Fancy toilets, travel memories at Kitchen & Bath Industry Show in Las Vegas

April 27, 2011 10:55 AM PT

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The Japanese company Inax showed off its Satis toilet at the Kitchen & Bath Industry Show, which opened Tuesday at the Las Vegas Convention Center. High-tech, high-end toilets from Kohler, Inax, Toto and others got plenty of attention at the show. This picture, from Inax, speaks to the feeling of luxury the toilet is meant to evoke.

The 48th annual Kitchen & Bath Industry Show gave companies a chance to show off cabinets, hardware, showers, sinks, counter top materials and other products for an expected 40,000 people. Among the popular ideas showing up on the convention floor were water conservation and technological innovations, including items that work with just a touch or by motion sensor.

One of them was the CleanCut, left. It’s a paper towel dispenser that allows the user to cut just as much towel as needed. And it feeds Americans’ obsessions with germs -- no need to touch anything except the towel. Perfect for someone handling raw meats, said Mike Graham, president of the Pitman, N.J.-based company. The product costs $129 in black or white, $149 in stainless-steel (shown).

The show also has products adaptable for people of varying ages and sizes and abilities, such as cupboard shelving that pulls out, bathtubs with doors on the front to make them more easily accessible and drawers with interior lightning. That, experts said, responds to aging baby boomers’ needs and to the likelihood that many homes will be multigenerational in years to come.

Also getting a long look from attendees were some door knobs and pulls from Top Knobs. Those below, which will be available later this year, are meant to reflect the design of the Great Wall of China. Others in the Passport series will be reflections of the designs of the Tower Bridge of London, Luxor in Egypt and the Trevi Fountain of Rome.

-- Mary MacVean in Las Vegas

Top photo from Inax; others by Mary MacVean / Los Angeles Times

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Mary MacVean

Mary MacVean is the former Mind & Body editor at the Los Angeles Times. She’s a runner and a cook, and has worked at The Times as morning assignment editor, web liaison, food writer and copy editor. She was a national editor and writer focusing on food at the Associated Press and a features editor and a columnist in Moscow, where she also ran a children’s cooking school. She left The Times in 2015.