We just had our kitchen redone and this new one is much bigger than the older one and it kindof took me by surprise but I do like it, I don't like clutter or things like toasters, bread, napkins, vitamins ect showing so I just shove everthing in there.

I like my garage - it has a receptacle so I can keep the toaster and the can opener charger plugged in. I store bread and rolls and assorted other stuff in it that I don't want on the counter. Actually, it houses stuff that my husband uses more than I do. I used a cabinet made to sit on the counter with a regular swinging door because I don't like the look of the roll up doors. The door doesn't interfere with anything because there is nothing on the counter in front of the door.

The advantage of tambour (sp?) doors is that you don't have to move things sitting in front of the appliance garage in order to open it. With traditional doors (or even drawers), you have to clear the counter in front of them in order to open them.

Doors that swing up are a little better...like this one:

Speaking of appliance garages...does anybody have any idea what a "European Appliance Garage" might be??? See link. I want to get an appliance garage, but I'm afraid of not matching the woods. If an European means acrylic or non wood...I might go for it. Any idea?

Here is a link that might be useful: European Appliance Garage.

I like ours (we have 2.) It's nice to have something at counter level to stash appliances and other counter clutter (paper towels, tall bottles of olive oil.) We have doors on ours and opening them isn't a problem since we have a lot of counterspace and stuff doesn't accumulate in front of them much. If you end up with tambour make sure it's of good quality. We used to rent a summer house with a newly redone kitchen. The tambour door was great at first but from year to year got more and more difficult to open. After about 6 years it would only slide up several inches (as if the joints between slats were no longer flexible enough to allow the necessary motion.) I haven't noticed any similar complaints on this forum so maybe it is a rare problem.

{{!gwi}}

I have a lift up pocket door on my appl garage. It was one of my main requirements for the remodel. I love it. LOVE it.

I'm another one who's not a fan of the tambour door, for both aesthetic and durability reasons. My garage sits at the corner end of my peninsula which is my main work area, so nothing sits in front of it. I have plugmold installed on the back wall of the garage, and my six most used appliances live in there, always plugged in.

I open the door, drag out what I need (a few inches or so), use it, shove it back in and close the door. I have a few appliances that I use a lot - food processor, can opener, toaster - and I simply cannot store them somewhere where they wouldn't be handy. In my pre-remodel kitchen, they all sat on the counter, looking cluttered and messy with cords getting tangled. Now, they all sit in their assigned spot in the garage, still completely accessible, but my kitchen is nice and neat.

I also keep my KA mixer in there. That thing is HEAVY, and beleive me, if I had to get it out of a cabinet to use it, it would just gather dust. I'm big into CONVENIENCE! But it's really easy to pull it forward out of the garage for regular usage.

I don't keep anything in that garage aside from the appliances. They pretty much take up all the room, plus they sort of line up in there, so that I'm not pushing one thing out of the way to get to another.

Sorry I don't have pix up currently. It's on my list of things to do...

Oh great. I didn't think I wanted one. Now I do. Where the heck am I going to fit that in?

How narrow can an appliance garage be before it's pointless? Would 15" wide (by 18" deep if it lines up with the deep upper cabinets) be useful?

Line up all the things you think you might want to keep in the garage and take some measurements. Take into consideration pulling them out and actually using them. I slide the toaster in and out as it stays plugged in. Other things like bread or baggies I keep on a shelf above the toaster to take out as needed. I have heard the same complaints of breakdowns in the function of the tambour doors but maybe you should check with owners or your cabinet people before you decide one way or the other.

Thanks all so much for your input/feedback-- that is truly very helpful!!!!!

Well, I'll add one negative post to all these happy appliance garage owners. We had one made for our corner and it's sitting in the garage -- never had it installed. I set it in its place and I hated the way it broke up the work area (even though my counters are 30 inches deep). So, for us, it was an unnecessary addition. That's what makes horse races!

Patti bee brings up a very good point. The location of the garage is very important. It has to be in a spot that is convenient as far as location of the appliances, but not such that it gets in the way. My garage sticks out farther than the other upper cabinets (18") due to the way the lift up pocket door works. Because of this, I had to find a spot for it that had enough counter space in front of it to allow me to pull things out and use them outside of the garage.

I went through many iterations of my kitchen layout, and one of the things that gave me the hardest time was where to put the garage. With an 18" depth, placing it on a regular 24" deep counter would only leave 6" of workspace in front of the garage.

Thus the placement on the wall end of my peninsula was the ultimate solution. Not only did that provide an entire peninsula counter in front of the garage, but it also gave me usage for a space which normally would not have gotten much use at all.

In point of fact, it does sort of break up the peninsula workspace which I use for prep 90% of the time, from the to-the-right-of-the-cooktop workspace. But that works for me because those two workspaces have completely separate purposes so there's not a lot of interaction between the two.

There was at least one other spot in my kitchen that the garage could have gone without breaking up the workspace, but again, it was paramount that the appliances be in the spot where I would do my prep most often.

So in order to be a good addition to the kitchen, it must be in a location that is convenient to the workspace without taking up necessary workspace. A delicate balance!

There was a recent thread about this where I posted pics of my "garage". Hope it's helpful. (Still like mine!)

Here is a link that might be useful: Appliance garage