We've been looking at Airstreams. The microwave is over the refrigerator.. Courting disaster. WTF?

I thought about doing that under my sinks for the kids. But for adults?!

It looks vaguely hazardous and mighty inconvenient.

Sometimes I think the design world runs out of good ideas so they pull from the archives of bad ideas just to make a deadline.

My kids would use that. Then they'd neglect to put it away and someone would end up in the ER.

When refrigerators were not the height of the Empire State Bldg, putting the microwave on top was a great idea if people in the family were relatively tall. Mine was there and I loved it being in what was waste space. Then they got very tall, and I would never have been able to reach it (I'm the shorty in a very tall family), so it went on the counter where it and subsequent microwaves have stayed. But a built in lift? As clumsy as I am, I'd at least nick my shins.

The only dumb thing about it is that it is not high enough for her to reach the cabinet above the MW.

Well,, ya know, when you're only 4'9 and can't reach or see in the darn thing, that idea really doesn't seem so bad! Once you've spilled hot food on youself because the oven is too high, it really does make sense!

Plus, look at those shoes. I'd trip just wearing them, let alone needing a platform to reach the microwave.

It's a brilliant idea.

Under a kid's sink makes sense to me for a step stool. After all, you can't make the sink kid-height (or at least it wouldn't be practical). And kids will grow. And plus, a sink, you don't have to move hot items in and out of while you're on a little platform.

But I can't imagine purposefully setting up a kitchen to have to pull out a step stool every time you use the microwave!

Plus, I'm trying to picture how to open and close the door while standing on that mini step and not falling off. Unless you have to open the door, then pull out the step, then stand on it to put the item in, then step off to close the door. That seems really convenient. Imagine if you had to stir something multiple times, having to do that!

To me, that's a disaster waiting to happen.... a major trip hazard when the 'step' is left out, a major burn hazard from lifting hot food over your head (I'm short), then there's the potential to fall from the platform while carrying that hot food. lol! And you're actually giving up space just for the built-in 'step'.

I'm with daisychain. I would forget about the step, turn to put down the steaming whatever, trip, hit my head on the island and land unconscious under a steaming bowl of whatever.

Why not just lower the whole she-bang the amount of space the step consumes?

I wonder what the weight limit is...

Wow,phenomenally bad idea. Am I the only one blessed with teens who need training on how to close drawers and cabinets. They have mastered the opening. Dangerous, and I guarantee if you use it it will look like heck in a few years. Wait till 3 teens decide to stand on it. It will get so kicked up and banged up, it wont even match the rest of the kitchen in short order. Or it will warp and not close right.

As one who can easily manage to trip over thin air, I pronounce that whole set-up a Disaster In The Making.

I like I'mhappy's idea

Agreed, stupid and dangerous.

The "height" of stupidness

Looks nasty dangerous to me, and I'm probably just tall enough I wouldn't need the step stand.

I once saw an oven that was accessed by a library ladder in a kitchen in Italy.

This makes no sense, when as someone said you could just lower the three ovens and solve the problem. I also think that it's a rather expensive solution for use at a sink which was its original design intent. It gets used for a couple years by small kids who grow, and then it's just unusable space unless the top comes off and it is actually a drawer underneath. I see the point of it in the sink location, but I think a sturdy step stool that is gone once it has served its purpose is more flexible.

I recently saw a microwave place thusly--this answers my question "How in the heck would one USE it?" They created a problem and solved it..seems right to me.

A drawer microwave would fit into the end of the island. But maybe that was out of the budget. (yes, snark, cuz that doesn't look like a cheap kitchen.)

Imhappy&Iknowit asked the question running through my head... Just makes absolutely no sense. Seems like someone was desperate for a fancy built in "solution" when a little common sense could have eliminated the need for a solution in the first place. Weird.

No wonder we see so many people in those ankle boots. That's just a big fat NO! I can see all sorts of trip, fall, dropped/spilled dishes and burn hazards with that setup.

But if everything had been lowered, the bottom oven would be practically on the floor. I wouldn't like that either. I'd think they could've come up with an all-around better solution than stacking ovens one atop the other, no matter how small the space.

That pullout step, is on some kind slide mechanism, wonder how much movement there is, can't be stable.

OMGosh...had you not included the link, I would have believed that was a picture from the 70s-80s. What a hilariously stupid idea. Thanks for sharing.

Our sink drawer step was made for us by a carpenter. It added less than $200 to the cost of our custom vanity. The step is actually like a breadboard that pulls out on top of the drawer. He made it stiff enough that it didn't slide back and forth when they step on it. Between my two kids, we used it for about 6 years and it made our bedtime/morning routines so much easier, I would probably have paid triple what it cost. We only had one super small bathroom at the time and having a separate stool would have been really inconvenient.

We have pull-out steps on our doggy bath so I do get the point of pullouts! But not like this microwave thing!

They could have just used one oven and then had a range/oven combo or gotten one of those micros that works as an oven too. Or put a micro under the island or done so many other things! Just looks like bad, bad planning! And then for Better Homes and Gardens to suggest it's a creative solution! Madness!

Am I the only one blessed with teens who need training on how to close drawers and cabinets.

Mtn, my DH would probably say he's blessed with a wife who needs training on how to close doors and cabinets. I'm not always great at that!

Collecting for the Wall of Shame collected from Houzz and elsewhere..

Sadly, I've seen dumber. This is the first that came to mind.

Illegal ''pot filler'' there to put out the fire that the burner starts on the oven cabinet?

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I honestly don't think it's so bad. I don't use the microwave very often - not even once a day -- and I value counter space and reachable cabinet storage space over microwave space. Plus, I largely only use a microwave for defrosting, so am not typically hefting scalding hot items in and out of it.

I think I only use my microwave for melting butter for popcorn but I wouldn't want to always be mindful of how I needed to step off that pull out. It looks like I would need to lean my upper body slightly back to avoid the feeling of the door hitting my nose as I closed it, while holding hot, melted butter, and remember to step down carefully. With my attention span, or lack of, I would be stepping back to close the door and forgetting there was a drop.

eta: maybe it's the home of a pro basketball player and he safely uses the microwave to reheat dinner after a game?

Now that pull out step explains a long ago post here, showing a microwave placed what looked to be impossibly high - eliciting a long discussion too!

Scares me just to look at it.