Kitchen Deals -> Kitchen furnishing

The EnergyGuide label on new refrigerators will tell you how much electricity in kilowatt-hours (kWh) a particular model uses in one year. The smaller the number, the less energy the refrigerator uses and the less it will cost you to operate. In addition to the EnergyGuide label, don't forget to look for the Energy Star label. A new refrigerator with an Energy Star label will save you between $35 and $70 a year compared to the models designed 15 years ago. This adds up to between $525 and $1,050 during the average 15-year life of the unit.

When shopping for a new washer, look for a front loading (horizontal-axis) machine. This machine may cost more to buy but uses about a third of the energy and less water than a top-loading machine. With a front loader, you'll also save more on clothes drying, because they remove more water from your clothes during the spin cycle. Look for the Energy Star label.

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