Merillat Classic Spring Valley in Oak Cider

As the hub of the home, the emphasis on design style in today’s kitchen is greater than ever before.  With so much of our time spent in the kitchen, it’s only natural that we’ve begun to gravitate toward cabinetry that looks like furniture, and appliances that are integrated into their surroundings or make a bold design statement of their own.

For those who can afford them, high-style, high-end appliances lend a wonderful aesthetic all their own to the kitchen. From professional six-burner gas stoves to glass-front refrigerators with architectural curves to retro-modern appliances in an array of crazy colors, there are a lot of great options from which to choose.

Integrated appliances are also an option for those who want a more customized look. An integrated appliance is one that has been custom built to fit your space instead of the more conventional method of building your kitchen to accommodate standard dimension appliances. But, this kind of customization doesn’t come cheap – not only is the appliance itself expensive, but maintenance and upkeep are also costly propositions.

Rest assured there are smaller scale and less costly design solutions available.  Several creative solutions for disguising or hiding away your conventional and small appliances are described below.

Merillat Masterpiece Wall Tambour Storage

Appliance Panel Kits

Camouflage paneling that matches your cabinetry is a great way to personalize appliances whose finishes don’t match your taste, or don’t match each other. It also creates a uniform look for your kitchen, creating continuous stretches of attractive surfaces and finishes around the room.

In this photo from the Merillat Classic Spring Valley collection, you can see how paneling helps the dishwasher fit right in with the room’s design. With matching wood species and finish, the paneling creates a consistent, continuous flow around the room. Ask your designer how to best incorporate appliance panel kits into your kitchen design.

Solutions for Small Appliances

When it comes to your smaller appliances, there are a number of ways in which you can keep them out of sight and help reduce clutter. For example, you can tuck a toaster in an appliance garage or a tambour cabinet with a roll-down door, keep a mixer on a shelf that lifts up and into the open when you need it, and keep a microwave on a sturdy, dedicated, integrated shelf. You can also use curtains, screens and other decorative devices to keep smaller items out of sight.  Explore Merillat’s extensive offering of small appliance and other space-saving accessories.

Quick Fixes

Don’t have the time or budget for changes to your appliances or cabinetry? Some simple yet innovative updates can help lend a unique, customized look to your appliances. For example you might elect to paint your appliances a color that complements the rest of your kitchen decor, or swap out standard hardware for custom hardware that better matches other elements in the room. Hardware can also be removed and painted to match other hardware finishes.

We hope you have been inspired by some of these quick ideas on how to create a more integrated kitchen look.  Do you have additional ideas on interesting ways of disguising kitchen appliances? Please share them with us!