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Been Watching HGTV, and wonder why ...

post #1 of 23
4/1/11 at 12:31pm
Thread Starter 
... when we see the kitchen pictures --- WHY is there a towel usually hanging on the stove handle?

For some reason using the stove handle just seems to be an acceptable place to hang a hand towel. It's a handle for crying out loud, not a towel rack!.

I've tried hanging a towel on the handle, but when I go to open the oven door, the towel drags on the floor or falls off. Now tell me that's not inconvenient.

And then, there's the photo op thing - it's yucky - IMO - to see a towel draped on the stove handle, , help me understand why this is now so acceptable a practice that the finishing touches to a kitchen photo is the towel hanging on the stove oven handle. Am I to understand that there are no other places to hang a hand or dish towel in that lovely kitchen? Who's staging these kitchens?

Help me - okay, today is a slow day for me, ... I just saw another photo online, and what-da-ya-know - there's a towel hanging on the stove handle in an otherwise pristine kitchen pic.


Just a funny thing I thought I'd share, sorry for taking up your time.
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post #2 of 23
4/1/11 at 12:36pm
I have a towel hanging on my oven door, I always have
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post #3 of 23
4/1/11 at 12:36pm
Staging is rarely for practical convenience, and perhaps there's just too much reflection coming off the oven from the camera lights or you see the cameraman's legs or something.

Those things can be like a mirror.

But yeah, the best place for a towel IMO are those cabinet towel hangers right under the sink.

http://www.solutions.com/jump.jsp?it...emType=PRODUCT
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post #4 of 23
4/1/11 at 4:59pm
I actually miss being able to hang a towel on the oven handle! In the apartment we did. When we bought the house, we couldn't anymore, because the oven handle isn't open. Boo. And those towel rack things in Ducman's link won't work for our cabinets. Boo again. We did finally find something that might work at Ikea but we haven't been able to get there yet to buy one.. One of these days..
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post #5 of 23
4/1/11 at 5:13pm
Towels used to be hung there for a reason - wood/coal fired stoves with metal handles. Those metal handles would get HOT HOT HOT and the towel would be used to pull the oven door open rather than burning fingers. It was resurrected as a throwback in the 80s and now most of those towels aren't really towels but a hemmed piece of terry towel with a strap with either a button or velcro to hold it on the handle - just fluff and a cat toy
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post #6 of 23
4/1/11 at 5:21pm
We hang a towel there, too.
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post #7 of 23
4/1/11 at 5:21pm
I only recenlty started hanging towels on the oven door handle. A year or so ago I had the oven on.

I tripped over the cats' water bowl (like I do every day) but this was a big kick and made a big mess, I mopped it up with a kitchen towel and then thought..... the heat from the oven would dry the towel more quickly than me hanging it to drip in the tub or something, so I wrung it out, and hung it there and it did dry fast, and it was so convenient to keep a towel there, that I have done so ever since.
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post #8 of 23
4/1/11 at 7:56pm
I used to always hang a towel on my oven door in my apartment, but I can't in my house. I was actually kind of mad when I noticed that I couldn't. I ended up getting sticky hooks at the dollar store and putting them inside 2 of the cupboard doors. 2 in one cupboard for towels and 2 in the other cupboard for oven mitts.

Like these ones http://www.aliexpress.com/product-gs...olesalers.html
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post #9 of 23
4/1/11 at 8:15pm
Ours is hanging on the oven for one reason - our refrigerator door handle broke off, and we haven't had it replaced yet.

I absolutely despise hanging that towel on the oven door. It worries me that I'm going to torch the place, and it always falls to the floor when I open the oven.
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post #10 of 23
4/1/11 at 8:25pm
I always hang one on mine too. It dries the best there. My kitchen is open to the dining areas so there isn't wall space for a towel rack. If I put it over a door it wouldn't dry as well. Plus it is convenient when I need to dry my hands. When I am working it is often on the counter though so I don't have much problem with "dragging" it on the floor. I also like it there because my microwave is right over the stove and I can grab it to help remove a hot dish.

I didn't know there were people out there who dislike it so much!
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post #11 of 23
4/2/11 at 4:56am
I've always had my towels hanging on the oven handle. I don't have a good spot to put one anyplace else.
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post #12 of 23
4/2/11 at 6:51am
We usually hang our towel on the fridge handle. But I used to keep it on the oven door.
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post #13 of 23
4/2/11 at 9:17am
I hang one on my oven door and one on a cabinet hook near my sink. I do a lot of cooking, so it's easier for me to have those towels around for the inevitable messes that will occur! It's also great if I'm taking something out of the oven and I run out of trivets while I'm cooking; I can fold the towel in a few spots and save my counters from burn marks.
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post #14 of 23
4/2/11 at 10:25am
My mom hung a towel there too. I used to when I had an oven that had that kind of a handle, but my oven here is old and built into a cabinet and has t2 doors that open outward like a cupboard does. The handles are vertical so you can't hang anything off of them. So I just stick a towel through the handle of the fridge.
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post #15 of 23
4/2/11 at 10:36am
The only time we hang a towel on the oven door is to dry it before tossing it into the dirty clothes basket. We hang ours on the cabinet by the sink.
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post #16 of 23
4/2/11 at 11:13am
we always have at least one towel on our oven handle. And they usually match the season! We've found its just convenient. We can grab it to move pots or pick up hot lids, wipe up a quick mess, or to dry our hands on. We rotate them out about twice a week to wash! When I cook something big I usually either have on an apron and use it as a towel or have a towel stuck in my back pocket to use quickly
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post #17 of 23
4/2/11 at 3:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Momto3boys View Post
I have a towel hanging on my oven door, I always have
I do too and I never did until I saw it on HGTV and my towel looks very nice there. When using the oven I just take the towel off, what's the big deal, right??
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post #18 of 23
4/2/11 at 3:16pm
It is a handle and a towel rack. Mine looks very nice too, mostly towels with cats on them. I mostly use it to dry my hands if I'm not close enough to the other towel sitting on my counter. As I told someone else, taking the towel off the oven handle is not a big deal and doesn't take any energy at all :-)))
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post #19 of 23
4/2/11 at 3:17pm
I always have a towel or two hanging on my oven handle. I use it to wipe my hands all the time..Now my dish towel I dry dishes with is in a drawer..But the hand wiping towel is on the oven handle and every time the oven is opened it does fall on the floor
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post #20 of 23
4/2/11 at 8:29pm
Mine is on the oven door, too. BUT I do not have a stove. I have an electric range top and a separate oven that is up at chest height. The towels won't fall off and would never drag on the floor.
With my little 60s ranch style kitchen (layout/size) there is no place to put a towel rack.

My towels are "hand towels" in that I rarely dry dishes. Between the dishwasher for most of the dishes and the rack on the counter for pots and pans everything is left to dry on it's own with the exception on one pizza pan and three carbon steel knives - they're dried with a clean towel each time that's then hung up and becomes a hand towel.

But in the terms of staging a kitchen. The stove takes up a prominent part of the kitchen. The bit of color that a decorative towel adds looks nice and in a more simplistic kitchen livens things up a bit. Like decorative stuff on the counter tops, flowers, etc - these items serve no purpose and if you actually cook will eventually be in your way unless you have a lot of counter space. (I don't)
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post #21 of 23
4/3/11 at 12:41pm
We have a handtowel on both our fridge door and oven door! I find it's a convenient place and sturdy enough for when you grab the towel.
Tea towels (for drying dishes) are kept on a wall mounted towel rail near our oven.
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post #22 of 23
4/3/11 at 2:22pm
My mom keeps her dish towel and a hand towel on her stove handle. I guess there is really no other place to hang towels that looks decent. She's done that for yeeeaaaaarrrs.
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post #23 of 23
4/3/11 at 2:29pm
Adding to what I said the other day... At our old house we kept them on the refrigerator just because of the way the stove handle was. Now we have a side by side one and it would just get in the way. But growing up we always had one there.

I would venture to say that the reason designers put them there is that it's nice to break up all the hard surfaces of a kitchen with the soft fabric. And there are only so many places to do that in a kitchen.
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