Selection - Kitchen Appliances

Omega rangehood with blue feature lighting

Electrolux EHGC97BS glass gas cooktop

Electrolux ERCG9030AS glass rangehood

I must have changed my mind three or four times trying to decide whether to keep the “European styled stainless steel hotplate, oven & canopy rangehood” supplied by the builder or purchase our own.

For those who are curious, the supplied oven and cook top were Blanco BOSE902X and BCG95X respectively. The rangehood was a Blanco BWCE9X.


One thing was clear - I did not like the supplied Blanco rangehood. There is something about triangular shaped range hoods that strike me as clunky. Perhaps this style of rangehood would look ok if it was sandwiched between two overhead cupboards, but our kitchen does not have any cabinetry on the rangehood wall. This means that the rangehood itself becomes a feature and this is why it is definitely going to be replaced.

There are some absolutely stunning rangehoods available, for example Omega has a model with blue LED feature lighting.


I was torn when it came to the question of whether or not to keep the supplied oven and gas cooktop. Whilst these items are not terrible they just do not grab me. Is it worth spending an extra couple of thousand to buy a better looking oven and gas cooktop?

Our apartment has a black glass electric cooktop, which despite the extra cleaning required, looks lovely (especially on a black granite bench top). I really do love the look of black glass cooktops. Not only are they modern, but timeless. I do not think black glass is going to be going out of fashion anytime soon!

One of the main factors I considered when making my decision was how much time, effort and money it would cost to replace it a few years down the track. Because we have stone bench tops, replacing a cooktop requires not only an electrician/plumber, but also a stone mason to cut a hole for the new cooktop. There would also be the problem of finding a cooktop that is larger than the existing one, so that there would be no visible gaps.

The above argument also rings true for replacing the oven. A friend of mine recently replaced her oven. In doing so, she also needed to replace some of her cabinetry, because her new oven was larger than her old one.

I spent a lot of time asking myself whether I was being too greedy. I weighed up the pros and cons of replacing the appliances versus keeping the ones supplied. In the end, it was a 25% off closing down sale that sealed the deal. We purchased an Omega oven (OO912XN) and an Electrolux rangehood (ERCG9030AS) and gas cooktop (EHGC97BS).