Clean, Elegant Kitchen Textures
Kitchen remodeling is one of the best ways to increase the value of your home. Frequently, the remodel cost is offset by your home’s new market value. But what inspires homeowners to undergo a remodel is usually more abstract.
Do you want to increase the size of the kitchen, add improved storage or just bring it up-to-date with colors, textures and appliances? These are just a few of the reasons we can think of, so we talked to some kitchen pros to find out what trends are in this year.
“Quartz is the majority of what we do today,” says Jimmy Domer, the general manager of Hartville-based Top Advantage Surfaces. “Our main brand is Cambria quartz, which is manufactured right down the road in Kent.”
And the love of quartz is widespread — it’s one of the most popular materials on the market right now.
“The progression went from Corian, the acrylic stuff, to granite — and granite is still popular, but more of the high-end granites — to quartz,” Domer says.
Top Advantage sees a lot of whites and grays used in kitchen countertops and backsplashes today. “More homeowners like the natural look of the veining,” Domer says. “So now you see a lot of white countertops with gray veins or gray countertops with white veins.”
A drawback of granite is that it is porous, and there’s some maintenance involved, like resealing. That’s because it is cut from stone instead of being manufactured from powder-like material.
“Quartz is so nice because it’s non-porous and smooth,” Domer says. “You can put raw chicken on it, clean it off with soap and water, and not have to worry about any bacteria lingering in the grain. And it doesn’t stain.”
Cambria quartz uses 93 percent quartz and 7 percent proprietary resins, according to Domer.
"When quartz is made it has the consistency of cookie dough, they spread their color and everything into the mix. It is then compressed and heated, and when it comes out it is in a hard slab. After this step, it is diamond polished to a matte or polished finish," says Domer, adding that Cambria can make many designs and use many colors, so their possibilities are nearly endless.
“Five or six years ago, we were doing a lot of beiges and tans predominantly. Now the trends are leaning towards whites, and a clean look, a lot of modern farmhouse stuff, where you match the old with the new, and some modern rustic is the new trend we see.”
Domer laughs but says that shows like Fixer Upper on HGTV can significantly influence trends.
“A lot of people are getting their countertops replaced now, and we can also carry it over to the backsplash,” he says. “We call it a full-height backsplash, and they’ll put it up the wall. Then we’re also doing a lot of islands. So [homeowners] have their perimeter and a big island focal point in the center. And we can waterfall [the quartz] down the side of the cabinet or island.”
From counters to cabinets and other accents, James Justice, owner of Architectural Justice in Medina, says another hot thing in kitchens right now is metal. “The metal just adds something different to the kitchen,” he says.
Justice says the accents come in six different finishes, including gunmetal black, white, nickel, urbane bronze and raw steel.
Architectural Justice manufactures the metal product line at its Medina location, which includes a showroom for people to see how it looks in a concept kitchen. It also offers full-service interior design, and he notes that the trend is leaning more toward elegance than industrial.
Justice also adds that cabinet designs are moving away from ornate patterns. “We see a little swing back towards some natural woods but with a more modern look,” he says. “The trend is moving away from the traditional stuff, which has a lot of edging. In a modern look, you may have flush doors and things like that.”
Like other details in the kitchen, flooring trends are also changing. Engineered products that are as good as natural wood are in, and you often can’t tell the difference between engineered and solid hardwood.
“A lot of flooring is still the really wide plank. But it is engineered hardwood. [Manufacturers] have changed the way they’re making high-end flooring; they’re actually cutting it like a real plank on a sawmill.
Justice recommends that customers who are thinking of remodeling take photos of their kitchen and talk with design experts.
“We work through the entire design, creating 3D renderings with their budget in mind,” he says. “Then they can move forward completely with us or partially. Usually, we end up doing the entire job, nine times out of 10.”