5 high-tech features you never knew your Gloucestershire kitchen needed

Today's contemporary kitchen renovations encompass beauty with functionality and style with substance. 

Busy lifestyles mean modern kitchens need to do much more for their money than be aesthetically pleasing with soft-close drawers and gleaming granite worktops.

Think state-of-the-art instant drinking taps, voice-activated controls and appliances that clean themselves.

SoGlos, in partnership with Lansdown Kitchens and Bathrooms in Cheltenham, highlight just some of the fabulously high-tech features on offer at its luxury kitchen showroom.

Pull-out appliance shelf

An absolute game-changer for smaller kitchens that lack worktop space, a pull-out shelf works as an extension for appliances that need to be tucked away but easily accessed.

This type of shelf usually sits inside a kitchen cabinet, attached on drawer slides, and allows you to pull out smaller appliances such as toasters, coffee machines and mixers for better access.

These types of shelves are also gaining popularity in lower-placed kitchen cabinets, to give easier access to heavy pots and pans that tend to lurk at the back of corner cupboards.

Quooker tap

Quooker taps are the ultimate multi-purpose gadgets that'll make you wonder how you ever lived without one.

Producing hot, cold, filtered, sparkling and 100C boiling water in an instant, they come in many different styles and finishes to match a multitude of different kitchen designs. 

While an investment, price-wise, these taps will save you needing a separate kettle, freeing up worktop space, and are surprisingly energy-efficient. The convenience speaks for itself.

Docking drawer sockets

Docking drawer sockets, cleverly, are plug sockets installed at the back of a kitchen drawer. The user simply opens the drawer, plugs in their phone or device and tucks the drawer neatly away, without taking up space on worktops – and preventing potentially damaging cooking drips, too!

These nifty devices also save you the hassle of having to constantly unplug appliances to charge phones or iPads in the kitchen.

Integrated wine cooler

An integrated wine cooler is the ultimate kitchen luxury. Providing the convenience of a dedicated wine fridge that also looks effortlessly chic, coolers from brands such as Caple can be built-in to a matching cupboard for a seamless aesthetic or finished to match other appliances in the room. They can even be positioned next to a regular fridge to form an American fridge-style set up for an extra wow factor.

Not only do integrated coolers look enviable, they also control humidity, vibration and temperature – with different zones for red or white varieties – to make sure your wine collection is kept at its best.

Invisible hob

Invisible hobs are very cleverly camouflaged in the worktop. On first glance, you see a seamless stretch of countertop, but look closely and you'll see hidden controls for an induction hob, with different invisible cooking zones.

Much like a regular induction hob, you just place your pan directly on to the worktop and get cooking! Subtle centre point dots highlight where to place pans, with LED indicators for heat safety. 

The effect is a sleek, uninterrupted and streamlined kitchen, for those who value both style and substance in the workhorse of the home.