A well-designed kitchen can offer a cozy, cohesive aesthetic that takes the utilitarian and creates a space that is so much more, the heart of the home. One way to more seamlessly integrate your kitchen into your home is with panel-ready appliances that blend with your cabinetry.
The ACo design team and their clients often turn to Wolf/Sub-Zero/Cove for their excellent selection of panel-ready appliances.
“Homeowners can hide their appliances behind these custom panels, making it look more like a piece of furniture,” says Alex Cain, Territory Sales Manager at Tisdel Distributing who represents Wolf/Sub-Zero/Cove. “The handles and hardware are typically a little larger than your standard cabinet pulls, but everything matches so that if you scan the kitchen, you wouldn’t know where the dishwasher or trashcan is. It’s a buttoned up, more elevated look.”
Image Provided by Tisdel Distributing The beautiful thing about paneled appliances is that they work with any design aesthetic, whether modern or classic, because the cabinets drive the design.
“It’s up to the homeowner’s or designer’s creative vision,” says Cain. “It’s so appealing because there’s no limit in terms of the look.”
Image Provided by Tisdel Distributing According to Cain, the two most commonly paneled appliances right now are dishwashers and refrigerators. Those with over-sized refrigerators, in particular, may prefer the look of panel-ready.
“If a homeowner has a 36-inch refrigerator column and a 36-inch freezer column, that’s 72 inches of refrigeration,” says Cain. “If you set those together, handle to handle, that’s a lot of stainless. As kitchens have gotten larger, many homeowners want their appliances to be more clandestine. Panelizing is a great way to pull that off.”
Another popular panel-ready item is undercounter refrigeration. These integrated, refrigerated drawers can look like cabinet drawers where one might store pots and pans. This means you can place a 30-inch undercounter set of refrigerator drawers beside a set of two 30-inch-wide storage drawers, but it looks like four drawers next to each other.
Cain is seeing an increased interest in undercounter wine and beverage appliances as well. Typically, they feature a glass door. However, some homeowners are choosing to replace the glass with a solid panel-ready accessory so they can apply a custom panel.
Image Provided by Tisdel Distributing “Perhaps a homeowner has this undercounter beverage appliance in a space where grandchildren would be tempted to open it,” says Cain. “Or maybe it’s in a den and they prefer it to all look like cabinetry.”
One advantage to panelizing is that if you have a refrigerator like a Sub-Zero that may last 25, 30, even 40 years, if you want to refresh your kitchen with new cabinetry, you can install new panels to your refrigerator, which is a big cost savings. This enables a refrigerator to look completely new on the outside and match the kitchen’s remodel.
Image Provided by Tisdel Distributing When it comes to integrating panel-ready appliances into your home, the sky is the limit on what can be done. If you’re looking to make your kitchen more cohesive connect with the team at ACo for guidance on designing a kitchen you will love for years to come.
Discover more kitchen trends and inspiration!Written by Christy Heitger-Ewing
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