Rabbit in a hat? Try microwave in a drawer
SOMETHING is happening to the house. It’s vanishing.
First it was the paneled dishwasher and refrigerator, which seamlessly concealed themselves amid the kitchen cabinetry. Then pantry shelves began hiding in pullout walls, and knife blocks took cover in carefully camouflaged compartments. Now, the humble microwave oven has been banished to an under-the-counter drawer. Like the hapless inhabitants of “Lost,” these erstwhile elements of the kitchen increasingly find themselves on an island where, one by one, they’re disappearing from sight.
It’s a vanishing act that is spreading to other parts of the home, a trend fueled by our growing penchant for a clutter-free life. Just look in the bathroom, where toilet water tanks are slipping behind walls. There’s even the new BenchToilet: yes, furniture that hides the entire commode.
Credit -- or blame -- the clearing of the interior landscape on the kitchen island’s ascension to centerpiece of the home. Once a functional workspace, the island has become a crucial design element -- one that many homeowners do not wish to be upstaged.
“Do you want everyone to come into this beautiful kitchen and just see all these appliances?” asks Poggenpohl designer Dana Clarrissimeaux. “I don’t think so.” We expose the ones we’re most proud of, she says, try to disguise the rest. Call it Botox for the home -- a way to eliminate visual distractions like wrinkles from a face. The result: a sleek, smooth, unspoiled look.
“A fridge is not furniture,” says Lloyd LeBlanc, vice president of kitchen and bath designer Julien. “Hiding it in a cabinet, it becomes furniture. Magically.”
Some things can’t be hidden, of course -- not as long as people still use the kitchen for, of all things, cooking. There’s no way to make a six-burner stove disappear, nor do status-conscious homeowners necessarily want them too.
Viking, Wolf and other high-end appliances are designed to “dominate the kitchen,” LeBlanc says. “They own the kitchen, own the space. They come into your kitchen and want to show off.”
But a cheap microwave? It can detract from the $20,000 range, he says.
Which perhaps explains recent innovations from Sharp and Dacor: the microwave in a drawer. Lest cooks have to keep the appliance on the counter or mounted under a cabinet at eye level, the new microwave ovens pop out like a waist-high drawer, under the countertop and out of sight. Food loads from an open top instead of the standard front-facing door.
The Sheer Kitchen from Imoderni goes even further. The design includes an island with a Corian work top, a double sink, three bottle coolers, a retractable table and four burners. When you’re done cooking, a ventilation hood drops down to cover the entire mess, turning the island into a gigantic egg-shaped sculpture.
At the other end of the spectrum, products as pedestrian as the kitty litter box are getting makeovers. Witness the Hidden Litter line of indoor planters, which have an alcove in which cats do their business. In the living room, the Air Shadow ceiling fan has blades that retract when not in use, leaving only the light fixture on view.
For the bathroom, Topdeq offers the Flexible Bath turning shelf, a medicine cabinet that clings, remora-like, to the back of a body-length mirror that pivots from the wall.
Even our old reliable friend the toilet has gotten a makeover from Troy Adams, designer of the BenchToilet, which is equipped with an Asian-inspired teak panel that slides over the porcelain when not in use.
“Whenever you walk into a bathroom, there’s always the toilet on display in some fashion,” Adams says.
“To me, it’s not generally an aesthetic piece. When you look at it, you automatically relate to having to do your thing, in it.
“There are a lot of people trying to come out with toilets that are aesthetic -- a nice shape, like a hat box -- but there’s nothing really spectacular about seeing a toilet. So let’s hide it.”
Introduced earlier this year and due to land in Southern California showrooms in early 2007, the BenchToilet -- $11,475 to $13,345, toilet not included -- already has generated a remarkable amount of interest. Adams says he is also working on an armoire-like piece inspired by Japanese tansu that will hide the refrigerator.
In Mar Vista, the husband and wife behind the Minarc design team, Tryggvi Thorsteinsson and Erla Dogg Ingjaldsdottir, have taken the hidden house to a new level. Their residence on Greenfield Avenue is spare and minimalist -- not surprising given that Thorsteinsson, an architect, cites midcentury Modernists Richard Neutra and R.M. Schindler as his inspirations.
In the couple’s kitchen, maple bar stools have been backed with a recycled tire veneer. When pushed up to the island, flush in a line, they disappear. All one sees is a plain black wall.
“We don’t want to have clutter,” says Ingjaldsdottir, an interior designer. “We want something simple, straight line, but really functional.”
She sees the anticlutter trend as a lifestyle choice -- one that more people adopt as lives get busier, days grow more hectic and the home increasingly becomes a haven of simplicity and order. The stools reflect a minimalist mind-set, she says, not just an aesthetic.
“We’re not big on holding on to things,” she says. “Give it away. It’s good mentally for you.”
The couple’s stark house underscores the irony behind some of the new designs hitting the market and how they ultimately contradict what minimalism is all about. Despite an emphasis on looking simple and clean, many of the designs stem from homeowners’ need for more -- more possessions, more space, more everything. This trend of having too many things, Thorsteinsson says, reflects people’s confusion about what’s really important.
“They’re trying to create little spaces for different things to do,” he says, “but in the end, they could all be done in one small room -- if it’s designed right.”
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Hide and seek
The quest to streamline home interiors and reduce visual clutter has been driven largely by the kitchen, where paneled dishwashers and refrigerators were just the tip of the iceberg. A sampling of other disappearing acts in the home:
Microwave drawer: Sharp has multiple models of its Microwave Drawer; www.sharpusa.com (roll your mouse over “appliances,” then click on “microwave drawer”). Dacor’s latest is the Millennia Microwave In-a-Drawer; www.dacor.com (click on “products,” then “microwaves”). Prices start around $850.
Sheer Kitchen: Beautiful, inventive and to traditionalists, a little disturbing; $66,000 for island only, $114,000 with a complementary wall unit. From Imoderni, (877) 455-6350, imoderni.com/sheer_kitchen.php.
Hidden Litter: Cat litter box disguised as a planter. Most are $100 to $200 and include liners and plant. (800) 884-1917, www.petsbestproducts.com.
Air Shadow: A line of ceiling fans that hide their blades. Starts at $825. Fanimation, (888) 567-2055, www.fanimation.com (click on “products,” then “select a fan style”).
BenchToilet: Could be the sign of things to come. Sizes range from 4 to 6 feet; prices start at $11,450. Troy Adams Design manufactured by Julien, (800) 461-3377, www.julien.ca (click on “home refinements,” then “Suite by Troy Adams Design”).
-- Jeff Spurrier