First, I just wanted to say how overwhelmed I was by the response on the kitchen remodel post! I’m so pleased so many of you seemed to like it and thank you all for the lovely comments!! If you haven’t seen it yet, you can check that out here.

I wanted to share a little more today about the appliances I chose for my kitchen. I had debated about whether to swap out the appliances we had, simply because there was nothing really wrong with them. I thought maybe we could make it work… ahh yeah, once the cupboards were all painted black, they stuck out like a sore thumb. Oh dear.

Thankfully, it was AO.com to the rescue. If you aren’t aware, I used to work for them a few years ago as the Editor of their lifestyle blog, AO at Home (since then, it’s been rebranded as AO Life and I’m still a contributor for them) so my relationship with the company has always been good. They were kind enough to provide a couple of the appliances for review so that’s what I’m sharing today!

The good news is that the old appliances won’t be going to waste. My mother-in-law will soon be moving to a new flat and will be needing appliances so we’ll be giving her our previous white ones (they were only a few years old after all and in perfectly good condition). Win win!

The next time we do a full kitchen remodel (in our next house – this one is definitely done!), I’d love built in appliances but as we were working with the original footprint of the kitchen, freestanding it was. We chose the black Cannon by Hotpoint CH60GCIK Gas Cooker with Variable Gas Grill.

One of the reasons I liked it was because it had a flip up glass lid that hides the gas burners and provides extra surface space when it’s not being used. When we do our shopping for the week, that additional surface actually comes in really handy as we’re putting things away! Plus, when it flips up, it means the tiles behind the cooker don’t get any kind of splashback of cooking oils, etc. It’s really easy to keep clean too so there’s no scrubbing of tile grout which absorbs stains so easily. It’s such a brilliantly simple idea and one I had on my last cooker too – I wasn’t about to give that feature up!

The oven itself is nice and compact (60cm wide) but somehow manages to fit a decent sized double oven – another necessity for us! So you can easily cook two different things at once. While we cook from scratch nearly every night, our one night off is Thursday. That’s the night we do our ‘big shop’ for the week and so as neither of us wants to cook on those nights, we often have a quick dinner of store-bought pizza. I have a small gluten-free one and Wayne has a normal frozen one which means two different temperature settings. With the double oven, this is so easy because each oven has separate controllers for temperature. So we can eat our pizza together without having to wait for one to cook and then the other. It’s also great for roast dinners on a Sunday – we pop the roast in the larger bottom oven and the veg on top. Super convenient and super easy.

We had also considered keeping our existing cooker hood in white – thinking it may work well if the upper shelving was in white anyway. WRONG. It just looked weird. Swapping to black was definitely the right choice there too.

We also received a new washing machine. I have no idea how we managed with a tiny 5kg washing machine previously but the Hotpoint WMAO863K 8Kg Washing Machine with 1600 rpm is so much bigger even though it takes up no more room than our old one. Again, it’s perfectly sized at 60cm wide but I can fit SO much more laundry in there. I used to have to separate my bedding into two separate loads because it just wouldn’t fit into one load of washing and now I can do it all at once. I imagine a family might need a slightly larger capacity machine but the 8kg one suits us perfectly. I find myself doing far fewer loads a week and that’s pretty freaking awesome.

Of course, there are lots of different settings but the digital display makes it really simple to choose which is appropriate depending upon what you are washing. For bedding and towels, there’s a button labelled ‘Bed & Bath’ which washes at 60 degrees C for 2 hours 20 minutes. For our normal everyday clothing, I tend to use the ‘Synthetics Delicate’ setting which is 40 degrees C for 2 hours 10 minutes. There’s also an option for a quick wash where you can set the temperature at 30 degrees for 30 or 60 minutes. There’s also an ‘Eco’ setting which reduces the total time and a myriad of other settings too which make it fully customisable.

So once the cooker, cooker hood and washing machine were in, we looked at the white fridge and just thought, ‘Yeah but no.’ See, this is what happens when you piece your kitchen in bit by bit!! Ha! So, back on to AO.com’s site, ordered the Indesit LD85F1K 50/50 Frost Free Fridge Freezer in black on a Wednesday and it was with us by Thursday! The perfect finishing touch.

Here’s the thing about AO.com as well. The ordering process is really straight-forward. You can choose your delivery date – they deliver seven days a week (yes, even Sundays!) so all you do is put in your postcode and they’ll tell you which dates are available. You might even save money with their ‘eco’ option. This means they already have deliveries in the area on that day and so it’s free.

AO’s friendly installer fitting the gas cooker and washing machine first thing on a Saturday morning!

Once you order your appliances and choose your delivery date, their super friendly customer service peeps give you a ring. With the cooker, we went through a few questions just to make sure there wouldn’t be any issue with installing it. Yep, they send gas certified installers along with the delivery so you can get it all done at the same time – fabulous, right? With the cooker hood, they wanted to be sure it was high enough from the cooker to meet regulations. They are really lovely on the phone – professional but also very friendly which is always good.

Then, you get a text message confirming everything and another text message the day before delivery just to make sure you’ll be in. On the morning of your delivery date, you get another text. You also get emails throughout the process so you always know what’s going on with your order.

I genuinely can’t think of even one negative thing to say about my experience with AO. Bear in mind, throughout the delivery process, they didn’t know that I was in any way a previous employee or that I would be reviewing the service. I’ve ordered from AO a few times in the past and it’s always exceptional service every time.

Want to save a few quid on appliances and tech? They are running a Black Friday sale all week!

So tell me… Have you ever ordered from AO.com? And I’d love to know – do you prefer your appliances all in the same colour? Or do you like a bit of mixing and matching? Weigh in below!

Disclaimer: I was given the washing machine and cooker free for my review but as always all words, images and opinions are my own. I only work with companies I really like and think you’ll like too! Thanks for supporting the brands that support Swoon Worthy!