Hopefully everyone here has already heard of McMaster-Carr. They are a sort of do it yourself industrial superstore. With over 480,000 products, there is a good chance that they have what you need, if only you could find it. I know that there are some great treasures amongst those 480,000 items. I almost bought some track for a sliding door from them once, and seriously looked at some of their faucets too. If you have been brave enough to wade through all the 480,000 products and found some good ones, we want to know.

What are your favorite items from McMaster-Carr?

Do you have any other similar websites with great finds?

Here are a few vintage ads that ought to put a smile on your face! Have a great weekend!
From Flickr group “I Love My Electric Appliance!“

The D/A clock takes the styling of the basic LED to a whole new level by creating a completely mechanized version of the iconic numbering. Designed by Alvin Aronson and made from corian and a lot of ingenuity the D/A clock is pretty impressive. With the change in time, the numbers slowly transition by raising or sinking into the clocks surface. While it doesn’t look like it is available for sale yet, with an idea this good it shouldn’t be long before it gets to market. Make sure you check out the video after the jump.

D/A clock by Alvin Aronson

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Tokyo Flash has long been one of my favorite sites for unique watches. The recently have broadened their product range to include bags, clocks, hats, jewelry, t-shirts, lighting and design goods. With all those new different categories it seems like it would be hard to have a line as original as their watches, yet they seem to pull it off quite well. While the “fashion” items don’t get me too excited, all the design goods show off the classic simple japanese style. While some items like the Juke Tower look like they could be right out of a Muji store, others like the Erect calculator have a certain craziness that make it a classic Tokyo Flash piece. Due to the weak dollar pricing ranges between $50 - $200 on most items. It’s going to cost you if you want to be the cool kid on the block.

Available from Tokyo Flash from $50+

Though I am usually a big supporter of form and function I sometimes find the absolutely pointless wrapped in a pretty package quite appealing. Take for example this “sound machine“. It’s a good looking little red box that is packed with all sorts of useless sounds at the touch of the button. Some of the more interesting ones include bronx cheers and shotguns, plus the old standbys canned laughter and applause. They will be shipping out this spring, and are on pre-order now for $17.

Available from Unica Home for $17.

In our last kitchen we had a 30″ Bosch gas cooktop. We loved the gas, and swore that we would never have anything else. We do a lot of cooking at our house, and the two things that we didn’t like about our Bosch were having to remove the grills to clean up after a night of cooking, and the 30″ size. When we heard about induction cooktops, it seemed too good to be true. They are way more energy efficient than both gas and traditional electric, they have temperature control as good or better than a gas cooktop, and the glass top makes them easy to clean. The one downside is they are expensive. Our Bosch put us back $600, while the 36″ Gaggenau we chose for this kitchen cost a shocking $2400. It was the one big splurge for our kitchen and I think it was worth it. There are quite a few induction cooktops out there, but to me what sets the Gaggenau apart from the others is the removable puck. The big dial used to control the temperature just sits on top of the glass and stays in place by a magnet. Burners are selected by sliding the dial in their direction, and then twisting to get the temperature you want. I love the tactile feedback of turning a dial compared to a touch control for the temperature, and the fact that it just sits on the surface means it’s simple to remove for cleaning.

Check your local Gaggenau dealer for pricing (we got our for just over $2400)

With the winter chill comes the joys of heating a house. Our old house had radiant, which was not only very efficient and comfortable, but also didn’t dry out our house to bad. Our new house has normal forced air and a house full of chapped and cracked lips has finally convinced me we need a humidifier. Of course the first one I thought of was the gorgeous plus minus zero humidifier. Try as I might though, I couldn’t talk myself into dropping $300 for it. Blomus also makes a good looking one but it is passive evaporation and I don’t think that is aggressive enough for our dry house. After a lot of searching I finally settled on the Air-O-Swiss evaporator. The $130 price tag is a little high, but it was the best compromise between high prices and good looks. One of the features I am excited about is the fact that you can fill it with a pitcher of water without having to open anything or carry anything to the sink. It should get here in about a week so I’ll let you know how it goes.

Available from Amazon for $139.

I was in a local kitchen store a couple of days ago when I came across this great looking toaster by Cloer. I had never heard of the brand before, but I am a huge fan of their styling. The toaster has a clean brushed steel look to it with a simple control interface. While it has the looks of a high end toaster, the price is quite reasonable at $50. Not surprisingly it looks like Target is one of the biggest retailers of Cloer products, although they are only available online. The rest of the line includes a double waffle maker, electric BBQ, coffee maker, roll baker and electric water kettle.

Cloer products available from Target online from $50 - $160.

While it may not look like much, our kitchen is coming along quite nicely. Those that follow me on twitter know that the rough plumbing and electrical have been done for a while now. Just this week we finished the drywall (not me really but the subcontractor) and last night I started priming the walls. I am particularly anxious to see how the Bocci 22 outlets turn out, so this morning I took a little peek. I think they are going to be really sweet! This weekend we hope to finish all the painting, and if all goes well, install our white rubber flooring too. I’ll tweet my progress, including pictures on twitter.

One of the things that I am really excited to do in our new kitchen is install our Bocci 22 outlets. I had seen these outlets a long time ago on Apartment Therapy, and loved the look of them. We had one spot in our kitchen that necessitated us putting an outlet in a very visible space, and we wanted to pretty it up a little. A phone call to our local Bocci dealer revealed that these beautiful minimalist outlets weren’t too expensive. We ended up getting single outlets (just one plug) on accident, but I think it will turn out alright. Our price was $16 each, which isn’t too bad in the grand scheme of things. One of the most expensive parts was the tool that you need to be able to remove the outlet part from the box which was $40. I had a chance to do phase 1 of the install last night so I snapped some pics. Everything went pretty smooth, and I can’t wait to see what they look like after the drywaller comes today.

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