Working the room
If you're looking to buy or redecorate or renovate a home in 2019, you might notice many modern looks focusing on kitchens in your search history.
A growing trend in home design includes open floor concepts, which has been steadily rising in popularity for a few years.
With this floor plan, homes are designed with more continuity between rooms, often making the kitchen, dining and living room areas a shared focus of a home.
As a result, the kitchen space is looked at more often and is a new center of attention for homebuyers and renovators.
Quartz became one of the most popular countertop materials in the last few years, following a three-year decline in granite, said Megan Prazer, Weaver Homes design coordinator.“Quartz is the way that everybody's going,” she said, “because of the consistency, because it's man-made, because what you see is what you get.”The natural stone and resin material is durable and can mimic the look of more expensive and high-maintenance options like marble and slate.It is lower-maintenance in terms of sealing, Prazer added, and the color is more consistent.“I've noticed that a lot of people are going light on the countertops,” she said, “like a white-on-white or a white with a navy.”
As with the countertop colors, other areas of the kitchen have seen pale shades rising through the trends. Some paint companies offer hundreds of white options, with even more in the way of grays and creams.Many homeowners are moving away from the bright, stark whites and embracing off-whites that feel warmer and cozier, and Prazer said, there's a demographic disparity in this area.“Different shades of gray — gray blue, gray brown, regular gray — are popular for cabinets especially,” she said. “Paint is more popular for new home buyers and younger families.”Prazer said the Millennial demographic has a tendency to lean toward lighter paints for kitchen cabinets while older generations stick with the stained wood they've grown to know and love.“Paint can be a little tricky because it can chip,” Prazer said.Areas that are used a lot — for instance, the drawer that might hide a wastebasket — especially wear off faster.“But it's so attractive right now,” she added, “and it can be repainted.”
In addition to color changes, cabinets have become more efficient in recent years.With deeper backs and more shelving, fewer cabinets overall have been needed, giving more space in the kitchen.In response, designers and homeowners have shifted to removing upper cabinets on at least one kitchen wall, often to create an expansive window for natural light.This window is usually put above the kitchen sink to make for an easier time when washing dishes, too.To make up for what little lost storage space there is, walk-in pantries are extremely popular.Cabinets that are still popular in most homes though, Prazer said, include “simple” styles without “fussy accents.”“Clean lines are in,” she said, “more of a craftsman style.”She added that, in addition to being visually appealing, these designs make it easier to clean cabinet edges.
Attention-grabbing backsplash tile is nothing new in kitchens. Colorful geometric or glass patterns have jazzed up kitchens for years now.“Backsplashes can set the whole tone,” Prazer said. “Subway-style tiles are timeless.”But what many professionals are seeing more of lately is an interest in taking the tile from countertop to ceiling, including behind floating shelves, to create a striking feature wall.“The shapes, too, add some dimension without being too busy,” Prazer said.The new popularity in openness means the kitchen is always on display — and therefore in need of a good focal point.A full-tile feature wall draws your eye in, Prazer said, whether through shimmer and texture with something like a simple white subway tile or more patterned display.It's also a relatively cost-effective way to achieve a stunning effect, she added. Buying some tile won't break the budget, but still adds something extra.
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