USA and Canadian Kitchen Cabinet Trends for 2010. Taste 2010 new trends of North American style kitchen cabinets with modern kitchen faucets. Expect dark woods and finishes to kick start 2010, but “future proofing” looks to dominate in coming years. We spoke to Caroline Castrucci of Laurysen Kitchens in Ottawa and president of the Canadian Kitchen Cabinet Association (CKCA) for their take on some of the current and emerging trends in cabinetry.
The move to medium
Though dark woods and dark stains will kick the decade off, Fell expects more and more homeowners will shift to the safe middle to “future-proof” their homes for possible resale. “Now, future-proofing means applying maple or birch with a medium finish. It’s the safe choice in a poor economy.”
“Doors will become plainer with fewer mouldings, especially applied ones,” predicts Castrucci. Castrucci further reports that homeowners aren’t dressing up their exteriors with crown or applied mouldings as often, while handles are becoming simpler, including concealed ones like push latches which don’t require any hardware, are easy to use and offer very clean lines.
Condos vs. houses
Fell foresees a long-term trend based on the growing schism between condo dwellers and house owners. “If you live in a condo there’s a limited number of renovation projects you can do,” says Fell. “So kitchens are one of the few things that you can renovate without restriction, and condos resell at a faster rate than houses.”
Condo tastes are dictated by smaller spaces: less ornate decoration such as shaker doors with a flat centre panel or a full flat panel door, because they look clean and create the illusion of space. “There’s a lot more simple cabinetry going on in condos,” says Fell. “It’s maple and birch in all tones.”
Fell also singles out the current fashion of painting doors in primary colours like red. At the same time lighter colours “open up” a condo, which will lead to more mixing of cabinet doors.
As for houses, Fell predicts that they will shrink in size. “There used to be ginormous homes of 3,500 square feet with plain finishings and no features inside. But now the attitude is to build a smaller house, but put all the bells and whistles inside. This is a trend that will come out of this recession.”
If the size of Canadian homes is shrinking, the number of bathrooms in them is doing the exact opposite. Fell expects it to become normal to have four bathrooms in the typical family home, which adds up to “a significant number of cabinets equal to building another kitchen.”
Aging in Place
The big sellers right now are drawer systems with a soft-close feature. As the Canadian population ages, notes Castrucci, customers will grow more aware of ergonomics. Fell and Castrucci foresee continuing sales of cabinets and storage that prevent homeowners from bending or climbing steps. “Like those cabinets that detach from the wall and come down when you want to reach into them,” offers Fell, or “upper cabinets with lift doors that lift straight up instead of open out which you see more in condos and contemporary kitchens.”
Besides an aging demographic, the other long-term trend is environmental conservation. “We’re going to see a lot more reconstituted veneers, green products and water-based stains and finishes,” says Castrucci.
