Home and Garden Repairs

Replacing the cabinets in your kitchen can turn a plain cooking area into a fabulous culinary preparation zone. The cabinets are what many people see first when they enter the kitchen, so you want these features to look very good. One issue buyers face when trying to get new kitchen fixtures, including cabinets, is that the ones that are available tend to follow trends. It's still possible to find cabinets that offer a timeless look that doesn't follow the latest trends, of course, but trendy items will have the bulk of the display area in showrooms. If you're asking cabinetmakers to provide custom cabinets for your home, don't automatically ask for the latest trends. In fact, reconsider some of them so you're sure that if you follow them, you do so because you actually like them.

Textures on the Cabinet Door

One trend has been to make the cabinet door more visually interesting by adding more designs and textures. Instead of a flat door or one that has a border, you can now find doors with hills, valleys, ridges, lines, grooves — you name it. They look nice when new, but keep in mind these designs will eventually gather dust and grease as you cook. Unless you're cleaning cabinet fronts weekly, you could end up with some dingy cabinets in a short time. Smoother cabinet fronts may be better if you cook a lot and have a place that's prone to collecting dust.

No Upper Cabinets

A trend that's been making itself known in social media and design circles is not having upper cabinets. The kitchen would have base cabinets that hold up the countertop, but the upper cabinets would be replaced with open shelves. This isn't new, of course, but it appears to be making a comeback among certain circles. If you're considering having base cabinets only, are you prepared to keep dusting the open shelves and washing every dish you have stored on them weekly to ensure none of the less-frequently used dishes gathers dust? If not, be sure to get upper cabinets with doors. One or two shelves for decoration or to hold something like cookbooks is not an issue, but not having anywhere to store dishes without exposing them to dust is not very helpful.

Dark Exteriors

There was a trend a few years ago where the whole of the kitchen would be done in dark colours — dark mahogany cabinet fronts, black or dark-granite countertops, dark wood flooring, black appliances and so on. The idea behind this was that darker colours would hide dirt better. Unfortunately, this led to two more problems. One was that not being able to see dirt meant that a lot of it didn't get cleaned up well because people couldn't see it. The other was that the kitchens were so dark that they could become depressing to be in. Kitchen trends have lightened up since then — in fact, there are newer trends toward lighter kitchens now — but dark cabinet fronts have remained one of the constants in kitchen design. Be sure you're OK with how dark they can make a kitchen look before getting them. Otherwise, look for neutral or light colours.

The cabinetmakers you talk to will have galleries and catalogues to show you so you can see what these styles look like on paper or in a showroom. But try to picture them in your own kitchen to be sure they're something you'll love for years. Contact a local cabinetmaker to learn more.