Hungeling Design | Luxury Kitchen Designer

As a kitchen designer for a high-end brand, I’m frequently contacted by publications to identify new kitchen trends.  I’m always at a loss when these phone calls come in because I loathe discussing trends in design.  I love innovative new ideas in design, but I’ve always had a natural aversion to doing anything which would time-stamp someone’s kitchen.  It brings to mind Warren Buffett’s advice about investing…watch what other people are doing and then do the opposite.

I cannot do this article justice without using the luxury British cabinet company, Clive Christian, as an example.  Almost 30 years ago, the man behind this brand, Mr. Clive Christian, was an interior designer struggling to fill his client’s requests for more elegant  kitchens than were around in those days.  Mr. Christian began designing his own kitchens which led to the launch of the mega brand we have today.  One of the most notable things that he did to knock convention on its ears was to hang two lavish crystal chandeliers over the kitchen island.  The idea of an ornate light fixture in a kitchen isn’t all that uncommon today, but 30 years ago, it was utterly shocking.   However, it caught on gradually because it touched the right note with people.  They wanted to live in their kitchens just like they did in the rest of their home.  Why should this one room be treated any differently when it comes to warmth, style, and sophistication?

With the average price of a Clive Christian kitchen costing over $100,000, the company must continually offer something with enduring value and timelessness to keep its appeal to luxury consumers.  Even today, when the market flocks towards extremely simple white kitchens, Clive steers his ship in the opposite direction, offering his clients a vision of a more decadent lifestyle.  This approach has kept him safely out of the way of becoming a time-warped brand.

Your kitchen will likely be the single biggest expenditure of your home and you should not need to overhaul it every ten years or you’ve simply done something wrong.  Since the media and the internet are full of advice on how to emulate the best kitchen trends, I’m taking the opposite approach by showing you how to avoid some of them:

The “Professional” look:  By this I mean a kitchen full of the latest and greatest appliances for a professional chef.  This look entails all stainless steel appliances – and the bigger the better.  I would like to clarify that I think stainless steel, in and of itself, is a classic.  However, we all know someone who has remodeled their kitchen and spent every penny they had on appliances…and they don’t even cook.  I think this has always been a bit gauche, but I think it will be seen more and more that way in the future.

Two’s of Everything: Two dishwashers, two ice makers, two refrigerators, etc.  Certainly, many homeowners do need these additional items because of large families, or frequency of entertaining.  I’m not necessarily knocking any of these things specifically, it’s just that occasionally I have clients that want so many appliances that they don’t have any room left over for cabinets.  Get what you need and what you’ll actually use.  Don’t let the magazines tell you that a luxury kitchen requires every appliance available on the market.

Specific Cabinet Finishes: White is a classic and will always be a classic, however, other wood finishes and painted finishes do have peaks and valleys in their popularity.  This is where it really pays to observe what everyone else is doing and then try not to do it.  Over the last few years, stained cherry cabinets have been very popular.  I can’t help but think that in another ten years, you’ll be able to walk into someone’s house, see cherry cabinets, and know exactly when that kitchen was done.

Mega Kitchens: I think this trend may be on its way out.  For quite a while, homeowners just wanted to have larger and larger kitchens.  With the economic changes of the last year, I’m now predicting that people will return to a greater appreciation of quality over quantity and this will impact the size of the kitchen.

Ultimately, the kitchen has become the center of all activity in the home.  As such, people want their kitchens to be just as stylish and comforable as the rest of the house.  Kitchens will probably start to look less and less like heavy work zones and more and more like family rooms with cabinetry integrated into paneling and sleeker, less obtrusive appliances.  In fact, Clive Christian’s message on this point is pretty relevant today:  Why should our kitchen be different from any other room in our home?

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