Luxury Home Tour

Last weekend the bf and I participated in the Luxury Home Tour. It's an annual event, but the first time that I've actually participated. We were at it from opening 'till close and saw 14 homes. All the homes were lovely....they were all new construction which bothered me on some level and their footprints were not modest. There was a favorite however which did have the distinct recognition of being the only LEED certified home on the tour. The USGBC is doing a great job of promoting and recognizing environmentally friendly construction..I know it's an oxymoron, but there are ways to improve our impacts in every aspect. While the program may not be perfect and people can find loopholes and miss the point of the program, it's still a great start.

Anyway, I digress...

One of my favorite features of this home was a built in, undercounter, stand mixer shelf. I've never seen such an invention and found it absolutely profound. It immediately jumped to the top of my list of wants. I've now had time to rummage the internet and see who came up with this great invention..and if I can order it online. Here is what I found.

Kraftmaid markets a base cabinet that comes with the appliance shelf. It looks like the real deal...unfortunately I'm not in the market for new base cabinets. This is exactly what we saw on the Luxury Home Tour. You can't tell from the pictures that well, but the whole shelf that the mixer is sitting on is on a spring loaded hinge so you just pull up gently on the shelf and the whole thing disappears back into the cabinet! It really is a great idea because the worst part of our wonderful, huge mixers are their size and weight...

Hardware Source sells the mechanism to go in any base cabinet (that meets the size requirements) and at amazon.com you can find Wood Technology's product which doesn't look quite as good in the picture, but the price is right. I may just have to try it out. If I do, I'll let you know how its working and if any of you have seen these modern wonders anywhere else, please fill me in!