The kitchen features Jenn-Air’s Black Floating Glass and Euro Style Products.  She rounded it out with products from Scavolini, DuPont Corian & Zodiaq countertops, Elkay sinks and more.

The usual blend of form and function, Cheever used a a palette of natural colors to offset the force of the black appliances, including using wood and wood veneers.

Here’s a quick rundown of some cool stuff I’ve seen in and around the halls (you’ll be able to find more in the form of podcasts from the show on KBDN Radio here):

• People!  They’re everywhere!  If you were at KBIS 2009, you know that people were. . . um. . . kind of lacking from last year’s event.  Not at all the case.  One manufacturer rep told me, off the record and regarding KBIS versus IBS: “Maybe the whole building industry isn’t on the mend just yet, but our segment might be.”  In a less relevant example: there are lines for everything, including a line at the McCormick Starbucks that never seems to get any shorter whenever I happen to pass it!
• Neat Product Alert!  BreezeDry: a neat product. If you’ve got a client who agonizes over the environmental impact of their laundering activities, this product might be the answer.  90% more energy efficient (that’s not a typo) than an average clothes dryer.  Visit the site; it’s pretty neat.
• Ellen Cheever’s kitchen for the Jenn-Air booth.  Everybody’s favorite pillar of the kitchen and bath industry designed a display kitchen for the Jenn-Air booth using their Black Floating Glass and Euro Style Products.  She rounded it out with products from Scavolini, DuPont Corian & Zodiac countertops, Elkay sinks and more!  Photos to come!
• Atlas Homewares has designed a faucet!  Altmans Products in California is producing the 1930s, Art Deco-reminiscent faucet, which is available in five finishes.
• Newcomers have taken the plunge!  Zuvo Water Filtration Systems is, as the founder of the company Andy Butler described it to me, “A typical Silicon Valley start-up, except we don’t make computers.”  The company makes a total water treatment system, and has a focus on ethical business practices; 5% of its profits are donated to programs which work to bring water filtration to places in the third world that have no access to potable water. 

That’s the news from McCormick Place, beside blue Lake Michigan, where all the kitchen and bath insiders will be tired tonight!  More to come.