You came, you voted, and now it’s time to reveal the grand prize winner of our Kitchen Upgrade Photo Contest! We received over 200 images of ugly kitchens from all over the country, and after narrowing these submissions down to just 10 finalists, we left it up to you to decide which dilapidated kitchen was the most deserving of a super sweet $1,750 kitchen revamp courtesy of Moen. So who won our fab makeover with a chance of getting one of Moen’s beautiful new touchless, water-saving MotionSense faucets? We’d like to congratulate Patricia Blake who took the cake with her photo, the ‘Ugliest Faucet in Town’! Read on to see her winning entry, and to see our three runners-up.
GRAND PRIZE WINNER: Ugliest Faucet In Town by Patricia Blake
If sinks could talk, Patricia Blake’s would be sputtering “Please…help…me.” Patricia’s faucet and sink have been in her house in Utah since 1970 and are still somewhat functional (if you don’t mind battling with the knobs to turn the water off and on). Because she’s on social security, Patricia hasn’t been able to replace her ancient fixtures but now she’s getting a $1,750 kitchen upgrade courtesy of Moen! We hope she chooses to upgrade her ugly faucet with Moen’s elegant, touchless sensor faucet, the MotionSense.
RUNNERS-UP
These kitchens were our Project Kitchen Upgrade runners-up and they’ll each be going home with brand new Moen faucets (worth up to $700)!
Ugh by Juli Bencivengo
Juli from Ohio couldn’t stand looking at her “pathetic sink” for one more day. She has always been committed to making improvements to reduce her family’s carbon footprint and hopefully she’ll continue saving water and resources now that she’ll have her choice of chic new Moen faucets.
Grandma’s Kitchen is the Real Underdog by Nilea Rohrer-Parvin
On the modest budget of a retired elementary school teacher from Arkansas, Nilea was renovating her 90-year-old mother’s 65-year-old home to make it accessible for her handicapped needs. The kitchen had always been the heart of the home, and is where Nilea’s mother taught her grandson to cook, pulled taffy with her Girl Scout troop and tutored neighborhood kids. But these days, her only chore is washing dishes the old fashioned way: standing at the sink looking out the window (claiming it is good exercise for her arthritis and eyesight). Nilea can’t wait to delight her mother with one of Moen’s elegant and efficient faucets…hopefully with the sprayer she’s always wanted!
1928 Kitchen with Hideous 1960s Update by Kim Tocco
Kim’s charming home was built in 1928 in Michigan. When she first saw the kitchen, she suspected that it had not been updated since the 1960s. The colorful, patterned carpet evokes a feeling of the mod era and was likely quite trendy in its time. The bright orange countertops are certainly cheery, but begged to be updated. And that’s exactly what we hope Kim will do with her new Moen faucet.
MOEN MOTIONSENSE
Imagine the convenience of having a kitchen faucet that can sense what you’re trying to accomplish and respond to what you need, the moment you need it. MotionSense makes it happen. With MotionSense, users can control the faucet in three ways – including the handle and two sensors that eliminate the need to touch the faucet at all. A simple hand movement near the Wave or Ready sensor activates water flow and sets things in motion. This versatile, hands-free control makes it surprisingly easy to accomplish a variety of routine tasks with speed and efficiency. Plus, it helps you prevent the spread of dirt and germs in your kitchen so there are fewer chances for cross-contamination. Efficient operation even includes water savings because the MotionSense’s lower sensor will automatically supply water only when the user’s hands or an object are directly below the spout. No one will ever need to let the faucet run unnecessarily again. MotionSense is powered by a battery pack or optional AC power adapter that is as straightforward to install as a standard kitchen faucet. Intelligent, yet intuitively simple, Moen’s MotionSense was fine-tuned after extensive consumer behavior research. It’s another in a long list of Moen innovations that are designed to delight.
We’re huge fans of the Moen MotionSense here at Inhabitat.com and DoItYourself.com, not only for its elegant design and convenience, but also for its earth-friendly sensibility. Sensor faucets help you conserve water and time by allowing you to turn the faucet off and on with a wave of your hand. If you’ve ever struggled to turn your tap on and off while washing dishes, lathering your hands with soap, or holding a pot with both hands and thought “what a waste” seeing water go down the drain, you’ll understand why sensor faucets are so convenient and environmentally-friendly. MotionSense makes doing dishes extra convenient by employing two hands-free sensors on their faucets: the Wave sensor on the top of the faucet, and the Ready sensor near the spout. Of course, you can also turn MotionSense faucets on the old-fashioned way too, but we’re pretty sure that once you get used to hands-free, you’ll never go back.
