At The Show

The world is looking more Jetsonian than Orwellian every day. If you have your doubts, you should have hit the 2007 Kitchen/Bath Industry Show held last spring in that den of slot machines, Celine Dion shows and cavernous convention halls, Las Vegas. But what happened there didn’t stay there—the new products introduced are debuting daily in stores nationwide.

Approximately 60,000 comfortably shod souls connected in one way or another to the world of kitchens and bathrooms trudged aisle upon aisle, mile after mile of sinks, hardware, tubs, cabinets, vanities, toilets in the shape of hatboxes, shower heads that have iPod connections, faucets that insert air into the water so you feel wetter with less water (it’s a green thing) and even an occasional pedicure throne. On the hardware front, we saw every known configuration of pulls, made of everything from Lucite to Lalique.

For the heart of the house, there are refrigerators, ovens, grills, stove-tops, dandy drawers that keep things warm, chill them down or contain your microwave to cook ’em up. There are stoves with back burners a step up from the front ones, others with tilt-out controls for easy reading. Want a nearly

instant baked potato? Buy the latest Turbo-Chef Speedcook.

But you can’t cook—not even with space-age technology? No problem. Dacor has an oven with 100 preset recipes that does the thinking—and timing—for you. You barely lift a finger. And speaking of no heavy lifting, Gaggenau has created an oven that drops down so you don’t have to heft up your heavily laden pans—or a single piece of cast iron.

The manufacturers’ offerings were endless, but there are a few that knocked us out—with a pow.

Benched

OK, you need a bathroom break. NOW. But you enter this Asian-inspired room and all you see is a lovely teak bench. Hmmm ... nice, but it doesn’t exactly resolve the immediate problem. Bladder, be patient. A quick lift of the seat of the City Life WC SmartBench, created by Villeroy & Boch, and there is the toilet, with a handy slot for the paper and another for the brush—just in case you wanna clean the bowl. Once done, the lid shuts with a whisper—thanks to Soft Closing technology. Subtle. Sleek. Serene. Pretty—and pretty cool. Price: $4,500.

With the Push of a Button

Le Creuset makes wonderful cookware that conjures up the same feeling as a 10-pound barbell at the gym. Sometimes the effort doesn’t always seem quite worth the muscle equity, but Gaggenau feels your pain. They have invented a 24-inch Lift Oven with a glass ceramic base that automatically lowers down on the countertop. You load your heavy dish, push a button that automatically lifts it back up into the cooking cavity, and with 12 different heating methods, including convection, the process begins. Price: $3,500.

Glass Class

For the last few years, appliances have been wood-faced to make them look more like furniture than utilities. Dacor has a new idea—add colored glass in soft shades of blue, green, gray, silver, black or white to the fronts of their refrigerators, ovens, hoods, warming drawers and dishwashers—all in Dacor’s Preference Collection. Price: From $1,438 for the 30-inch hood and glass canopy to $5,749 for the double-wall 30-inch oven.

The Senior Scrub-Down

As we have heard time and time again, the fastest-growing segment of the population is over the age of 80. As expected, this stat has caught the eye of those building and designing absolutely everything for the home. But one of the more interesting inventions is the senior bath—and we’re not talking water fights between 18-year-olds. The Safety Tub is an enclosed tub: You walk in, sit on the raised seat and then shut the door. Tightly sealed, the tub fills with water—to cover but definitely not submerge the person inside. The mechanics incorporate the same sort of technology as a front-loading washing machine. The bather gets a full soak without getting up or down, and it has electronic controls to adjust temperature, water flow and jet options. Rub-a-dub-dub, Grandma. Price: varies.

Keep It Cool

Ever have a prescription that needs refrigeration, but you always forget to take it because you pop your pills in the morning after scrubbing your teeth and the kitchen is a hike from the bathroom? Or do you want to prolong the life of your extremely costly cosmetics? Robern has built a medicine cabinet for you: the M Series with cold storage. One of the mirrored cabinet’s two sides is equipped with a refrigerator to keep everything cool. Price: $1,900.

Berry Dishes

If you ever find yourself smack-dab in the middle of a trade show, it’s wise to armlock a guide to help you negotiate the miles of aisles and keep you informed on what’s old, what’s new, what’s in and what’s so out that it elicits a simultaneous groan and guffaw. In our case, we tagged behind designer Chris Berry, co-owner of brooksBerry & Associates, Ltd.

Hot, Hot, Hot

• Trough sinks.
• Clawfoot tubs—“They’re huge.”
• Refrigerators that look like cabinetry.
• Painted wood in kitchens.
• Linoleum—“It can’t be destroyed.”
• Shelves with Magic Corners rather than Lazy Susans. Instead of rotating around, the shelf comes out and turns, bringing a second shelf out of hiding as well. Complicated—you need to see it to figure it out.

Fuhgeddaboutit

• Vessel sinks: “I can’t give them away. You bump the edge on a glass vessel, and you crack it.”
• The southern Italian style: “That Tuscany thing is going away.”
• Quartz: “It’s tough to sell because it looks fake.”
• Barrel tubs: “Not practical.”
• Box tubs: “They’re out.