A recent US & Canadian survey unveiled trends in kitchen and bath design. The results showed that, overall, people like easy to maintain rooms, working with sustainable products to help the environment, and are moving towards a style with fewer details and cleaner lines. Here are some of the highlights:
CABINETS: A number of lesser-used woods are being specified more often than the previous top-seller - cherry - including birch and bamboo. People are concerned with deforestation as much as with a change to transitional styling. Cabinetry color continues a steady move toward darker finishes including ebony, black and dark grey. White painted finishes remain popular and distressed finishes are making a comeback.
STYLE: Transitional style, which is a blend of traditional and contemporary, is now considered a classic style. Contemporary is the next most common style with Shaker, arts & crafts, and cottage the next most frequently used.
LIGHTING: Energy-efficiency is clearly not a fad. Despite the higher initial cost, light-emitting diode, or LED, lighting use is proof of this trend. Many municipalities have energy codes, and people want to save on utility costs. Adding to that is a ban on 100-watt incandescent bulbs and one coming for 75-watt incandescent bulbs in 2013.
FAUCETS: Pull-out kitchen faucets have become established as the dominant type of kitchen faucet. These versatile models might also be mitigating the need for pot-filler faucets which are on the decline. Supplanted by brushed metal finishes in the past, polished chrome is staging a comeback. The increased use of polished finishes is clearly coming at the expense of brushed finishes. Over the past two years, brushed nickel use is on the decline, possibly to its care requirements. Only stainless steel has managed to clearly buck the trend away from brushed finishes and it's likely due to the transitional styling of stainless fixtures.
STORAGE: The tried-and-true medicine cabinet had been swept aside for the last 5 years being replaced by decorative wall mirrors. It's coming back as people opt to upgrade in the same footprint which leaves no added room for toiletry storage.
