Have you thought about a MW drawer? Sharp makes them (for both the "Sharp" and "Dacor" names).

Do you have one? Does it work? Someone did mention that as an option, but it was hard to get my head around how it works...

We love having our MW under the counter. We had the cabinet maker follow the specs for the Sharp drawer, in case we decide to get one. Until then, we are content to use a deep shelf with our old MW. I thought it might be a pain to use down that low, but it isn't at all, and I'm 5'11". Then again, I use my MW less than once a day on average. If I used it a lot, I might thing differently about it. As it is, I love it!

We have ours under the island and I love it there. It is just to the right of the stove top, and right across from the sink and dishwasher. I find I use it so often when I am cooking at the stove. It's out of sight but amazingly handy. The cabinet opening was a little too big for my microwave, so my husband built a shelf for it to sit on, leaving room underneath for cutting boards.

Thanks -- that helps a lot!

By the way, I love what you did with your island. We need to make our island narrower to create more space, so we'll loose the ability to sit at it, but I love your idea of having an extension off the side for a stool

Here's ours under the counter in the island...

Thank you -- that is so helpful, and the more I think about it the more I think under-counter is the way to go.

By the way, I love your countertops. I'm doing white cabinets, and want to do blue countertops, but haven't seen anyone else do a color. I'm leaning toward Zodiaq quarz -- they have some nice dark blues which I think would looke good with white (Eclipse Blue and Borealis Blue). But it is scary to do a color -- were you nervous? What did you use?

I do have a MW drawer...but my kitchen isn't done yet so I haven't had a chance to use it yet. But, everyone here on the Appliances Forum that has it likes it so I have high hopes! Here's a pic of it installed (no counters yet...they measure tomorrow!)

I'm 5'10" (and soon to be the shortest person in my family!) and there was no way I was going to put a regular MW undercounter. We use our MW every day (cooking frozen veggies & warming tea mostly) so it has to be very accessible.

Under the counter like everyone else :) The best place to put it in my opinion. I did not want to use up counter space. Anywhere higher is too dangerous if things get hot or spill... plus under counter looks great.

I bought a Sharp that hangs from the cabinet. I am making that cabinet shorter so the micro hangs even with the other cabs. It even has a light underneith it so my counter is lit. Here is a picture of it (not in my kitchen, however).

We went under the counter in the island (aka the continent), the best place for it in our layout. We looked at the Sharp drawer, however it wasn't deep enough for my favorite chai tea mug (I believe it was only 5 1/4" deep and my mug is 5 3/4" - a total deal breaker!! LOL)
{{!gwi}}
We chose the KA Model KBHS109 - convection microwave, it has a pull-down door (rather than a side swing door) which we figured was better for access and clearance. So far it hasn't been a problem being down low, but I haven't done much in it yet but warm up my chai!

My DH and I laugh and say that is the question that led us to gut the kitchen and start over. It was one thing we definitely wnated to change. W have the micro drawer and have been using it over a year -- coming up on a year and a half now. I think the pricing is a bit much, but we accepted it for what it did for our kitchen layout, and it has been working well. I would much rather reash into the top than have to open a door and duck and reach under the counter, especially when grabbing something hot.

I'll have to say it truly baffles me that so many people are happy with their under the counter mw's. We had a "low" mw for 15 years before our remodel and DH and I absolutely hated it. And that was on a low table, not as low as under-the-counter. It was difficult to see the keypad, especially as we aged from our 30's to 40's, so we had to stoop down eveytime we wanted to use it. We had to stoop down to get anything out and then I had to get down and sit on the floor in order to reach to the back and ceiling to clean it out (it got pretty bad since we couldn't see the splatter most of the time.) We now have it on the bottom shelf of an upper cabinet (we made it deeper than the others to accomodate the mw.) It's so much easier to keep track of the progress of food and to see when it needs to be cleaned out and to push lots of buttons, i.e., I tend to use the different power levels a lot.

The mw drawers sound great but the shallowness would be too limiting for me. I also like the idea of staying flexible--the shelf our mw sits on will accomodate anything that comes along that is in the shape of a small oven.

I guess if you don't use the mw a lot, any place would be fine. If you use it a lot, I would definitely try putting your current one on a low table or chair for a while and see if it's something you can live with.

we are putting ours in an upper corner cabinet that we're having built especially for that purpose. it will have a door that will open downward and then be able to slide in, under the micro, out of the way when the oven's in use.

Holligator, I love your countertop. Is it soapstone?

I have the same one as mustbnuts, It sits in a cabinet that is slightly bigger all the way around except in depth. A cabinet friend of ours built a frame for around the face of it to give it that built in look and It velcros on with a heavy duty industrial grade velcro believe it or not. So when I need to replace the microwave I can just pull the frame off and slide the microwave out.

Holligator, I love your countertop. Is it soapstone?

Thanks, laurap_2007, and yes, it is soapstone--Black Venata, to be specific.