A wine cooler is an attractive way to proudly store and display your valued wine collection. Today you can experience the finest cabinet artistry and refrigeration performance of all times. Premier wine cabinets give a refined, functional extension to your furniture and decor.
Take a connoisseur’s look at wine coolers, cabinets, and refrigerators; savour the pleasure of perfectly chilled wines on demand at family gatherings or when it’s just the two of you.
Be it a 6 bottle thermoelectric cooler, for less than $100, or a 240 bottle cellar cabinet, near $2,000, just go ahead – pop the cork! Depending on your lifestyle of course, you can install the likes of a 50 bottle free-standing wine cooler or, simply, an 8 bottle countertop style! Whatever size you choose, upright model or credenza, a wine cooler will help you serve wine at peak temperature for tastiness.
Add a touch of class- fine wine in a glass! A votre sante!
We spend a lot of time in the kitchen; let’s enjoy it to the max! Probably one of the first things to consider is to match the kitchen flooring with the cabinetry and countertops. And right up there with the aesthetics is comfort, of course!
You’ll notice that flooring products are very similar to countertop materials in what they offer for style, comfort, and durability.
What’s hot? Surprisingly, linoleum is returning because of the huge movement towards caring for the environment. Although it’s something you might remember from your grandma’s kitchen, people are choosing it once again because it’s made of natural products. The word linoleum has its roots in latin, meaning “from flax or linen plus oil”. It is extremely quiet, comfy, and durable. You’re looking at $4 to $22 per square foot.
What’s not? Well, carpet is probably the least practical and most unsanitary choice for this particular room; even berber, known to be durable, would not be a wise choice for the kitchen.
Aesthetically speaking, people are going for cork, stone, ceramic tile, and natural wood. You could be paying up to $100 per square foot here. Laminate offers the look of wood without nailing you in the wallet. It’s as easy to clean as lino, very durable, and doesn’t fade or stain like real wood.
Cork, in all it’s naturalness, truly ads warmth and richness to your kitchen. It’s tough, resilient, water resistant, and has the additional advantage of absorbing sound.
Stone flooring is most commonly granite, marble, or slate. Stone is very beautiful, if you like the man-made look, but cold and hard on the legs. It’s obviously very tough and is suitable to install over radiant heating.
Tile flooring includes ceramic (clay covered with a ceramic stain), porcelain (thicker with color throughout), and quarry (unglazed shale and clay with color throughout). It’s durable, easy to clean, and will fit over radiant heating as well.
Wood flooring in North America is most often maple or oak and provides a variety of handsome looks. If it’s polyurethane coated it can be easy to keep looking great. However, the natural wood you must wax can prove to be high maintenance.
Another option to consider is vinyl. At $1 to $10 per square foot it is ideal for the kitchen because it’s resilient and easy to maintain.
One last tip: Be aware of what lies beneath your flooring because this can affect the success of your flooring choice.
We are all more than familiar with the efficiency of microwave ovens in our high-speed world of fast foods! When the microwave oven came to the fore we were amazed at the speed this appliance could cook our food or reheat a meal using the concept of microwave radiation. We learned that our food was cooked from the inside out. What an ingenious device!
Unfortunately for those with a busy lifestyle who have come to rely on the microwave oven, it’s been revealed that we need a technology more in accordance with nature. There is an extensive amount of scientific literature now compiled, which addresses the hazardous effects of direct microwave radiation on living systems.
Microwave radiation changes the nature of food and can cause deterioration in the human system. One bigger-than-life example is how it changes the amount of nutrition in baby formula and mothers’ milk.
There is proof that after taking in microwave food our white blood cells show a distinct short-term decrease. Science has shown that blood being prepared for transfusions, if warmed by microwave heat, is altered to have lower hemoglobin values.
It’s time to go back to Slow Food!
Look at alternatives such as the convection oven, fan oven, or turbo oven. The convection oven pulls air from the outside and heats it up. Food cooks in less time and requires less heat than with a conventional oven.
Microwave ovens de-nature food. Luckily, there are alternative choices which allow you to cook a little more quickly without the negative effects of microwave radiation. Make a healthy choice for your family and yourself! You’ll be glad you did!
