An exhaustive guide to range hood options
There are neat ways to hide a hood fan in a small kitchen, writes Samantha Pynn.
Q I saw an issue of Chatelaine that had a basement kitchen where you used a small stainless steel hood fan. Can you tell me where I can find one? Can you suggest other options? I’m about to start tackling our small kitchen where I’m not even sure we have room for a refrigerator.
A That range hood was actually just a stainless steel box. We’ll get to that, but let’s start with some other options. In a tight kitchen, where you have upper and lower cabinets, you can use an undercabinet hood or a microwave/ fan combo. Down-draft systems are invisible when retracted, but you’d need a vent pipe from your down-draft blower to the outside, which could mean you’d have a vent running under your floor.
There are many colour, finish and style options on the appliance market — from restaurantchic stainless steel to glamorous glossy white; the choice will come down to which style works best in your home.
If, however, you are working on a small-space kitchen with awkward bulkheads, low ceilings or other architectural constraints, a custom stainless steel box could do the trick.
In that small basement kitchen, pictured here, we didn’t install upper cabinets on the appliance side of the kitchen to avoid the space feeling cramped.
Because of a bulkhead, our ceiling was too low even for the shortest length of a telescoping hood fan; with an electric cooktop, 61 to 76 centimetres (24 to 30 inches) is required between the bottom of the hood and the cooktop (76 cm or 30 inches for gas).
Because we had no cabinetry, an under-cabinet hood wouldn’t have worked for us, and a fan in the wall or ceiling (picture a bathroom exhaust fan) would have looked unfinished.
I had a stainless steel box made by Absolutecustomsteelfab.ca to hide a standard under-cabinet hood fan. They disabled the hood light and added an industrial-style on-off switch to the box.
To make a custom box work with your appliances, use the same width and length as your cooktop. The one in the photo has a depth of about 15 cm (six inches).
A petite cucina will always look (and work) best when the design is uncluttered. Instead of a slidein range, I chose integrated Nutid appliances to create a streamlined European look. The high-gloss, grey, lower cabinet doors blend with the stainless steel, while the white upper Abstrakt cabinets disappear into the white walls of the storage side of the kitchen. (The appliances and cabinets were from Ikea.)
You may also want to consider a cover panel for your dishwasher because the fewer disparate elements you have, the sleeker and cleaner the space will look.
Wishing you a smooth kitchen reno.