Fair and Square

The flat drain cover on the Peak sink [I appreciate the calculatedly contradictory wordplay, there] levels the entire bottom of the basin without compromising the flow of the water. This ensures that your wine glasses won't wobble when placed around the edge of the drain. A thoughtful design detail. frankeksd.com

Personal Touch

As a long Monday comes to a close, I am very much soothed by how the Elle kitchen sets off a sundry collection of cooking tools. Which isn't to say that its simple form and smoky oak finish call for some sort of extraneous accessories to coax it to life; inherently elegant, the design stands comfortably on its own. I just appreciate how easily it can share the stage with typical kitchen clutter. cesar.it

Peanuts or Pretzels?

With the Academy Awards hoopla happening this weekend, I submit this scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey for the customary Flashback Friday post. We're aboard the Moon shuttle Aries, grabbing a snack from the galley. Despite its cool, retro-futuristic look [consultants from NASA advised on much of the set design], the zero-gravity-friendly menu was limited to pouches of liquified foodstuffs. According to the script, the Aries was operated by Pan Am Airways—which, in reality, had lunar aspirations of its own—and was renowned for in-flight cuisine that featured recipes from Maxim's de Paris.

Exhibitionist Tendencies

Toss out those refrigerator magnets—here's a kitchen cabinet that provides a more polished [and protective] display opportunity for photos and kids' school drawings. The wicket-like design has a solid, central panel that's wrapped by an 'outer' door which is fitted with a glass window. salvarani.it

Making the Cut

The confetti-like quality of this resin panel isn't artifice; Paper Cut is in fact made with the manufacturer's shredded product catalogs, so you can use it with a clear [and colorful] conscience. I can see it as a sliding shower door, or kitchen cabinet insert. 3-form.com

Pull Up—or Out—a Chair

This built-in seating feature, from the Look line of cabinets, could make a really big difference in a really small kitchen. Without casting any aspersions on either the manufacturers involved or on homeowners of a critical mass, I can't stress enough the importance of checking and rechecking the load limits on both hardware and materials for such an installation. alno.de

Textbook Texture

Designer Marie-Laure Helmkampf takes a light but sure hand to this kitchen, adding a plain plaster range hood and simple wheat-colored cabinets to the space. Given the amount of natural light in the room, I'm thinking the cylindrical pendants might be unnecessary, but their defined forms do provide a neat contrast with the rubble wall. ml-hdesign.com