There seems to be little difference between hard wood and plastic cutting boards from a safety standpoint, as long as they are properly washed and sanitized after each use. Personally, I like the feel of solid wood. One piece of advice--buy large cutting boards. Don't bother with these tiny boards that everyone seems to have in his or her kitchen. They are not user friendly. Once you get down to serious cutting or chopping, the small boards are always woefully inadequate and downright maddening!

Keen cooks may want to take advantage of multi-function ovens - usually aimed at the top end of the market. As well as traditional cooking, fan or fan-assisted cooking and grilling, these ovens offer up to nine further functions. These include: Top element only (browning), bottom element (final cooking of pastry dishes or pizzas), fan and bottom element (delicate cooking), fan only (thawing).

By custom, the sink is placed beneath a window, both to provide daylight for chores done there and to give one a view outdoors. I suppose the custom derives from the days before dishwashers, when the task of washing up was a tedious affair done by hand. Yet working at a sink with a window is still much more pleasant than working at a sink without one. Designers often place the sink first and lay out the rest of the work triangle from there