won’t be able to have it all, but from your dream list you can start slimming down your list and when you’re ready, present your designer with a list of must-haves to work with.

3. Don’t be afraid to spend on appliances: Good quality appliances like Gaggeneau, Miele and Wolf will add a touch of luxury along with reliability. So you can’t have a fabulous island kitchen just yet – you can still have a top of the range freezer, or a fabulous cooker. Many of the top European appliance brands are well known for their space-saving ability along with energy savings and oodles of style.

4. Keep your counters clutter free. Investing in great storage will give you the option to have some of your more stylish gadgets out on show, while hiding the everyday things away from sight.

5. Keep lighting compact too. Pendant lighting looks stunning but can take up a lot of space in a room and somehow make a small room look even more cramped. Go for recess and under cabinet lighting, spotlights and cleverly placed lighting that makes the kitchen look bigger rather than smaller.

6. Keep it simple: A minimalist style is what works best in a small kitchen, with simple lines, minimum fuss and nothing that takes up too much room. Clever cabinets that keep everything hidden away, coupled with efficient storage will give the illusion of more room that there actually is.

For more advice on making the most of any size kitchen, speak to the experts at Paul James Studios.

Crazy Kitchen Gadgets

Somewhere, right now, there is a designer tasked with coming up with a new idea for a kitchen gadget. They might be sitting around bored on a Friday afternoon, thinking about it, and suddenly be hit with inspiration…for something like this…

Pop Up Hot Dog Cooker

If you’re a fan of hot dogs, you’ll be excited to know that someone thought you could do with a Pop-Up Hot Dog Cooker. It does what you would expect such a gadget to do; gently warms your hot dog bun at the same time as heating your frankfurter, but also takes up a lot of space where you could be placing something classier and way more useful. Unlikely to appear on any professional kitchen designer’s wish list…

The Egg Cuber

Really? Despite eggs being available perfectly shaped and naturally packaged already, someone, somewhere decided that they needed a new image. Hence the Egg Cuber, which is perfect for changing a standard oval-shaped egg into a square one, if indeed you feel the need to do something so pointless.

The Banana Slicer

You know how laborious chopping a banana is, right? That’s a few minutes of your life that you could spend doing something else. That’s the only possible reason you could need the Hutzler 571 Banana Slicer, unless it’s to take all the pressure away from using sharp objects in the kitchen.

Automatic Cream Whipping Can

Far be it from us to point out that all you need to save your wrists when whipping cream is a simple electric hand mixer. The advantage of using one of those is that it does other things too, like mix up cakes and meringues and all sorts. Which you can’t do with a cream whipping can. Unless anyone can tell us any different.

One Step Sweetcorn Kernel Remover

The only possible reason for using a contraption to strip the kernels from your corn on the cob has to be that you’re not allowed near sharp objects. Most people we know would just go for the ‘among friends’ option and strip that cob with their teeth, but if you’re too genteel to go for the low-tech option, this gadget could be right up your alley…

Yes, all of these gadgets really do exist and as far as we’re concerned, they are all likely to end up in the kitchen cupboard you never go in. But if you have limitless kitchen storage space and a liking for daft gadgets that serve very little purpose, they could well be the perfect kitchen accessory for you…
For advice on what SHOULD go in your kitchen, speak to our kitchen designers at Paul James Studios!

The fridge that sent spam emails!

It sounds like the stuff of nightmares, but at the beginning of 2014, the world’s first ever spam attack involving household appliances hit, when hackers managed to get into consumer gadgets. The attack is believed to have happened between December 23 last year and January 6, and caused affected appliances to annoy massive amounts of people by sending out waves of malicious email in bursts of 100,000 three times per day. Thankfully, each device or gadget only sent around ten emails. About three-quarters of the emails were sent by computers, but the rest were sent out by hacked home appliances.

California-based security group, Proofpoint revealed in January that they’d uncovered a wide-scale hack involving television sets and at least one fridge. Hackers broke into more than 100,000 gadgets that were connected up to the internet, including home-networking routers, televisions, multimedia centres, and of course, that fridge.

The attack, which experts have called the first home appliance ‘botnet’ involved compromising computers, so that while they looked as if they were functioning as normal, in reality they were being controlled by cyber criminals.

The prospect of having your household appliances hacked into by some lowlife criminal with nothing better to do is a really annoying prospect for anyone who uses online controllers to operate anything in the home.  As there are now options for so many devices to be connected and controlled by the Internet, have we just opened up a can of worms and given malicious hackers a way to compromise household appliances just as they might a laptop or computer?

The answer to preventing these attacks in the future seems to be improving our online security. It seems that the hackers get into the fridges and appliances easily, because some people can be a little bit lax when it comes to online security with smart devices and controllers. Most of the devices used to send out emails were still set up with the device’s default password, making it really simple for any hacker to get straight in and take control.

David Knight, General Manager of Proofpoint's Information Security division said, “Many of these devices are poorly protected at best and consumers have virtually no way to detect or fix infections when they do occur.”

“These devices are typically not protected by the anti-spam and anti-virus infrastructures available to organisations and individual consumers, nor are they routinely monitored by dedicated IT teams,” said Proofpoint.

If you have remote networks controlling your heating, lighting, entertainment or of course your fridge, change the password, quickly!

Overhaul your kitchen – trends for 2014

So your kitchen is in need of an overhaul, but all you’re seeing is sparkling chrome and you really want something a bit different. Well, as expert kitchen designers, we know that individuality is the way forward, so if you want to move away from uniformity and embrace a few new ideas, how do these trends grab you?

Individual lighting accents

Seamless storage and barely there cabinets are leaving more room for decorative lighting, especially as upper cabinets are being replaced by cleverly placed cupboards at a lower level. This gives an illusion of more room even in a smaller kitchen, and with clever lighting you can enhance the space even more. There’s not so much need for limited under cabinet lighting, so you can make the most of moveable sconces and adjustable arms which direct the light to where you want it most.

Splash backs

The natural look is big in 2014, with real, natural materials making a splash – quite literally – in the modern kitchen. There’s more space around cooker hoods and sinks to play around with splash backs. You could choose glass and go for a brightly coloured decorative effect, or follow the natural route and make the splash back a focal point with slabs of marble and limestone.

Brass, aged gold and black hardware

The shine has gone off the chrome and stainless steel kitchen – warmer metals like iron and graphite are starting to make a comeback, and you can see statement cooker hoods all over the place with combinations of the materials which look really dramatic and different when we’re used to everything having such a high shine!

Built-in cabinets 

Another new look for 2014 is built-in accent cabinets that act as framework for the rest of the cabinetry. The accent cabinets can be designed so that they sit tall and narrow on worktops or on either side of the cooker, and contrasting in shade to the rest of the cabinets, adding a little extra design touch to a simple kitchen.

Natural raw materials 

Even the walls are embracing the back to nature trend, with exposed brick and concrete making an appearance again along with attractive wooden planks and exposed beams. If you don’t have the real thing – you can even fake it with a veneer so that it looks like you’ve taken your kitchen back to basics!
We can work with you to design the kitchen of your dreams, whether you want a rustic, pared-back kitchen with accent lighting and built in cabinets or a shiny chrome kitchen that you can see your reflection in. Just contact the experts at Paul James Design Studios and we’ll work with you to create your dream kitchen.

Maximise your Kitchen Space

Kitchen space is like most space in modern homes – at a premium these days. Unless you’re lucky enough to be living in an older property with a huge kitchen, most modern homes need a little tweaking to be able to accommodate all our accumulated gadgets, dinner sets and ‘stuff’.

That’s where SieMatic comes in. Designed to maximise the space that you already have and make it work for you, systems like the MultiMatic and others make good use of the space that you already have and seem to almost magically create extra space for all the things you absolutely can’t live without in your kitchen. MultiMatic is an individual compilation of interior accessories, which will meet all of your needs and might even give you an extra 30 per cent more storage space in your existing kitchen!

 MultiMatic can be combined, added to and modified any time, and what’s more, you don’t need to ask a professional kitchen designer to come in and make any changes once you’ve got the system, you can quite easily adapt it for your own needs. Turn your kitchen cabinets into the type of storage unit that really does have ‘a place for everything’ and eliminate the five minutes every day that you seem to spend looking for that particular utensil that nobody really knows where it should go.

It’s such a brilliant idea – and don’t just take our word for it, either, because The MultiMatic interior organisation system has won plenty of accolades; the  iF Award from the Industry Forum Design Hannover, the Red Dot award from the design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen, and the Good Design Award from the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design.

If you’re curious about how it all works, why not pop into Paul James and have a chat with one of our advisers (we love explaining it to people) or just watch this video instead?

Ideal Home Show 2014

From 14th – 30th March 2014, this iconic British Home Show will return to Earls Court, London for its 106th Year!

A trusted source of inspiration for professional kitchen designers everywhere, the Ideal Home Show has been inspiring everyone from interior designers and home retailers to homeowners looking to spruce up their living areas for over 100 years now, and it’s become part of UK tradition with people flocking from all over the world to exhibit and browse.

This year’s show promises to have the very best – and newest – in stylish kitchens and bathrooms, bedrooms and more, and there will be gadgets, delicious food and even gardening and beauty exhibits so there really is something for everyone to get involved in.

Miele will be exhibiting at the show, and with their substantial range of exceptionally high-spec appliances and accessories, they are certainly one of the exhibitions we’ll be looking forward to. Miele’s fabulous range features everything from laundry equipment to microwaves, hobs and top class coffee machines, which is one of the reasons we work with them in our kitchen designs. It will be great to see their new ranges showcased at such a prestigious event.

Elsewhere, if you’re thinking of redesigning any area of your home, there will be something to help you. The Ideal Home Magazine room sets will be on hand to give visitors a mesmerising snapshot of how their kitchen, or any other room, might look with some of the most up to date and stylish additions, and with handy tips on how to bring out the best in your home, whatever its size.

If DIY is your passion, there will be a selection of experts on hand to tell you how to do it properly, a bathroom and kitchen zone with suggestions about how to improve your existing rooms, and even money saving advice from Martyn Lewis. You can even book a free 30 minute one to one consultation with an independent expert courtesy of Anglian Home Improvements.

With demonstrations, expert advice and inspirational home designs and ideas as far as the eye can see, this year’s show promises to be one of the best ever.

Top things to remember when you’re planning a kitchen makeover

Planning a new kitchen is a great project, and with so many different styles and options available to you, how can you decide which type of kitchen design is likely to fit with your lifestyle, your available space and your budget? Well, of course, we suggest that you speak to the experts at Paul James Kitchen Design. Before you come to us, though, it’s probably a good idea to get a few ideas of your own.

What layout do you prefer?

Based on your available space and preferences, there are different layouts which all offer their own advantages.

A linear arrangement is good for a smaller kitchen, where space is at a premium. It also works well for open plan living areas which combine a living room and a kitchen. The downside of this arrangement is that the work and storage spaces can feel a little limiting.

A horseshoe arrangement will give you more space for storage and to work, but requires more room – you need to allow for freedom of movement between both sides of the kitchen area. It takes careful planning to make the most of your storage too.

The galley layout suits square rooms well, or rooms with a window and door opposite to each other. The galley consists of two units that face each other, designed to allow enough space in between for people to move around. It works best if the room is large enough and also if the cooker and sink are on opposite sides.

The L-shaped or corner layout needs a bigger room, with space for a dining table. It’s an easy one to design around your requirements as you can double up the dining table for extra work and preparation space, or use one of the work tops as a breakfast bar or counter.

Island kitchens are very popular at the moment – again you need to have enough room, but they are great for inspiring creativity in your kitchen design.

Furniture 

To make the most of your furniture and its available storage, you’ll need to look into the drawers and pull outs, especially if you have limited space, which is where they come into their own.  You need to take height into consideration – overhead storage is great for items you might not use very often but you’ll need to make sure they are accessible!

The cabinet doors you like may look wonderful in the brochure, but if you have appliances that need to be accessible, doors that open across each other or not enough room to fully open appliances and cupboards, it will be more of a nightmare kitchen than a dream one.

All isn’t lost with a small kitchen space, though, expert kitchen designers will have tricks to make even the smallest room functional as well as attractive, with folding doors and lift doors that maximise the available space.

For ideas, advice and inspiration, talk to an expert at Paul James Kitchen Design…

The five most useful kitchen gadgets

So you’ve got your perfect designer kitchen, and it’s making your well-loved toaster and kettle look a little, well, tired. If you’re on the hunt for gorgeous gadgets that are exceptionally useful as well as being great looking, here’s our pick for 2014.

Coffee makers

Price: £129 | Tassimo – Bosch Tassimo Joy

Everything starts with a decent cup of coffee. There’s a diverse range of machines available, depending on your taste, and from Tassimo to Nespresso there’s an easy to use pod system that will wake you up in the morning. For sheer variety, brands like Tassimo and Dolce Gusto are hard to beat, while for the more exclusive coffee drinker there’s the Nespresso. Coffee will never taste the same from a jar again.

Juicers

Another breakfast staple and beloved breakfast of many a fitness aficionado is a fresh juice, with or without wheatgrass or maca or whichever wonder ingredient is doing the rounds. The best thing about a juicer is that you can design your own blends and make them as super-healthy or deliciously decadent as you like. Powerful motors make easy work of the hardest fruits and vegetables. Favourite brands include Dualit and Magimix, which will help you whizz up creamy cocktails as well as saintly smoothies.

Grills 

Enjoy an indoor barbecue, with meat cooked virtually fat-free and a range of deliciously chargrilled meal options. Compact, easy to clean and great for saving money, grills are ideal for quick and healthy dinners. George Foreman is well known for his Lean, Mean Grilling machines, but there are some excellent grills available from Russell Hobbs and Tefal which are well worth checking out too.

Blenders

Fabulous for soup, smoothies and anything that needs to be whizzed up in a hurry, a blender is a necessity in the modern kitchen. Kitchen Aid and Kenwood are top of the list for blenders able to handle everything from simple smoothie-making to hard core ice crushing, chopping and slicing. You’ll wonder what you ever did without one.

Ice cream makers

OK, so maybe the ice cream maker is an indulgence, but once you’ve got one, you won’t buy shop-bought again. That space on the worktop is just perfect, right?

As with every other designer kitchen gadget, there’s a range of options from cheap and cheerful to Cuisinart and Magimix, but they all create delicious ice cream, sorbet and gelato and the only limit to the flavours you can concoct is your imagination. You’ll never want ice cream with additives ever again…

SieMatic Storage

We’ve all been there. Rummaging through the drawers in the kitchen for that gadget that you just KNOW is in there somewhere, but it’s submerged in other gadgets, bits of paper with scribbled notes on and Alan keys. Where do all those Alan keys come from?

Every time you do it, you think that you really must get the kitchen drawers organised, but you know how it is, you just never quite seem to get around to it, and then before you know it, there you are again, fighting your way through a ton of things you don’t really need but just haven’t got around to throwing out yet.

It’s a new year, and with great determination, a ruthless streak and a little help from the experts you can do this. Make 2014 the year you really get organised. SieMatic have come to the rescue of kitchen hoarders everywhere with additions to their drawer storage systems that make tidying up a pleasure rather than a chore. SieMatic kitchens already give you a whole host of handy options for helping you to get cabinets and drawers organised, and they look good too; they come in a range of designs and finishes that will complement any kitchen.

If you’re looking for elegant ways to manage the onslaught of clutter, match your kitchen to any of the finishes available; there’s light oak, fine porcelain and high-quality aluminium which work together to create elegant interiors in light shades of grey. The system is modular, which means that it can be added to, adapted and generally made to fit in with what you already have.

The new range features some clever intersecting aluminium panels which make the most of your drawer spaces by separating them into perfectly well-organised little compartments. They are easy to adapt to your needs, and you can move, add to and take away any elements that you need to fit with the existing storage space you have. You can also add a non-slip surface to the base of the SieMatic porcelain containers, to stop them moving about.

If you’re always knocking your phone or tablet off of the worktops while it’s charging in the kitchen, SieMatic even have a solution for that. They’ve designed a new USB charging station which can be integrated into SieMatic’s internal cabinets, so you can charge your gadgets out of the way of sticky fingers, spillages and trip hazards. Genius!

There really is no excuse not to get your kitchen organised this year…