KBIS Doesn’t Disappoint with Kitchen Coolness

The Kitchen and Bath International Show 2017 that wrapped up in Orlando last week was a wonderland of ideas for builders, designers and renovators.  Last time I showed off some of the coolest accoutrements for the bathroom.  Now it’s time to see the trouble you can get into in the kitchen.

In King and I fashion, first up is the new Geoluxe countertop offering from the Siam Cement Company (yes, really, really from Thailand).  One of the things I don’t like about manufactured quartz counters is their fake look when compared to stone.  I think of quartz like Corian 2.0 (ouch!). Enter Geoluxe. Crafted with a new process the firm creates what they call Pyrolithic Stone that gives the true appearance of natural stone but with the added durability of a man-made product.  It’s their patented GeoMimicry process that creates the natural stone-like veining.

Eramo is the name of the slab shown above.  It’s a riff on a Canadian brown stone used in countertops and looks wonderful.  There are also numerous white and off-white options for today’s white-white-white kitchen pallette (they don’t photograph as well).  Geoluxe comes in both slab and tile.  It’s available in Dallas from The Stone Collection on Zodiac Lane.

Just two weeks ago Leah Shafer reported that Pantone’s Color of the Year is called Greenery.  It didn’t take long for Canada-based Elmira Stove Works to seize upon the color that harks back to the avocado green of the 1950s to 1970s.  Seen above as part of the Northstar appliance line, retro consumers get a full line of appliances including a microwave.  If Greenery isn’t your thing, Northstar comes in eight other colors that includes another green (mint), fire-engine red, robin’s egg blue, along with less look-at-me colors like white, grey, black, and (ick) beige. The range and refrigerator combo above will run just south of $13,000 retail.  If this is your style, drive a hard bargain with Leonard’s Stone & Fireplace in Burleson (the only DFW retailer).

One thing about solid surface counters is that they can be chilly, sucking the heat out of dishes.  Sure, there are heated chafing dishes and warming plates you can use to keep things warm, but there’s extra rigmarole required. Enter Viking Range’s Incogneeto under-counter induction warmer.  Just slap the induction box under your counter during installation (no added stone holes needed). It’s always waiting to heat things up. The unit covers a 12-inch square, offers 650 watts, and can be triple-ganged on a 15 amp circuit. The unit has four temperature settings from 150 to 190 degrees).  When you want to keep something warm, place the Magneeto trivet under the pot, set your temperature, and you’re off. Yes, it only works on induction-capable cookware. Yes, it’s pricey at $3,289 retail.

Cabinets are getting smarter.  Gone are the days when even custom kitchen cabinets were simple boxes with pretty doors.  Cabinetmaker Dura Supreme offers all the expected storage add-ons like spice, towel, and cutlery drawers. But as seen above, they’ve added a little trick for pot drawers to house lids.  I’m a huge fan of pot drawers and am loving the pot lid idea.  Personally, I’ve got a drawer for lids that I clank around to find the one I need.  To house the lids within the same drawer as the pots is magic.  “Next time” for me, but perhaps “this time” for you?

Bored with stone and manufactured quartz? Try glass.  You may recall a recent kitchen that used Italian black glass counters.  Closer to home we have Canadian ThinkGlass offering a full range of glass counter options from 1.5” to 4” thick in a variety of textures. Beyond textures, you can go crazy with colors — both base color but more creatively, artistic spot color used to create custom designs within the glass.  For those needing a little more visual bam, the company also offers under-counter lighting.  Of course this is high-spec, high-strength glass that you can place a hot pan on and not worry.

Speaking of glass, Pierre Habitat and Vetrazzo partnered to create a line of knobs and drawer pulls that incorporate recycled glass.  There are over a dozen color combinations and multiple pull styles to choose from.  If you’d like your backsplash to match your pulls, they can do that too.  The company offers multiple sizes of matching mosaic tile sheets.  If you what to go cra-cra on the matchy-matchy, they also offer matching jewelry pendants.

I know. You like a little drama, right?  Cantilevered stone jutting out into thin air is pretty dramatic, but potentially dangerous.  Stone is strong, but hanging in the wind at 2” or 3” thick puts a lot of stress on the stone.  The further from a support you go, the more stress (on you and the stone).  Enter Federal Brace and their line of invisible countertop supports. Pictured above is the Harrison Top Plate (actually three connected, each shaped like an “H”), the newest addition to the line.  Harrison gets you a double-sided support for a jumbo almost floating island or double-sided seating area.  At a foot wide, you just keep stringing them together for the length of your counter.  Width-wise, you can get up to 14” on each side, but your finished width can be more (you can hang stone about 4” from a support safely).  Each support holds 375 pounds.

“Where’s the wine!?”  I hear ya.  As home theaters draw their curtains, wine rooms are becoming a thing. I’ve seen some pretty wonderful wine spaces this past year — some quite traditional/vineyard-y, some quite modern.  Revel Custom Wine Cellars runs the gamut. Their newest lines, Revel-ution and Designer, can go either way with wood, stainless steel, or a mix (they’re called “custom” for a reason).

What makes the new lines special is their Lazy Susan aspect. In Revel-ution a central column connecting all the shelves rotates 360 degrees as one.  With the Designer series, each shelf rotates individually (pictured). As you see above, at “rest” the column looks pretty normal, but then the middle column shows how it can spin around for a little show-offy-ness or to access the back wines.  For example, if I’m invited you’d want to spin the expensive wines out of sight. Like I said … custom … so cost is based on what you want.

There you have it. My personal roundup of cool gizmos from the 2017 Kitchen and Bath International Show.  As there were hundreds of exhibitors, I’ve barely scratched the surface.

Remember:  High-rises, HOAs and renovation are my beat. But I also appreciate modern and historical architecture balanced against the YIMBY movement.  If you’re interested in hosting a Candysdirt.com Staff Meeting event, I’m your guy. In 2016, my writing was recognized with Bronze and Silver awards from the National Association of Real Estate Editors.  Have a story to tell or a marriage proposal to make?  Shoot me an email [email protected].