Showing posts with label kitchen design. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kitchen design. Show all posts
Saturday, February 9, 2013

Kitchen cabinet colour trends

My choice for kitchen cabinets has always been white because I just don't like living with dark colours or too much wood grain. I liked white before it became popular; I fought the natural oak trend when we built our home in the mid 80's and now that  dark stained cabinets seem to be the going trend where I live, I continue to love white.

Just how popular are white cabinets?

  I decided to conduct a very unscientific poll using the kitchen section of Houzz.   I looked at the first 50 pictures of long views of kitchens  sorted by most popular today and here is what I found out:  Of the 50.....

8% were  natural wood or stained wood

 There was a mix of  stains...



....from this very dark espresso like colour ...



.... to a mid value cherry....

Christian Gladu Design

.....to natural wood .


 14% were painted colours other than white/cream  


Most of the cabinet  were lighter colours so this black  kitchen stood out. I think it works in dark because it is open to a much larger space and there is a liberal use of light creams and white. Working with dark cabinets has to be a balancing act or you end up with a cave.
  



Yellow was perhaps the most  unusual colour choice   of the fifty surveyed kitchens and you would really have to love yellow to live in this kitchen. 

 You can never go wrong with a soft colour for kitchen cabinets.  This creamy green is light enough to open up the space, but you can still define it as a colour.  I think it was a good solution in this Craftsman style house where the traditional finish would have been stained wood.

JLF & Associates, Inc.

Who would ever think of a grayed lavender as a cabinet colour, but it really works in this atrium kitchen. The wood tone in the medium stained island  is repeated in several places throughout the space to create visual harmony. Grays with purple undertones actually work really well with mid toned woods, but it not a colour everyone likes. 

22% were white/cream with dark islands
 
Kitchen And Bath Venegas and Company

I think the darker island concept with white kitchens works really well  to add drama to a space. This  dark colour also grounds the room and integrates well with a darker hardwood floor.    Oh, to have all those drawers!
 Great Spaces!

Of the darker islands, the most prevalent colour was a deep stained brown.

 
2 % were white with a lighter coloured island 





 I think the soft blue/green works great with the wood tones in this very Mediterranean  styled kitchen.

54 % were white or off white
  

 Of the kitchens I showed did you notice what the most popular floor treatment was?


And there you have it.  What's your favourite cabinet finish?





Friday, November 4, 2011

What's your kitchen style?

I like my kitchens clean lined, and light  with lots of storage.  Medium to dark wood tones  make me fell heavy and closed in.  It's a personal preference and that usually  gets left behind when you are designing for a client.   In my locale there is a strong trend toward darker kitchens with the richness of wood showing through.

Photography: Brian Ricks
 
  Sometimes there are factors that negate the cave feeling I often get from dark wood cabinets. In a recent job this sleek modern kitchen design won me over.The client had very definite ideas about the overall look of everything so my job was to tweak the colours and problem solve space and placement. The cabinets couldn't extend all the way across because the depth beside the window was only about 10 inches.  Open shelving for glasses was the solution. 

 
Photography Brian Ricks
 
The second problem was storage because there weren't many upper cabinets. This  was solved by making the peninsula wider to include lower cabinets  facing the bar stools and drawers on the opposite side. The openness of the space around the peninsula makes a great gathering space when there's company.
 
 
 Photography: EmilysBreakfast

 
I love this back splash tile. It is difficult to see but it is three dimensional with an alternating wave pattern between the squares. The tile and exhaust fan run to the ceiling for a seamless look. The tile also extends across the top of the cabinets to finish the look.  
 
Breaking the line of deep upper cabinets with 12 in ones by the exhaust fan added variety to the space.   The pulls varied in length with  depending on door size.  The 12 in. upper cabinets needed knobs because long bars bumped when the doors opened. So many things to think about!
 Photography : EmilysBreakfast
 
A highlight of the kitchen detailing is the stainless steel counter beside the cooktop. The colours in the backsplash tile are a blend of the tones in the granite on the peninsula which serves to connect the two spaces.