A kitchen design fad is a flash in a pan look of the moment with no fashionable or serviceable staying power. A kitchen trend is a proven contemporary but ageless look that can provide style, functionability and elegance to a kitchen.
When renovating your kitchen, you are making a huge investment into one of the most important rooms of your home. When considering a current fashionable trend, every home owner needs to proceed with caution. Pot racks hanging over the counter and ready to fall on your head, anyone? As Bob Vila.com’s Jennifer Noonan notes, “Perhaps you’ve heard the expression ‘kitchens sell houses.’ If that’s true that a beautiful and functional kitchen will help you sell your home, it’s also true that certain passé trends could hinder your sale.”
The good news: The great trends rarely go out of style. Good design trends, as House Logic notes, “address lifestyle needs, convenience and savings – ensuring you’ll enjoy your kitchen for many years.”
Here are some kitchen design trends with real savings power that will bring value to your life and home.
White Is The New Black
White cabinets, a popular choice for generations of homeowners for years, are more fashionable than ever. Check out the beautiful white cabinet options at Aristokraft, Bertch, KraftMaid, and Quality Cabinets – all available through Corridor Kitchens.
Sixty-seven percent of National Kitchen and Bath Association (NKBA) members call white their top choice for cabinets – a 20 percent climb from 2015. Plus, layering white on white with white splashes beneath white cabinets on white countertops was highlighted with a 2014 Best in American Living Award by the National Association of Home Builders.
White adds a stunning, glossy exterior and superior long-term performance. And like black, white is a timeless kitchen color.
Going Big by Going Small
Downsizing is the less cluttersome way of life for many Americans today, from millennials to retirees. Standard micro kitchens feature a two-burner cooktop, a combination microwave and convection oven, an 18-inch dishwasher and a 60-inch fridge or refrigerator drawer.
A secondary kitchen is ideal for young homeowners who don’t have children living at home or retirees.
The LED Lighting Solution
More American homeowners are choosing to see the savings light of kitchen LEDs. From toe kicks as nightlights to the inside of cabinet doors to highlight beautiful china to in crown molding to wash ceilings with lifts, LED lights are accenting millions of American kitchens with style and remarkable savings. What’s drawing today’s kitchen remodelers to LEDS?
- A rainbow of color options, from bright to soft white to red, blue and green
- Their easy installability and usefulness just about anywhere.
- Their heatless nature, which make them safe and ideal for cabinets or walls.
- A 50,000-hour lifespan – about five times the lighting power of CFLs.
- Steadily dropping prices.
The Fridge of Tomorrow
Forget Grandma’s “hulk” fridge, 21st century refrigeration is no longer limited to a single, boxy unit. Many homeowners are customizing their cooling needs with “point of use” refrigeration. The idea? Add cool wherever it’s needed.
Counter-height fridges are keeping produce cool in prep island, keeping wine chill and giving kids ice cold juice and soda after school.
The Green Water Faucet
Elegant, extremely convenient and the definition of Earth-friendly, touch and motion-activated water faucets allow users to save gallons of waters each month and save gallons of dollars on their water bills over time. With prices starting at $350, they are an expensive investment, but an environmentally and financially smart appliance in the long run.
Easy Accessibility Equals Easier Life
Old-school traditional kitchens have the classic beauty of yesterday, but few of the demanded amenities of today’s on the go lifestyle. An NKBA survey shows 56 percent of designers requested accessible and universal design features. Why? Because they make sense for most Americans’ lifestyles, which demand simplicity. Retiring baby boomers especially are looking for easy, uncomplicated tools for food and meal preparation.
Based on today’s favorite design trends, the future of American kitchens also includes side-opening ovens at counter height, drawers with deep, 24-inch pockets to hold just about everything in your kitchen, slots to hold plates and store knives and microwave drawers.
Wowing commercials and compelling demonstrations can be luring, but make sure the features you include in your kitchen’s redesign are practical, assessable and most importantly, make common financial and user sense. For while 1960s-eque kitchens are the definition of cool on TV’s “Mad Men,” their usability doesn’t measure up to the reality of American life in 2017.
“We will look back at (2017’s retro kitchen design craze) asking, ‘What we’re we thinking when we went Mid-Century Modern-crazy,” Schneider Kennedy Design’s David Schneider told Realtor.com.
Because not all of today’s hip kitchen designs are guaranteed to be trends that work for your kitchen and your family tomorrow.