My favorite appliance

Hello friends, it’s almost the weekend! Thursdays rock.

I was SO hoping to have the mud room (well, the part I’ve been working on) done to show you today but for all that is good, it is taking FOREVER. It seemed like a couple coats of paint were going to finish it up but it’s all kinds of little things. I really hope to have it done to share tomorrow.

Today I’m talking about something I’ve wanted to share for a while – my very favorite appliance. I like sharing what works well in our home (and what doesn’t) and this is one that I couldn’t live without. Well…I would survive – but it would be tough. :)

It’s not the fridge – although I do love it. It’s not the oven (boring), or even my beloved microwave, but instead the appliance that you may have seen in our kitchen island:

(Yes the snow wall is still up. But I’m about over the snow outside so it’s coming down soon.)

So yes, it’s not the prettiest thing, and when my hubby and I built this house this was one of the things I fought against. The money was adding up and I was starting to freak out and I was all, who needs a trash compactor? Hello…it’s just an expensive trash can.

It is pretty spendy for a trash can but let me tell you – it ROCKS. Ours is ten years old and when we picked out appliances I did a mix of stainless and black, which I wish I could take back (and go all stainless). So it’s not something that’s easy to blend into the island, but it’s worth it:

My husband had had one in an old house and loved it. I was skeptical. When we moved in and I looked at the inside and saw how small it was (I’m sparing you pictures of our trash, but it’s small), I was questioning this purchase even more.

And then we started using it and as I mentioned in the title of this post, it is now my most favorite appliance, hands down. Speaking of hands, you don’t use them to open it:

You push on the lever with a foot and it opens up, hands free.

Our trash compactor and the lever on our powder room toilet make for fun times when we have company over. No one knows how to use the trash can or the toilet. We’re great hosts. ;)

When the trash bag starts to get full you just turn the dial and it smashes the trash down. We only use one small compactor bag a week, if that. (That doesn’t include trash in the rest of the house, but the majority of it is in here.)

The only drawback to a trash can like this is finding the bags. You have to use special compactor bags:

They’re hard to find – we get ours at Sears and it’s the only place we find them locally. Thankfully we don’t need to buy them that often since we only use one a week.

So there’s more info about my favorite appliance. :) The built in compactor also solves the question of where to put the trash can – there’s not a great spot for one anywhere else in our kitchen.

And I just have to throw in a before of the kitchen island for kicks because it’s come SO far:

Do you have a trash compactor? We don’t know anyone else with one. They are very old school, right? Did you have one growing up?