The invention concerns a pull-down shelf for a piece of furniture, in particular a pull-down shelf for a kitchen wall cabinet, comprising a pair of pivot levers that are pivotably secured, respectively, on oppositely positioned sidewalls of the piece of furniture as well as on oppositely positioned lateral webs of the pull-down shelf that laterally delimit a shelf receptacle and that form in pairs, respectively, a four-bar linkage for transferring the pull-down shelf from an initial stowed position located within the interior of the cabinet into a lowered access position.
Pivotable shelves for furniture are known. Conventionally, they are known in particular for upright cabinets and can be pivoted about vertical axes into a position in which objects that are positioned on a shelf receptacle can be more easily removed in the open position of the pivotable shelf. However, it is often also required, for example, in kitchen wall cabinets, to provide pull-down shelves in order to make accessible objects stored on the shelves in particular for operating persons of a short body height. For this purpose, for furniture for storage of clothes, it is known to provide clothes rods at different heights wherein a handle is provided at the upper rod. The clothes rod is attached to lateral pivot levers, that, for example, may be embodied as a four-bar linkage and are attached, in turn, to lateral walls of the body of the cabinet. Such a configuration is however not possible for kitchen wall cabinets because a handle cannot be accommodated. Despite of this, in particular in case of kitchen wall cabinets with dimensions that often reach up to the ceiling, it is desirable to provide better access to objects that are stored in upper areas of these cabinets.
It is the object of the present invention to provide a pull-down shelf for a piece of furniture that is also suitable for kitchen wall cabinets and that makes it possible to provide better access to objects that are stored in upper areas of the kitchen wall cabinet.
As a solution to this object, the pull-down shelf for a piece of furniture of the aforementioned kind is characterized in that a pivot lever of a pivot lever pair and a correlated pivot lever of the other pivot lever pair are connected to each other by means of an operating element which is extending in its initial operating position along a side of the shelf receptacle that is facing the operating person during pivoting of the shelf and, upon pivoting of the shelf into its open position, is transferable from its initial operating position into a downwardly pivoted open operating position.
In this way, a pull-down shelf is made available that is highly suitable to be mounted in kitchen wall cabinets, wherein the operating element extends across the entire width of the shelf, and thus also of the shelf receptacle, and can be gripped by an operating person in order to transfer the shelf from its initial stowed position located within the interior of the cabinet into its downwardly pivoted open position of access. The operating element can be automatically pivoted during the course of this downward pivot movement of the shelf into its open operating position that is also downwardly pivoted. The operating element can be arranged such that in its initial operating position it is positioned, for example, at a vertical spacing to a bottom of the shelf receptacle and, in this way, presents in the manner of a guardrail a stored goods securing element for stored kitchen utensils. Moreover, it can couple the movement of the pivot levers to each other so that it also forms a synchronizing component.
By means of a preferred special kind of the pivot levers, connected to each other by the operating element, of the respective pivot lever pairs that form the four-bar linkage, for example, in that bent ends of the pivot lever pairs correlated with each other project past the shelf receptacle and thus the lateral webs of the shelf, the operating element can be arranged and embodied such that, in the initial operating position, it forms the stored goods boundary and thus delimits a front-side receiving opening of the shelf receptacle toward the front, i.e., toward the open side of the pull-down shelf, and, in its downwardly pivoted open position, enables free access to the shelf receptacle.
In the open position, the operating element is preferably positioned in a plane below the bottom of the shelf receptacle. This operating element, for example, in the form of the guardrail or guard rod, additionally stiffens the shelf as a whole. On this operating element, a handle element can be attached that pivots downwardly together with the operating element into the open position. This handle element can be designed like a handle bracket that, in the initial operating position, i.e., in the position in which the shelf is located within the interior of the cabinet, extends from the operating element, i.e., the guard rod which is extending at a vertical spacing relative to the shelf bottom, downward to the shelf bottom so that it can also form a stored goods boundary. It can be gripped by an operating person safely and ergonomically in order to then be pivoted downwardly, together with the operating element and the shelf, into a position in which it is extending below the shelf receptacle bottom. For assisting this, spring elements, for example, gas pressure springs, can be used that are designed to be adjustable in order to assist in or dampen the corresponding downward and/or upward movement for the operating person. Also, it is possible to provide, for example, end stops of an elastomeric material.
Further embodiments of the invention and further advantages result from the additional dependent claims, the following description, and the drawing.
In the drawing, principally coinciding parts are provided with identical reference numbers.
Generally, 1 indicates in
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The specification incorporates by reference the entire disclosure of German priority document 10 2013 018 498.3 having a filing date of Nov. 6, 2013.
While specific embodiments of the invention have been shown and described in detail to illustrate the inventive principles, it will be understood that the invention may be embodied otherwise without departing from such principles.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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10 2013 018 498 | Nov 2013 | DE | national |
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