You can now tuck away some of those bulky kitchen appliances you don't use every day in cleverly adapted shelves and cupboards designed to keep your surfaces clear.
That might be your air fryer, your can-do-everything food processor or bread making machine.
As we seek storage ideas, makers of furniture are furnishing us wiht some handy, creative, even quirky hiding places to help our kitchens look a little tidier.
There's the kitchen garage for the robot vacuum cleaner. Hardly anything of it should be visible from the outside – just the recess in the skirting board through which the robot reaches its charging station, says the Association of the German Kitchen Furniture Industry.
The cabinet unit, developed specifically for the robot, features a hinged door behind which a metal tray is concealed. The robot can drive in and out of this via a ramp in the plinth recess, to prevent dust or dirt from escaping into the kitchen.
Base units with a swivel mechanism are a further hiding place for kitchen appliances, says the association. These let you bring your air fryer out of the cupboard to working height in a single movement.
And for those who don’t want to simply place their espresso machine or toaster on a worktop, pull-out shelves for tall and buffet cupboards are an extra option.
You pull them out of the cupboard onto a movable platform when you need your appliances. It saves you from needing to bend down low or lift heavy items to retrieve the coffee machine and other appliances from your possibly fully-packed cupboard.
A further alternative for your kitchen could be top-mounted cabinets that sit directly on the worktop. If you want to push the appliances out onto the worktop, you fold the doors or tilting them upwards, so they aren't in the way whilst you’re using them.
