The Latest Trends in Kitchen Design

By Ryan Dosen

 

Clean lines are in; flowery mosaics are out.

Open spaces are in; formal dining rooms are out.

The kitchen is the hub of your house. When it comes time to sell your home, it’s usually the most important room. The first thing most buyers will do when touring your home is make a beeline for your kitchen. If they’re not impressed with where they’ll put their pots and pans, you’ve likely lost a buyer.

I took a few minutes this week to sit down and discuss the latest trends in kitchen design with one of Chester County’s kitchen authorities, Lori Graf of Century Kitchens in Malvern. With a little help from our friendly neighborhood kitchen expert, let’s see how our all-important room is keeping up with the trends.

 

Kitchens Must Be ‘Clean, Neat, Timeless’

“Foofy” would have been a good thing if you lived at Downton Abbey in the early 1900s. “Foofy” is generally not a good thing if you’re looking to sell a home in Chester County in 2014.

Graf advises that today’s buyer wants a kitchen that is “clean, neat and timeless.”

The good news for someone designing a modern kitchen is that “foofy” extravagances such as ornamental cabinets and custom mosaic tile back-splashes of flower pots have become less desirable in recent years.

Today’s buyer is looking for simple, clean lines in a kitchen. Relatively plain, white or off-white cabinets, complemented with a mocha- or espresso-colored island is a common request.

In terms of flooring, buyers would generally prefer the uniformity of a common wood throughout the entirety of the first floor and kitchen. This desire for an uninterrupted flow of flooring segues us nicely into today’s buyer’s preference for:

 

Open and Continuous Floor Plans

Traditionally, kitchens and dining rooms were separate rooms usually connected only by a door and doorway that were often closed. Today’s buyer wants an open floor plan.

In an open floor plan, one room flows into the next, offering the look and feel of a great common area where everyone and everything can be happening together.

One problem with the traditional model is that while each room may have its purpose, some of the rooms, especially a formal dining room, can wind up simply “taking up space” due to a lack of regular use. Many families have two eating areas: a formal dining room that is rarely used and a breakfast area or kitchen table that becomes the family’s primary eating spot.

The current trend is to knock down the separating walls, eliminate that secondary eating location and maximize your square footage. When the dining room is part of a greater area that includes the kitchen and family room, the dining room gets regular use because it is no longer a separated entity.

Most people like the idea of eating at the dining room table, but they fail to do so for various reasons. Maybe there is a sporting event or show on television that no one wants to miss. Maybe everyone is getting home late and no one feels like setting up a separate room for dinner. Maybe the people working in the kitchen simply do not want to be separated from their loved ones during a meal.

The kitchen is command central for a house, and if you can give those in the kitchen the opportunity to still be a part of the all the action, this is generally considered a good thing.

 

Designing Your Kitchen

If you have a traditional floor plan and you want to create an open floor plan, obviously you are going to have to knock out some walls. The wall separating the kitchen from the dining room must come down or at least give way to a sizeable pass-through that will eliminate the sense of separateness.

Barriers should be removed so that a person working in the kitchen can see the family room and main television while still being able to interact with those at the dining table. Ideally, the cook will also be able to see people entering the home’s primary entrances from the kitchen’s work areas. It is also preferable to lay out your kitchen so that the cooks would rarely have their backs to all the action in the family room.

In terms of what to put into your new and “open” kitchen, Graf shared a few more details about today’s consumer:

• Gas cooking surfaces with five burners are a plus.

• Light colored, granite countertops with a matte or honed finishes are popular.

• Stainless steel remains popular.

• Those sparing no expense for high-end luxury may want to look at the increasingly popular imported white glass or “white ice” appliances.

• And remember: In terms of color and design, neutral is the only way to go.

 

Grilling Time

It’s summer and that means it’s grilling time. Graf also reminds us to make sure that we have quick, easy access to the grill from our open kitchens. Fewer steps is usually a good thing, and less is more when it comes to modern kitchen design.

 

About Ryan Dosen

Ryan Dosen manages The Wayne Megill Real Estate Team of Keller Williams Brandywine Valley in West Chester, PA. For buyer or seller representation, or for more perspective on the local and national real estate market, please email rdosen@megillhomes.com and visit The Wayne Megill Team blog at http://www.PAHomesAndRealEstate.com.