Styling A Stainless Steel Range Cooker
Stainless steel appliances bring a chic and sophisticated look to the kitchen, whilst also matching most small kitchen items such as toasters and kettles.
Your range cooker will take centre stage between your cupboards, worktops and other appliances, so choosing a style that brings it all together is important. Stainless steel doesn’t have to mean boring, it just means you have to enhance the area in other ways.
With a sleek monochrome design, or a brighter pastel shade, try to bring the space together as a whole. The beauty of stainless steel is it can be matched with many colours, with it being so simple and versatile.
And if you’re afraid of the fingerprints, of which there will be many, we have some great recommendations for how to clean your stainless steel range cooker as well as the products to use. So what are you waiting for, carry on reading for the ultimate guide to styling your stainless steel range cooker…
Light Wood
A wooden kitchen brings both warmth and charm. Creating a more natural finish, this is a rich and versatile way of creating a hint of colour to go with your stainless steel cooker. This way, you can opt for a traditional or contemporary look and create a truly timeless kitchen.
This kitchen, with the Rangemaster Professional Plus 90, uses light wood for both the worktop and the cabinetry. With a matching stainless steel cooker hood, the focus is on the appliances without it being overpowering. The use of the matching handles on the cupboard doors and drawers also ties it all together in a subtle but elegant way.
The Rangemaster Professional Plus boasts a wealth of features, making them a top choice for any contemporary styled kitchen. The Professional Plus models offer the modern lines of the other Rangemaster range cookers but with a few extras. Its impressive specification of two fanned electric ovens, separate dual circuit variable electric grill (with glide-out grill pan) and five burner gas hob is definitely up to the task of feeding lots of hungry people.
Dark Wood
Dark wood within your kitchen adds a touch of classiness and luxury. With the right combination of finishes, lighting and layout, you can achieve a variety of styles using dark wood finishes.
Take this kitchen for example, with the Bertazzoni Professional, using dark wood cabinetry with a lighter grained worktop. Using the lights on the stainless steel hood and above the solid wall with built in appliances, the colour is lifted and given a shine covering the wood. The stainless steel blends in perfectly, without creating a dull look which would be expected with a darker wood. The light wood flooring is also a good way of lifting the room from below, giving an overall sophisticated and elegant kitchen.
The Bertazzoni Professional 90 Twin brings both versatility and style to your kitchen. The main electric oven has 11 functions ranging from convection and grilling to fast-preheat. A digital programmer allows perfect control of cooking, displaying the oven functions selected, manages time during cooking and gives feedback on real-time temperature. The useful second auxiliary oven has six modes, whilst the six high-quality gas burners on top provide power and efficiency. Finishing this well-executed range cooker is a high-resolution LCD touch screen display.
Colour
The great thing about a stainless steel range cooker is the ability to use almost any colour. Whilst navy blue may seem overwhelming within your kitchen, you can balance it out. Limit navy blue to your cabinets, where the colour will not be as prominent. Compliment the colour with white walls and this will brighten the space.
Whilst the blue and white combo is crisp and contemporary within this kitchen, wood textures then give a more traditional feel to the room. A light honey tone wood brings out the warmth of the blue, much like in a traditional farmhouse style kitchen.
This DeLonghi Vintage 90DF Twin in stainless steel offers a programmable A-rated main oven with 8 different fanned and conventional cooking functions, plus includes a grill. The second conventional oven includes a very clever Rotisserie and another grill, along with a useful plate warming shelf. The hob is made from a seamless sheet of stainless steel, making cleaning a dream and the very smart looking rear upstand is removable if preferred. The five gas burners include an unusually powerful 4kW wok burner and cast iron pan supports.
Cleaning Stainless Steel
When you find the right products to clean your stainless steel cooker, it can make a huge difference. Restoring the shine on your cooker is important, particularly one that is prone to fingerprints like stainless steel is. When gleaming, a stainless steel range cooker is a beautiful part of any kitchen. To find out which are the best products, we have conducted our own experiment on one of our very own stainless steel splashbacks.
Covered with hand prints, we wanted to see which was the most successful at wiping all muck off a sheet of a stainless steel…
We tested the following products:
🧼 White Vinegar
🧼 Baby Oil
🧼 Stainless Steel Cleaner
🧼 WD-40
🧼 Soap and Water
With an unexpected winner in WD-40, our experiment showed us that even with these specialist products, it is best to also have a damp cloth to wipe before and after you’ve used them. Items such as the baby oil and the stainless steel cleaner are great for adding that finishing shine but not ideal for a deep clean. You can read more here on our previous blog post.
Stainless Steel Top Picks…
The Rangecookers Select 90ei2, the first induction model in our Select collection. A sturdy and reliable electric range cooker that is designed to appeal on all fronts, this model will suit your budget nicely without compromising on quality.
It features a multifunction, programmable main oven with conventional second oven, two integrated grills and a sleek induction hob. Not a standard build, the competent Select 90ei2 is manufactured to Rangecookers’ considered specification at a specialist Italian factory chosen for its engineering credentials and great track record.
The Smeg A2-81 Opera is not only a stunning-looking range cooker, it has all the features you could need, including multifunction ovens, auto ignition and flame safety devices. The characteristic LED analogue clock/timer is a nice touch, too. Updated to include Smeg's Eclipse Black glass, this facelift allows the cooker door glass to remain Jet Black whilst the appliance is off, yet perfectly transparent when turned on.
This dual cavity ILVE range cooker offers copious cooking capacity and A+ rated energy efficiency in a premium and very refined package.
The versatile and huge 97 litre multifunction main oven gives you 15 fanned, conventional and grill functions, with the 43 litre second oven offering non-fanned cooking and grilling functions. Both cavities feature a rotisserie, easy clean enamel interiors and two-height halogen lighting for a great view of what is going on, as well as child safety locks. There are even steam discharge vents to allow you to control the humidity or condensation levels to let a little out for wetter dishes or keep it in for baking - a nice touch which demonstrates ILVE’s commitment to culinary detail.
Built in the UK by Aga-Rangemaster, Mercury range cookers represent the performance end of the famous manufacturer's product spectrum with enhanced construction, heavy duty oven furniture and those special Mercury hi-fi control dials. Large, powerful ovens with heavy stainless steel telescopic shelves and self-clean catalytic linings, and a particularly robust and impressive glide-out grill mark the Mercury range out as something special, along with subtle branding details and general attention to detail.
The five burner, one-piece stainless steel hotplate includes a powerful 5kW wok ring, and individual cast iron pan supports make lifting off for cleaning easy. Top left is a handy dual circuit electric glide-out grill. You then have a 78 litre fanned oven and a second 78 litre multifunction oven, plus a useful storage drawer in the bottom right cavity.
To find out more about anything mentioned in this post, please call our team on 01244 402 975 or visit our website to view all of our stainless steel products.
