Home: Kitchen: Storage
Floor Space   (+3)  [vote for, against]
Keep your kitchen with that open tidy look

Most people will not see this storage unit at first glance unless they go down to the basement. The only thing any one will notice in the kitchen are the support beams and the ceiling motor for this wall sized retractable shelving unit.

In its resting position the top is flush with the kitchen floor and sturdy enough to walk on due to the fact that the shelves are built to rest on the basement floor. If the motor dies you only need to go into the basement for your pantry items.
-- sartep, Jun 02 2004

recently posted http://www.halfbake...idea/Hide_20Kitchen
sounds similar [joking victim, Oct 04 2004]

What ? [m.f.d]
-- PainOCommonSense, Jun 02 2004


Sounds very doable, except for the heaviness of the shelf structure and add the cans, bags and boxes of foods and maybe appliances, thats a lot of weight. I would recommend beefing up the supports of the kitchen floor from underneath. I'd like one of these.
-- dentworth, Jun 02 2004


Use your refrigerator as a counterweight. +
-- Worldgineer, Jun 02 2004


I'll just order a basement!

a bit like those little butler's lifts whose name escapes me...
-- po, Jun 02 2004


dumbwaiter
-- Worldgineer, Jun 02 2004


except a dumbwaiter assumes a person or robotic butler is down there filling it up. I want one of these too.
-- dentworth, Jun 02 2004


I remember film clips from the 50's and 60's showing the "kitchen of tomorrow" having pantrys just like this. If I recall correctly, a fruit basket would decend from the ceiling, too.
-- phoenix, Jun 02 2004


How about this: Instead of shelves that just move straight up and down, make a bunch of bins mounted on a sort of conveyor belt that loops up through the ceiling, down into the basement through the wall behind the "shelves", and then back up again. The weight of the goods going down would more or less balance the weight of the goods coming up, and you get double the storage space.

Buckminster Fuller proposed a similar system for books.
-- 5th Earth, Jun 02 2004


5th Earth. We had one of these down in a 'well known Pharmaceutical Company in the South East of England'. It contained all the old installation and O&M documentation listed under a huge database (held centrally). We were on the 1st floor and the rack went to the ground and back and balanced the weight (roughly) as stated. Damned thing worked as well!
-- gnomethang, Jun 02 2004


It seems that with the counterweight idea, the shelves would begin to sink as you filled them and rise as you emptied them.
-- discontinuuity, Sep 03 2005


Well shoot, someone done stole the idea I had, before I had it. Lucky I did a search before posting and caught the time-traveling thief. :-P

I still want something like this for my home. We have too much stuff here.
-- Psalm_97, Feb 14 2012


Yeah, I had the same idea, but for the roof space rather than under the floor.

This version is especially good for a kitchen, as it would act as a cold-store cellar for those who don't have a proper cellar. Many foods - most fruits, eggs, hard cheeses, cured meats, wine - are better kept at cellar, rather than refrigerator, temperatures.
-- spidermother, Feb 14 2012


wel yes and no: you still need to devote floor and access space to it even though it's retracted so I don't see the benefit. And floor beams are generally what, a foot'n'half apart ? not the 2-3 feet you want for a shelf.
-- FlyingToaster, Feb 14 2012


I would slightly disagree. Shelves about 8" deep, and 12" - 14" tall, are very useful in kitchens, although much smaller than that gets poky and annoying. Deeper shelves mean stuff gets pushed to the back, and you lose random access convenience. So you could fit a useful double-sided shelving unit, or a generous single-sided one (big enough for most domestic pots and appliances), within most joist spacings.

I'm sure some would love a wine-cellar that worked like this; a wine bottle is about 12" long, so it would fit beautifully.

//you still need to devote floor and access space// That's why I was thinking ceiling, rather than floor.
-- spidermother, Feb 14 2012


Those exist, [bigsleep], but it would be overkill for a unit to rise out of the floor and then unfold. Plain shelves is all that's needed.

Won't the //support beams and ceiling motor// get in the way nearly as much as a fixed storage unit would? Or is it monolithic, with a single pair of lifting mechanisms more-or-less flush with the end walls? It would be more mechanically challenging to house the apparatus entirely under the floor, but it would leave the kitchen space entirely clear.
-- spidermother, Feb 15 2012


The entire thing could be sprung counterweighted to slightly more than the empty shelves. If it was underloaded it would be easy enough to push down, if overloaded, it wouldn't be to heavy to lift up, no motor required. If you're in the habit of keeping it heavily loaded, simply adjust the springs for a little more tension, and it will just get a little harder to close if it's emptied.

//ou still need to devote floor and access space to it even though it's retracted//

When closed, the top would rest directly on the joists (or a frame mounted on the joists), and be heavy enough so you'd be walking on a top plate at least as sturdy as normal flooring. You can a ton of these in the average kitchen, and as long as you had at least three or so, the closed ones would provide all the access space you need for the open one.
-- MechE, Feb 15 2012


Yeah, I was thinking exactly what MechE said.

And you could have it positioned in the middle of the floor. Have furniture against the walls, but if you're not accessing storage you have the whole middle of the room to do whatever. I picture a very large cube, with shelves on all sides, coming up out of the floor in the middle of the room.
-- Psalm_97, Feb 15 2012



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