Combined kitchen and living spaces continue to be popular, creating bright open plan homes. By defining zones for working, cooking, eating, relaxing and socialising, our homes become more versatile and allow all members of the family to spend time together more easily.
When designing a new kitchen, there’s a balance to strike between making up to date style choices, and passing fashions that may soon become dated. Here’s our top 10 tips on which kitchen design trends we should look out for.
1. Rural retreat
Traditional shaker style doors are making a comeback, but instead of finishing with circular button handles, we think that a ‘push to open’ handleless shaker design gives the clean lines favoured by contemporary style.
2. Clean lines
To create stress free, idealistic living, opt for streamlined design. Continued runs of units will naturally extend the design line, either with handleless or rail handle design. Plan small appliances to be housed inside purpose built cupboards and optimise storage to keep work surfaces clear.
3. Natural colours
Kitchen trends continue to favour blues, greys, browns and greens in dusty natural tones of slate, taupe, olive and mushroom. For a bolder style statement, pair these soft tones with opulent regency hues of navy, moss, pewter and ocre. Rich oak and walnut floors and cabinetry will bring warmth and texture to your kitchen design.
4. Accessibility
Kitchen design should make your life easier. Eye level ovens, refrigerators and appliances can make cooking more convenient and be safer for working too. Varied worktop heights make food preparation more comfortable, and deep drawers allow easy access to cookware, crockery and ingredients when cooking.
5. Effective extraction
If your kitchen is open to the living areas of your home, then powerful hob extraction is crucial to avoid those unwanted kitchen odours from clinging to your soft furnishings. There are a variety of emerging technologies, but we favour BORA’s cooktop extractor which keeps the space above the hob clear at eyeline and achieves a 100% clean air rate.
6. Worktops
There are a wealth of worktop materials available from natural wood, stone and granite, to manufactured concrete, stainless steels and quartz composites. Each offers pros and cons including colour, finish, thickness, sustainability, durability, heat resistance, cost, antibacterial properties, and required maintenance. Consider how you use your kitchen and decide which qualities are most important to you.
7. Lighting
Plan task lighting for preparation areas where you’re chopping and cooking, and make these lights dimmable to create ambient lighting while you’re eating or relaxing. Bold statement lighting creates design interest and can highlight exciting features in your kitchen design.
8. Undermounted sinks
Seamless joining of sinks to the worktop are practical, hygienic and elegant. Achievable in a variety of materials from stainless steel to quartz, you can choose the colour and style to suit your kitchen design.
9. Taps
Fixings such as handles and taps provide the finishing touches to your kitchen design. Consider safety and practicality with easy to use swing arm function or a simple button press, and explore the variety of materials including gun metal, zinc, copper and nickel to complement design features of your kitchen.
10. Kitchen technology
Innovative solutions that make everyday life easier continue to improve kitchen design. Fridges that prolong the life of our fresh ingredients, steam ovens that can be programmed by a mobile phone app, touchscreen controls; we are excited to see what the future holds for kitchen design – worktop surfaces that can be used as a cooking surface maybe?!
We’d love to discuss your kitchen design dreams with you
Call us on 01608 690870 or email [email protected] to discuss how we can create the perfect kitchen for your home.
