Our friends at Neff are giving Design Matters customers a chance to win diamonds worth £5,000 with purchases of a Neff Dishwasher. The draw includes a first prize of diamonds worth £5,000, a second prize of £2,500 and a third prize of £1,000. In addition there will be 5 monthly mini-draws where you could also win £250 worth of John Lewis Vouchers.

In order to take advantage of this amazing offer, buy any Neff dishwasher as part of a kitchen order through Design Matters and answer a simple multiple choice question on the Diamond Prize Draw entry form. All entries must be received by 18 May 2012 – for more information visit the Neff website.

Neff appliances are a huge favourite with our clients, and this sparkling offer reflects the brilliant results you get from Neff Dishwashers and Finish dishwasher tablets which are recommended by Neff for their outstanding clean and shine.

Good luck to all our customers!

We are delighted to announce that Ruby Slippers Solutions Ltd are now distributors of Access Matters kitchen furniture across Central Scotland.

Ruby Slippers specialises in helping people enjoy their homes for longer through careful design and planning. Working on principles of ‘ageless design’, they offer a full range of home improvements including kitchens, bathrooms, stair lifts and access ramps. Company founder Lisa McMyn is passionate about her business and plans to further expand the Ruby Slippers offering to include an online boutique with carefully selected products that are designed to make life easier at home.

The Ruby Slippers team have just completed their first kitchen using Access Matters furniture and it is stunning. We are delighted that the Access Matters range of furniture can now be enjoyed by a wider audience and we look forward to many more successful collaborations with Lisa and her team.

Visit the Ruby Slippers web site to read about this beautiful kitchen project, and to see what the client had to say about her new kitchen.

For more details of the Ruby Slippers service, contact 0131 660 9574 or send them an email using this link.

January 2010 sees the opening of our refurbished showroom in Flackwell Heath. It is always a challenge to design four kitchens to sit side by side in the same space, but the finished result is stunning, and a great illustration of the wide variety of kitchens now on offer.

The front of the showroom features a Ballerina kitchen with white glass doors, Miele appliances and a striking orange glass splashback. A beautiful Edwin Loxley painted shaker kitchen coordinated with a walnut pantry shares the limelight. Towards the centre of the showroom we are showing Rational furniture in book-matched Smoked Oak veneer with a coordinated Silestone worksurface and Gaggenau appliances. Finally,to the rear of the showroom, we have installed a shaker oak kitchen with Neff appliances and substantial Corian worksurfaces.

To complete the update, an LCD screen featuring images of recent projects is now the focal point of our meeting area. This is linked to a further screen at the front of the showroom, and is also networked to our office giving us internet access for quick product searches when discussing design ideas with clients.

The overall effect is breathtaking, and we are receiving great feedback from recent visitors who have caught us adding the finishing touches. Do make an appointment to pop in, and let us know what you think.

So what about the technology behind the phenomenon? Induction hobs have a strong electro magnet under the tough ceramic glass cooking surface. When a saucepan with a ferrous metal base is placed on the hob, the metal in the base of the pan completes an electric circuit which causes the molecules in the base of the pan to vibrate and generate heat. This causes heat to transfer to the contents of the pan. Simple.

Because the hob doesn’t generate heat by way of a conventional heating element, it uses 25% less energy than a conventional gas hob, and offers even greater fuel economy over electric plate hobs. Induction hobs cool down quickly, and are blissfully easy to clean. They come with a range of additional features such as child locks, safety cut-out if a zone is turned on and then left unattended, minute timers, and a special feature that knows the difference between a saucepan and an unattended spoon!

Apart from their remarkable safety credentials, induction hobs offer a huge range of formats. They come either framed in steel or frame-less. They can be controlled by push-button, by touch-control, or via a touch-slider. They can have from two to six rings, with special zones for fish kettles and woks, or on some models the entire hob area is ‘active’ at any time, which is useful for over-sized pans or even for several pans at the same time!

Test to see whether your pans are suitable for induction cooking with the aid of a magnet.  If the magnet sticks to the base of the pan, your pans will work with induction.

Special Safety Note on Induction Hobs:
Induction hobs generate short-range magnetic fields, and it is possible for these magnetic fields to affect the function of older pacemakers or other active implants. The likelihood of implanted devices being affected is low if the hob is being used correctly. Anecdotal evidence indicates that interference occurs only at very close range, causing the implant to pace at the programmed lower rate while it is in close proximity to the hob. Once distance is increased the implant reverts to normal operation.

All the induction hobs supplied by Design Matters comply with current standards on electromagnetic interference and are in keeping with prevailing legal requirements (89/336/CEE directives). They are therefore designed not to create interference with any other electrical items, assuming that the pacemaker or other active implants are also designed to comply with relevant legislation.

We would strongly advise that you make any users of your kitchen aware of this safety note and ask them to check with their doctor, or the manufacturer of their device in order to identify any incompatibilities. If you, a visitor or a member of your family has any concerns, then take the following precautionary measures:

•    Keep the implanted device more than 24 inches away from the hob
•    Avoid using metal utensils for cooking
•    Avoid touching pans for extended periods while in use on the hob

This information is the result of our own informal research, errors and omissions excepted.