How long do you have to wait for hot water in your kitchen? I had to wait up to 100sec before and now it's 2sec max thanks to a point of use water heater under the kitchen sink.

Gordo - what water heater did you put in?

Caroline - we're still mid-remodel, so it's hard to say how everything will all work out and what will be my favorite things in the end, but I've had opportunity to use these quite a bit so far, and I do love the Maestro dimmers for our LED can lights. We put in a good number of lights, and it seems like it won't be necessary to have the lights on full blast, so we've used the dimming feature of the Maestro's quite a bit already.

I'm also really looking forward to our fiber optic controller for our garbage disposal.

We used a Rheem 2.5 gallon model

Here is a link that might be useful: Rheem point of use water heaters spec sheet

I am looking forward to my tap master! And my silgranite sink (color tbd). I'm so tired of scratches in my stainless sink.

I can't believe how much I love my garbage disposal's air switch. Deep drawers, spice cabinet, cookbook cabinet, and warming drawer are favorites too. Peke

Having the every day dishes in a drawer right next to the DW is heavenly.

Delta H2O Touch faucet! Wonderful!

Ikea's utrusta motors for my trash pullouts, especially at the prep sink. They are made by blum, which calls them servo-glide.

Instant hot water dispenser. Used many times a day. Will always be a must have for me.

My heated granite on the island. Its 17 degrees outside right now. My island that I'm sitting at drinking tea is nice and comfortable. The perimeter granite is like ice.

My appliances -- the micro drawer and 2 DWs wow people and I love them, but at your stage - creating a spice drawer and bamboo drawer inserts for a lot less than customized inserts from the cabinet folks.

Here is a link that might be useful: Spice drawer thread showing several variations

These are one of my favorite kinds of threads. I have a lot of "neato" features in my kitchen that I'm so happy with.

They include:

toe-kick drawers
in-counter compost pail
charging station
command center
"cubby" for stepstool
cookbook shelves
recycling center
under cabinet cookbook holder
Open shelves in lowers for baskets of fruit
pantry pull-outs for potatoes/onions
Laundry chute under the sink
hidden place for the calendar and bulletin board

You can see them all on my reveal thread here:

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/kitchbath/msg110229495117.html?21

olivertwist - Laundry chute? COOL!

Hmmm. The one that I think of all the time (because we use these serving bowls daily. It's wonderful to have easy access to these large bowls! (No removing a stack of other bowls off of them and/or bending down and digging for them in a lower cabinet).

Deeper upper cabinets, with vertical dividers. (Cabinets are 18" deep:

Another (like olivertwist) - Solon inset composter by prep sink:

Nook for fire extinguisher (oven stack pulled forward 6") and decouppaged outlets :)

oldbat2be, I love the vertical storage for your bowls! Was that a custom job by the cabinet maker or something you did after?

So what's the deal with GD air switches? I keep reading about how great they are, and now I'm wondering if I need one. What makes it so much better than the wall switch? Are people simply using them to fill an existing/unused faucet hole, and that's why they love them?

This post was edited by Errant on Wed, Feb 26, 14 at 13:26

I'm still waiting for my drawers and some more cabs too, but I have one thing so far that I'm a big fan of... my sink made by Rachiele has a front and back ledge inside that holds either a cutting board or a drain tray over half the sink. SO smart, I can't believe how handy it is esp. in a small kitchen. Also liking the pull-out trash a good bit more than I anticipated.

I would have to say that in both my last kitchen and this one, my very favorite thing is not having trash "out" - I have (and had) a double-bin pullout ---- one is used for recycling (we can mix ours) and one for trash. We live in an apartment building and the trash room is no more than 20 feet from our front door (the walk from the kitchen to the front door is way longer than that LOL), so we take both out usually every other day or third day.

My second favorite thing in both has been the condiment pull-outs housed in a lower cabinet next to the cooktop.

My favorite thing in my new kitchen is my Miele Professional dishwasher. We entertain a lot. Not so much sit-down dinners; rather cocktail parties with many appetizers, tapas and the like. My partner and I love to make it all from scratch and the dishwasher's ProSpeed cycle lets us clean up as we go. A light scrape, load, start and 19 minutes later i'm unloading clean dishes and ready to load again. The best money I've ever spent!

lcskaisgir-DH added these after the cabinets were installed. We bought the linked product but DH said he could have easily built. Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: Hardware hut

So far (cause I'm not finished yet) I really love my tapmasters! Within two days it was like I'd always had them. They turn on water with verylittle pressure. The constant on feature was a little stiff at first, but I just sat on the floor turning it on and off for a little while and now that feature works easily. I alsolove my Karbon laminar flow faucets-so much quieter! I used to have to turn up the TV to hear it when washing dishes, I dont have to anymore! It is really strange how much I love not having to turn on and off a faucet. I feel like I've gained an extra hand in the kitchen!

While I love the look of my new marbleish countertops, I have only ever had laminate, so these are very cold, and hard, and louder. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but I am afraid I'm going to break every dish I set on it right now.

I also like having my pullout trash in my prep area, (not undersink near DW). I can scrape scraps into a compost bowl I set on top of trash during prep time, and can sweep crumbs straight into trash whenever. I also like having trash away from DW and sink, avoids the bottleneck at the DW after meals. Kids can be at trash scrapingplates then go to DW to load. (I suppose if I did it all, same spot would work, but my kids didnt get that lucky, they have to pitch in) I don't get wanting trashcan at main sink, to me it just adds another task in an already busy area.

I'm with you, OOTM_mom, I don't like having the trash by the sink either. Prior to my remodel I had it under the cooktop. People always thought it was weird but it really worked out great since it was close to the pantry and fridge so if kids were throwing away food wrappers/containers they didn't have to interfere with my traffic area near the sink. Also I could just wipe the messes that occur at the stove right into the trash. Now since my remodel is about complete, I haven't "committed" it to a permanent location yet! It's these little decisions that drive me insane!

Thank you oldbat2be! I'm reevaluating my cabinets to see if there's anywhere I can use that. It's those kind of things that excite me!

kksmama -- what's the Ikea's utrusta motor that you mention? I can't find it when I search online. Would love to hear more!

kksmama -- of course, I found it right after I posted that. This is it? http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30238703/

Would it work with non-ikea cabs? I love the idea! and it's a lot cheaper than Blum's version.

sjhockeymom, yesss on the trash! I have two designated trash pullouts in my new kitchen. One on the perimeter so no one has to come into my prep area to through anything out. AND, AND recycle bins! IN my current kitchen we have no room for recycle bins, so the recycle accumulates in the sink during the day and then we have to walk it outside every night (or whenever we get to it)

So the second bin in the pullout behind the prep trash bin will be for regular recycling (from canned things like soup, tomato products, etc) and the second recycle bin behind the secondary trash bin will be for soda cans and bottles that we have to return for our deposits in michigan. Paper recycling will be outside the kitchen.

good one, can't wait to have this stuff not accumulating in the sink!

Errant, the air switch allows me to turn the garbage disposer on and off even with wet hands. I don't worry that someone will flip on the wall switch by accident thinking it is a light switch. Peke

I saw another GW member with two big drawers flanking the range & recycled the idea. I wish I remembered who it was so I could thank them. I store our pizza stones & other large items in the one (no dividers). I love this one for my heavy large platters. The drawer is 20 tall (interior) & 20" deep.