Cabinets are often the foundation of a kitchen’s design, acting as the anchor of the space that sets the tone for the overall style. After a decade-plus-long love affair with white cabinets, homeowners are expanding their design palettes, embracing a variety of colors, materials and textures that take a cabinet’s presence from stage setter to main attraction.
While gray was a natural progression from white to add a bit of expression to cabinets, today’s colors venture beyond the predictable neutrals, with blues and greens being embraced on a regular basis. And, wood tones are starting to re-enter the space, capitalizing on the rise in interest in natural materials and organic looks.
Some of the trends being seen right now in kitchen cabinets include:
- Texture continues to garner interest, with homeowners looking for surfaces that not only add interest but beg to be touched.
- Pale and medium woods are leading the return-to-wood trend, with natural stains and surfaces delivering an earthy appeal.
- The traditional shaker door style is giving way to a more modern shaker, as well as flat panel, contemporary looks.
- Painted styles are venturing past the white tones and neutrals and embracing a more colorful selection in keeping with the personalization of spaces, with ranges of blues, greens, blacks and even corals and reds bubbling to the surface.
- Unexpected surfaces, such as stone and metal, are making dramatic statements with regard to cabinetry, especially in more modern designs.
- Two-tone cabinets remain a popular trend, though design styles are venturing away from white with a contrasting dark paint and more toward a painted cabinet paired with a wood finish.