How about a samovar? Here is one from Sutton's kitchen. She had the plumber run the water line to it. You can see more of her beautiful space if you go to the Finished Kitchen Blog.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sutton's Samovar

Wow! That is a really cool idea, and beautiful too!

I don't know if this will help, but it's possible to buy a drinking fountain part (the part that shows) at a well stocked plumbing store. I have one, which cost $50 at the time (7-8 years ago), which is more or less a spout, button to push, and valve (I hope I'm describing this correctly). The whole thing is attached to a PVC riser hooked up to a sprinkler line outside. It was originally installed by a prior owner, broken, and reinstalled by a neighbor using virtually no tools. It's held in place by a 12" diameter open concrete pipe and a bunch of decorative pebbles. You could do this indoors by just running a plumbing riser pipe up, possibly behind a filler piece of cabinetry front.

However, I'd worry about the splash factor indoors, esp. with lots and lots of kids.

I googled "drinking fountain replacement parts" and found this:

Here is a link that might be useful: Faucet only

This sure would cut down on all the drinking glasses sitting around on the counter at my house. :>D

In a household with 12 children, IMO it'd look anything but weird. Good function always looks like it belongs in a kitchen because it does, and especially so in this case!

I think it's a great idea, but wonder if a regular drinking fountain fixture would work better and look less odd than another kind of faucet placed to the side?

Now I want one!

KWC makes a water faucet that is a pull out spigot. The pictures on the website are not the best but you press the button to get water. You don't have to install with the KWC specific filter system, any filter system except RO will work. I have one ready to be installed and a local showroom has one. They are great. I wanted it to fill pots that sit to the side of the sink rather than have to lift a full pot from the sink. I envision that the kids could hold it close to their mouth and press the button.

Good luck and how much sleep do you get in one with twelve kids running around? Inquiring minds want to know!

Here is a link that might be useful: KWC Purejet Pullout

When my kids were little we simply put a dixie cup dispenser next to the sink.

I have a friend with six kids who has one of these installed on wall of her mudroom, which is right off her kitchen. The kids run inside from the backyard to get a drink all the time.

Here is a link that might be useful: source for wall-mount drinking fountain

The wallmount one is cool. I'd love to have one outside and one inside!

I can't speak for Worldmom, but I know if we had a Dixie cup dispenser, we'd have to buy the cups by the truckload, the kids would use so many (it'd be too fun to pull them out at every opportunity)...And if I made them save their cups, the problem is the same as with real ones...They'd sit around and multiply, since they'd forget they had one, forget which was theirs, or lose track of it...and NEVER throw the old ones away, because it might be someone else's! :-)

My grandma must not have had that trouble (wandering off-topic a bit), because after she passed away last year, in a box of her things I got an open package of brightly colored Dixie cups from the 1960's. ;-) My kids thought I was nuts when I put them in our kitchen display shelf and forbid them from using them...

A fountain would be awesome in a kid's bathroom, too. That's where I have Dixie cup mess.

Mine is very similar to Houseful's link. It's simply attached to a PVC riser on a T intersection with a sprinkler line (outdoors). The concrete pipe and rocks are just there for stability and to protect it from being whacked by kids. For a while when my kids played outside it was very popular in the neighborhood. No cups were needed.

I have a Vertex water cooler that is connected to a direct water line and we love it!

Someone on the bathroom boards found a reversible faucet that turned into a drinking fountain and IIRC, she loved it but there are a lot of possibilities.

Here are a few: http://www.1seenontvstore.com/spountin-faucet-fountain.html
and http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/22/convert-a-faucet-to-.html

When I read your post, I thought I would probably go for a larger sink with hot and cold, so down the road, you can really use if for an additional prep sink when the kids get older and can really help in the kitchen. While they are young, you can always turn off the hot water but remember, in the blink of an eye they grow so fast and are cooking too!

This is a simple solution that I use in all my bathrooms. It could be done on a plain kitchen faucet. You can just throw it in the dishwasher to clean it. We like the whale one ;)

Here is a link that might be useful: Faucet Fountain

I can't speak for Worldmom, but I know if we had a Dixie cup dispenser, we'd have to buy the cups by the truckload, the kids would use so many (it'd be too fun to pull them out at every opportunity)...And if I made them save their cups, the problem is the same as with real ones...They'd sit around and multiply, since they'd forget they had one, forget which was theirs, or lose track of it...and NEVER throw the old ones away, because it might be someone else's! :-)

Ditto what rhome said. :o)

phaze - That looks like a wonderful suggestion. I'll definitely look into it and see if I can figure out a way to make it work.

Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone. Maybe I could get away with putting a real one near our back door. We'll see!

I am putting a real one by the back door in the kid zone, but that faucet fountain is really cool! I think I want a couple of those for the bathroom.

Washing cups is the bane of my existence.

My husband was one of 5 boys with a dad who was a plumbing/HVAC engineer (for big buildings like schools). He got a wall-mounted water fountain as a sample and installed it in their house next to the boy's bathroom. The first time I came to visit I certainly did a double take but my mother-in-law says it saved her life.

Faucet fountains in the bathroom have been around for a while I had one as a kid in our bathroom at home 20+years ago.

maybe you could squeeze one of these somewhere...

we've always thought of doing one outside and in the kids bathroom

Here is a link that might be useful: Bubblers