Abstract: A dental or medical handpiece instrument console apparatus, including means for holding, extending and retracting operating flexible hose attached to the instruments, for easy use in over-the-patient positions, as follows. A hollow cabinet, a plurality of handpiece instruments and connecting operating flexible hose positioned within the cabinet in generally U-shaped configurations and in horizontal, parallel positions. Improved, selectively actuatable, extending and retracting mechanisms are provided for the flexible hose including a pulley attached to a cable of a rotatable reel which carries a ratchet wheel engageable by a pawl such that the instrument and hose may be pulled to an extended position and the pawl engaged with the ratchet wheel to lock the hose and instrument in its extended position and which will release the ratchet wheel for retraction of the instrument and hose into the console by a bias when non-use of the instrument is desired.