I have had a towel bar inside a door like that, and the towel dried just fine. The problem I had was opening the door with a wet hand messed up the finish around the handle. I really like the towel hidden behind a door and if I can figure out a toe opener that doesn't stick out, I'll do it again.

My mom has a single bar rack on each of the 2 under sink doors. The towels dry fine (we are in dry so. CA), but I have the same problem marti does - opening the doors with wet hands. I also often find the damp towels have been hung over the doors themselves, which just doesn't seem like a great idea to me.

I like that 3 bar rack, but as I look around my kitchen, I see that I have one towel hanging on the bottom freezer door handle, one on the dishwasher handle, and a 3rd small handtowel hanging from a knob on the upper pantry. I can't honestly say I think this is a good look, but there it is.

I was just brainstorming this idea myself. (thank you, Pinterest). This is what I'm leaning toward. The racks pull forward.

{{!gwi}}

Source: merillat.com via Jen on Pinterest

These are from Ikea, the bars swing out.

{{!gwi}}

Source: These are also from Ikea. I like that they flip down so they take up less visual space. I've seen similar ones at The Container Store.

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This one is a multi-problem solver. You can put a rag over the bar, as well as hang cleaning bottles.

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We're using these pulls, but any pull could be attached on the inside of the sink:

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A few other ideas:

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the multi bar attached on the inner side of the door seems like it would work fine - just hang the cloth/rag spread over several of the bars so there is air flow under/around it. so cloth doesn't touch cloth.

tncraft, thanks for starting this thread, as this is one of the major concerns on my DH's mind. He:

- Hates how we used to have the hand-drying towel hanging on the range oven door's bar, so wants to avoid that in the new kitchen

- Thinks that opening a door with wet hands will ruin the door finish (marti8a, thanks for confirming that!)

- Thinks that having it hanging from a door knob will also ruin the finish on the front of a lower door

- And, he is so thrifty, that using paper towels every time he dries his hands is anathema to him.

Personally, I'm leaning to the solution of having either a big ceramic Lobster or Elephant sitting on the counter next to the sink to hold the towel, or this countertop towel stand from Crate and Barrel:

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/bed-and-bath/bath-accessories/countertop-towel-stand/s152806

He's not so wild about the idea, but I'm out of ideas for him.

(In retrospect, I think I should have added one of those power turbo hand drying machines that they have in rest rooms, up on the nearest wall. But then he would say that uses too much electricity. :-)

--Lee

It's not hiding the towel away, but a bar pull of the sort ICFGreen shows works so well that I can't resist mentioning it. We have one on the garbage pullout next to the sink ready for everything. Among other things, no matter how messy my hands are, I never have to wipe them off before throwing something away.

The pull is in the same finish and style as the other pulls, just a different shape, it's always hidden by the towels anyway, and all my towels are attractive enough to display, although a lot of them are the same white as my cabinets with fairly subtle patterning. Plus my island mostly hides it from the dining room.

I have another on my prep side of the island, on the 12"-wide pullout for oils and vinegars, and consider both of them one of the things I did really right in this kitchen.

This may also be too extravagant, but I have a lot of small thin nondescript dishcloths in the drawer next to my sink and I use many of them daily to dry hands, wipe down, etc. Then I lay them on the countertop and they dry very quickly. To me that's less intrusive of a statement than a full-sized dishtowel. I can also hang it on the divider of my double bowl sink but don't like to do that for some reason.

What do you do with the dish towels that are damp and dirty that you don't want to reuse? I don't know if it's just us, but dirty dish towels just seems to accumulate. Is there anyone else that keeps them in the kitchen until laundry day?

kitokeefe - that is the main reason I use my laundry sink. All cloth napkins and wet dishcloths or towels go in there to wait for the next load. . . I do a load a day at least so they don't stay in there very long :) Great place to keep the wet stuff though. . .

We have a small nylon laundry bin in the kitchen for used linens. They have to hang off the sides until dry to prevent mold/mildew here in humid SC.

Our dish towel lives on a bar pull on the pullout trash door.

Our towels currently sit on the counter. Even worse, everyone leaves the hand towel in a crumpled heap, which drives me crazy (short trip). So I'm also looking for a better solution once we remodel. Here's an idea I found from Crown Point Cabinetry.

I'm strongly leaning towards doing something similar since I'll have a small slice of space that will work perfectly for such a cabinet. No worries about wet hands touching cabinetry either.

Hi Tncraft, I like all the ideas here, especially the pull out racks! Not sure if you have an island, but I have a small towel bar (16") on the end of the island where it is not visible. Works pretty well.

I have the towel holder that tncraft shows in the OP, and IRL it's too small to be really useful IMHO. Not smaller than what they said, and I even measured on my undersink cab door so I'm a doofus for ordering it anyway. I use 11x13 microfiber cloths for the counter and one barely fits on the top/largest bar. My flour-sack dish towel is way too big for any of the bars so I just put the unused folded one on the bottom bar and when it's used then it goes in the laundry. Putting something on each of the three bars means they're up against each other.

I recommend one of the other great suggestions that people have posted here especially since you can fit it in your new kitchen design.

Otherwise, a retrofit option that I haven't seen here is an over-the-cabinet towel holder like this:

HTH