Next electrician and plumber came to finish installing the rest and we finally had our functioning kitchen back again.

• A lot of Wok cooking
• Big pots and pans
• Not a lot of roast meat in the oven
• A lot of steaming

So far, I am quite happy with new appliances we chose, a combo of wok burners and induction hobs, a combi steam oven. Built-in hood works pretty well too.

The big sink is also good for doing fish prep work where I can easily scale, clean, and fillet the fish right on top of the sink.

So what do you think?

Beautiful, modern and updated!! I love the use of drawers!!

IMHO, you could keep a footprint the exact same and put in drawer bases and that alone will increase function dramatically.

What you've done is remarkable!

Nice work!

Forgot a picture of my dry pantry. The kitchen joinery owner really liked how it turned out.

That is great! I particularly like the cooktop arrangement.

Your kitchen looks fantastic! I wish we could get mix and match hobs like that here.

What is the wood used for the cabinets?

Thank for you compliments :-)

The wallpaper was a funny story. We didn't know that there was a wall paper there until we ripped out the old cabinets. When previous owner renovated the kitchen back then, new cabinet was put on top of the old wall paper. Afterwards, the rest of wall paper was pulled out and wall got painted over.

We were on a budget so cabinets are laminated with textural wood grain. It does feel very much like a wood veneer door, a touch cheaper. The actual product is Laminex Riven finish in sublime teak colour.

Benchtop and splash back are Caesarstone in buttermilk colour. The main reason we chose caesarstone as splash back was its ease of cleaning from all those oil spattering from wok cooking. A textural creamy colour hides all the marks with just a quick wipe.

Cooktop is Asko. The manufacturer of the cooktop is ATAG. They are both under the same parent company, Gorenje. The gas burner is a new product in Australia, called Fusion Volcano wok burner. It is, for here, the closest thing I can get to an open burner for indoor domestic use. Open burners like Capital and BlurStar are not available in this big island. The middle hob is a bridge induction unit which is fairly versatile and compliments the two gas hobs very well.

I wanted to have both induction and gas as well as having quite spacious arrangement for wok cooking plus other things. Usually there are not more than two things going on on the cooktop for me. From these ideas, they led to domino hob arrangement. It is a bit more expensive, but also a good compromise for functionality and space.

My only oven is a Miele combi steam oven DGC 6805. It is small, but can do a lot of things. Being a plumbed model, it is very convenience for all the steaming cooking. Steaming whole fish is very easy now, and I don't miss wok top set up at all. My DW was insisting on one oven, although I would have loved another pyro oven to go with it. BBQ is just a few steps outside, and it isn't too cold to grill all year round in Sydney; that was her reason.

I think it's awesome! That's a wonderful wall of storage with a display area too. What an increase in storage space! Love that big kitchen window - and all the glass in the other room. It all looks so open - like you're just living outdoors. I suppose the lighter color in cabinets helps with that also.

I can't imagine cooking in that little corner the cooktop was in - yikes. That was terrible. So much better having it in the new location with elbow room on each side.

It all came together so beautifully - I'm sure it's such a pleasure to work in.

I love your cabinets too. Are they available in the US? Is the lamination done on site?

He he, at the new location, when we have dinner ourself for four of us, I just can just cook and serve straight away.

Laminex is a local Australia and New Zealand company. There should be companies in the US that supply pre-laminated board. Laminated MDF boards came from factory to the kitchen joinery in 1.2m x 2.4m.

The board size was also designing constraint for the kitchen in that if we want a full length board for fridge panel, we can have cabinet only 2.4m tall. For a taller panel, a board has to be joined, and there might be a visible seem. My ceiling is 2.7m, and we were contemplating whether to get the cabinet all the way up to the ceiling or just leave them at 2.4m height. The latter wins on cost, and perhaps, it might actually look better.

Another was for the pantry as we wanted horizontal grain. Only 1.2m is available for horizontal grain. The upper part of the pantry gets full 1.2m height, the bottom is 1.05m plus 15cm for kick board height for a total of 2.4m.

Those stacker sliding door at the back opens up the living area to the back deck superbly. Summer is really heading this way. It was 31*c this afternoon and this is just the beginning of spring.

Beautiful. I love how modern and airy the space feels but it's wood so still very warm.

I'm fascinated by the cooktop options. Both gas and induction sounds like a wonderful combination. Congrats on a great new kitchen!

Looks great! An efficient and bright change for sure. If it's 31C now you're in for a scorcher of a summer! :)

What an incredible transformation. That is one of my favorite styles of cabinets. I love the horizontal lines. Your new cooktop fascinates me. I don't believe we have options like that here in the US. Or, if we do, it's very high-end. It looks like it's incredibly easy to cook on it. I'm so glad you no longer have to cook in that awkward, cramped corner. I love the photo of your vent hood in action. Yeah, it's definitely doing it's job well. :)

The dry pantry is gorgeous.

You have created a very efficient, functional layout with good storage and lovely aesthetics. The trifecta! Congratulations.

Gorgeous! What a transformation. I can understand why you didn't like cooking there before--it would drive me crazy to work at that cramped corner stove. Your choices are fantastic--enjoy your new space!

What a wonderful kitchen! You did a fabulous job updating and making it more functional :)

You did a great job! I love the streamlined, functional look of it.

I have a few questions about your individual hob setup. How wide is each and how much room is between? I would love to do the same thing someday because I love the idea of induction and the efficiency (no wasted heat) but I need a gas burner for canning with a large aluminum pressure canner. We have a few of these options available, but probably not as many as you.

Enjoy your new and much improved kitchen!

Hi nancy and all, my cooktop set up is geared towards Asian cooking. There are a lot of stir frying, deep frying, and steaming in my cookbook. The basic idea is to be able to get at least two woks going at the same time, or a wok and a large pot for soup or stock, or a big pan and a big pot for pasta and sauce.

From experience, I don't like front and back hob set up that much as I tend to use only the front burners. With panoramic set up I can access pots and pans easier. This lead to dominos set up because I also want to have induction in the mix. Each unit is 13" wide and is set 2 1/4" apart. They sit under a 48" wide hood insert.

For this set up, I can have three domestic woks 14"-15" going at the same time. The induction hob even works well with round bottom wok. I use it with induction wok adapter from Electrolux and De Buyer. I can stir fry all right on induction, it is also pretty good for deep frying. For example, I can set up the middle hob for deep frying, then I can just leave the hot wok and oil on the hob while finishing up the dish on other wok. A dish like sweet and sour pork comes to mind.

The middle induction unit is also a bridge induction where a rectangular griddle can be use on it for indoor grilling. I use Lodge 16"x9" griddle as well as a smaller Le creuset with induction hob.

I have grown to like the induction unit so much. It is my first induction hob, and I am really falling for it. So versatile, it does low heat work much better than my gas burner, boiling liquid is also uber fast.

What a great setup and such a huge improvement. I love the look.

i really like your pantry too. How deep is it? The glass doors in the middle were a nice addition.

Hi Karen, that pantry is not very deep at all as it has to squeeze between the door architrave and the wall, just 12" (30cm) deep on the outside. Being a bit bigger 2.0m wide x 2.4m tall overall makes it quite useful in the end.

12 inches deep is a great pantry size. Nothing gets lost. Thanks for the info.

That's laminate? Very nice :)

It's funny that in the US we can't get that kind of hob (except really high end stuff) and you guys can't get high powered open burners, even though there is probably a market for both. (I have a range with unsealed burners though and taking it apart to clean is tedious - you've definitely got the low maintenance option)

Thanks for the details, chanop! You're really confirming what I've been thinking- I want induction! But I have to have at least one gas burner for canning and occasional power outages. Wolf offers the components that would work for me. I would also love to learn to cook over high heat, stir fries, etc. Right now I have no venting so not worth the grease and smells in the house:/

Definitely bookmarking this thread for future reference. Thanks again and enjoy:))

Yes fishcow, that's laminate. It also has some grainy texture that you can feel when touching, and not just visual wood grain texture. Part of the reason choosing this was to accomodate to scratches that are going to happen with two growing boys. Laminate is a fair bit more robust compared with polyurethane painted door.

When I was looking at which gas unit to get for my wok cooking, I was envious of high BTU open burners availability in the US. The available BTU burner down here is Wolf multifunction burner in 15" form factor at 22k BTU. This is probably a good gas burner for you Nancy. It looks pretty good, until I see the price tag far north of 4K AUD. Wolf product down here is priced very expensive somewhere in the range of Gaggenau.

Thx for the info on your cabs. I'll check around here - but possibly it'd be too expensive here now. Maybe in yrs to come it'd be more reasonable. Things not readily available are always so much more expensive! I do like the horizontal 'grain' of it.

great info on your cooktops. We did have someone on here a few yrs back who added an induction hob (maybe a 2 hob) next to her big gas cooktop.

I think the 12" deep pantry cabs are a good depth. my shelves are about 16" and I can lose things on them. I try to keep like items in a row front to back.

I had a more shallow shelf about 6" deep put in over 1 shelf and that is for very small can goods / jars - since I live alone I find it's better these days to buy some smaller sizes. That's probably not useful for a family of 4 tho!

you have a beautiful kitchen full of light now!