Tales From the Box

Originally we decided that a rangehood was something that we didn’t need. We didn’t have one in our old kitchen…so why in our new one? I admit their was occasions I was lulled and seduced by those sexy showrooms which feature kitchens so sleek you would feel out of place cooking in it. In particular, the large expanses of stainless steel made me drool homer style. But I had resisted, simply because I couldn’t visualise this big (albeit beautiful) thing hanging down in a space I wanted to keep open and uncluttered because the of the low roof.

However one dry January afternoon, our builder Ben, while discussing the layout of the kitchen kept at me.
“So you’re not having a rangehood?”
“And the rangehood…oh you aren’t having one are you?”
“You are sure you don’t want to duct over your hotplate – perhaps a rangehood…?”

These subtle questions kept at me and shortly after this conversation, while flipping through an old copy of InsideOut I saw a picture of boxy looking kitchen, with a shallow, undermount rangehood set into a box which only hung slightly lower than the kitchen. This box was clad with a oak panelling like the featured kitchen, but I liked the idea, thinking that something like that set into gyprock (you know how I love my gyprock) and set about trying to find something that fit. We looked around at a few brands, and it was hard to find what we were after. Most were the usual pull out types or giant stainless steel ones I had sworn off. We finally found ‘the one’ in Harvey Norman – pretty much sitting above the same cooktop we purchased 6 months earlier. It was interesting because we were quizzed far more asutely by sales assisstant about how we ‘use’ the stove so he could gauge whether the rangehood would be powerful enought to suck out what we wanted. Luckily, this on the beefier side of suction, but other, more expensive brands promised to suck the paint off the wall if needed.

So we purchased the Smeg p52/2 model. A tidy unit that has some nice halogen lighting which will work a treat with the copious wok based dishes I will cook.

For those wondering how we are ducting the rangehood. We boxed in the beam with gyprock and a duct runs along the beam and outside. You can see the end of it in the top right of the first picture.