Kitchen Design
4 June 2008
“Forever Young”
The biggest problem with a timely kitchen design is that it doesn’t remain that way, and, paradoxically, it’s because of just that—because it’s timely. Almost by definition, anything that is timely is going to revolve around whatever is “hot” or edgy.” And after a while “hot” kitchen designs, just like any other fad, begin to cool. Any designer worth his salt, of course, is going to tell you that kitchens are changed every ten to fifteen years, so it’s important to keep abreast of the trends. But I still maintain that the most of us purchase a home only once or twice in a lifetime and get a complete remodeling of a kitchen, our own particular dream kitchen, only once, if we ever do. And who in the world is going to want to lay out forty to a hundred thousand dollars for a “cutting edge” kitchen that will soon lose that “edge?” Really, the better part of wisdom is not to make your kitchen timely; it is to make it timeless.
We have not yet begun our kitchen remodel, but when we moved into our home it had an avocado stove and hood, which gives you an idea of how old our kitchen is! (Marital peace disclaimer: we no longer have that avocado stove; the illustration is someone else’s outmoded kitchen!) But, really, at one time avocado was the hottest color around. First it was Harvest Gold, then Avocado. Or was it the other way around? In any case those colors were hot, especially avocado. By the time we got our home in late 1992, though, we could no longer bear the thought of something that outmoded, so we pulled out a perfectly fine stove and hood. And replaced them with almond-colored items! It’s been some years since I made that change, and almond is now as obsolete as the other “hot” colors.
Well, as I say, we have not yet begun our kitchen remodel, but when we do, we mean to be a bit wiser this time around. Kitchen remodeling has always been a large industry, but with all the attention focused on it in recent years in TV, magazines, and blog sites like this one, it has become an enormous industry. And the one thing that seems to run throughout is advice on whatever is the latest big thing—and the “hottest” design concept. So, what colors and themes are hot? Truthfully, the best answer to that question is, it doesn’t matter.
Actually, the most astute advice I ever heard on this subject came from my wife when I was designing a project. “Moving the pencil” is very much a part of how I design, and I sometimes find myself going on trips of fancy, but she always brings me back to earth. “No, let’s tone that down a bit,” she’ll say. “If you stick with the classics, you won’t grow tired of them.”
That, of course, is design in the abstract. To better make my point, I do want to pursue this subject a bit by turning to a new topic for us, countertops, and how the oldest has become, in some respects, the newest, but mostly the timeless. Fads fade. Classics are forever… timeless.
Joseph
NEXT: “Wooden Take Nothing for My Journey Now”
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One Response to “Kitchen Design”
June 6th, 2008 at 12:47 AM
Totally agree about things always fade in time… so every decade we need to upgrade our things especially when it comes to kitchen stuff…:)