Kitchens have become the showpieces of a house.   Modern designs offer space-saving alternatives.   Sleek designs with smooth stainless steel are status symbols in the home.

Thirty years ago, figuring out which appliance to buy for your kitchen was fairly simple stuff: do you want that new fridge in avocado green or burnt gold? Are you willing – or hip – enough to shell out the money for a new microwave? These days, though, kitchens have evolved from supporting roles into stars all their own. As a result, they require accoutrements that live up to their newfound status. You might spend weeks trying to decide if an induction cook-top is right for you, or if you need two dishwashers instead of just the one. Whatever your needs are, you can be sure that there’s an appliance out there that can meet it. All you have to do is find it.

It’s in the name
Look around any appliance store and you’ll see that the looks of appliances have improved tremendously. With sleeker designs featuring smooth stainless steel and occasional colors, appliances are the new status symbol in homes. Yet shoppers tend to be concerned with brand names more than anything else when it comes to appliances, experts say. “The high-end brands like the Bosches, the Thermadores, the Viking, the Wolf, the Sub-Zeros have an appeal to the luxury home buyer or the person who may be remodeling,” says Tim Frye, builder sales manager for BSH Home Appliances Corporation. “European styling is very popular.”

Rick Broome, store manager at Sunrise Appliance and TV in Mooresville, agrees. “I think it’s all about the look, oddly enough. The people who buy the Viking and the high-end pieces aren’t necessarily great cooks or want to cook a lot or are professional cooks,” he says. “They know it helps the resale value of their home, and they just want it there. It completes the look of their kitchen.”

Aside from Sub-Zero refrigerators, which range from $5,000 to $13,000, one of the biggest status symbols is the 48-inch dual fuel range by Wolf, which features a gas range top and a convection electric oven, complete with 10 cooking modes. Although its bells and whistles are state-of-the-art, the range, which retails for around $11,000, is best known for its big, red knobs.

“You’d be amazed at how many people walk in and say, ‘Do you sell the big red-knob stove?’ They buy it literally because it’s the stove with the big red knobs,” says Tim Kirk, general manager at hhgregg Fine Lines.

Quick and even
Price aside, you’ll want to be familiar with two terms that frequently come up when looking for a cook top, microwave, oven, or range : convection and induction. A convection microwave or oven features a fan that continuously circulates hot air around the food, resulting in more evenly cooked food and less cooking time.

Induction cook tops use electromagnetism instead of gas or electricity. By directly heating the pan instead of the burner, an induction cook top uses less energy because it heats faster. For example, you can boil two quarts of water in less than three minutes. All of the big players (think Bosch, Electrolux, Gaggenau, GE Monogram, Thermador, Viking, and Wolf) offer induction cook tops. The only catch is that you have to use magnetic cookware.

“The technology [for induction cook tops] has been around forever. They [manufacturers] did away with it for a while because here in the United States, it was too expensive. Now it’s more reasonably priced,” says Kirk, adding that eight years ago you would have paid $6,000 for this technology. Today, prices generally start around $2,500. Frye says induction technology is also coming back on the radar because of its European styling and the desire for better performance. “Not everyone likes or has gas available to them,” says Frye.

If you really want to cook fast, check out the TurboChef 30-inch Speedcook Oven. By incorporating TurboChef’s patented Airspeed Technology, this oven cooks food 15 times faster than conventional ovens.

“This is the first ever commercial air speed technology oven to hit the home,” says Kirk. “You can do a 12-pound turkey in 45 minutes.” Kirk encourages customers who are seriously interested in the Speedcook Oven, which retails for around $6,000, to cook with the oven in his store.

That’s entertainment
As families increasingly entertain at home, another appliance gaining momentum in the kitchen is the warming drawer, which can cost anywhere from $700 to $1,500. “Some people assemble a plate and keep their plates in there [the warming drawer],” says Broome. “Warming drawers take up very little space. You can put it in most kitchens. Even in a very small, confined area you can get your microwave, your oven, and your warming drawer all in a line,” adds Kirk. “For the folks that want extra cooking, but they don’t have the space, they use a warming drawer to help with dinner parties.”

Many homeowners, too, are installing more than one dishwasher in their kitchens to handle excess dishes. “A lot of people are putting two dishwashers in because they’re staying in the home more,” says Kirk. “They’re entertaining more in the home so they have more dishes to wash. We see that a lot.”

Of course, the proper host will always offer guests a good cup of coffee after a meal, and appliance manufacturers realize that. These machines are worlds apart from Mr. Coffee, as they produce espressos in addition to regular coffee. “Most of them have steamers and frothers to steam milk for frou-frou coffee,” explains Kirk. “The up and coming new luxury entertaining appliance is the coffee machine. “The high-end coffee machine is becoming very popular.”

Kirk, who sells freestanding and built-in coffee machines by Bosch and Thermador, says customers are willing to pay up to thousands of dollars for a coffee machine because they know it will pay for itself. “It’s the exact same thing that you can get at Starbucks, but you’re not paying $4, $5, or $6 for a cup of coffee and you’re doing it at home,” he says. And, of course, with plenty of style.