"'... stainless-steel appliances. Everyone wanted it,' says Mary Mendez, director of acquisitions at Renovation Angel, a charity that refurbishes and resells high-end kitchens.... 'We would get traditional kitchens and refinish them, and people could have a kitchen that looked new and save $50,000.' But now, Mendez says, the model is wobbling. The 'in' kitchen is white, minimalist, and German — think Poggenpohl — an impossible design to fashion out of an older, traditional kitchen, Mendez says. In a few years, she expects that they’ll get some second-hand ones in, though by then, tastes will have likely moved on. 'The attention span for style and color is far shorter than it was even two years ago,' she says. (All of this is, of course, terrible for the environment.)"
From "The Immediately Outdated Renovation" (NY Magazine).
It seems to me that once you start thinking in terms of what's "dated," everything is already dated or on the verge of being dated. Any recognizable style must be already out of style in the eyes of those who know better than you. I recommend not even trying, which — let me add, of course — is great for the environment.
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I renovated my first kitchen around 2008 and went all in on the HGTV trend at the time - replacing worn out laminate and old wood with white shaker and granite. Loved that kitchen refresh and did it for about $10k. Thank God a GC decided to help me - I was painfully out of my depth.
I renovated my second kitchen around 2014 (next house). I replaced high quality custom built oak cabinets with cheap RTA white shaker style cabinets and a proper layout. And Granite. Loved that kitchen too.
I built my own home from the ground up in 2021-2022. My kitchen is anchored in white shaker solid wood cabinets with an island in a dark tabacco color. With white counters.
Over the course of 16 years, I've spent.....~$120-140k on 3 kitchens across 3 homes. I've stayed with one design, and it's a great classic design.
I have no regrets.
I recommend not even trying, which — let me add, of course — is great for the environment.
But there lies the path to anonymity!
That Poggenpohl kitchen is for wealthy people who don't cook. I expect that, yes, it will be a short-lived fad.
All of this is, of course, terrible for the environment.
The obligatory green disclaimer. I assume they have this on a macro and it's inserted automatically somewhere in the article.
There really are two Americas, and one of them is doing great, and the other has to compete for jobs and wages with illegals in a kind of Hunger Games scenario.
"I recommend not even trying, which — let me add, of course — is great for the environment."
Damn right
Anything that is currently fashionable is going to be dated as soon as the fashion changes. I thought that was the whole idea.
Kitchens are very recyclable. When I renovated my kitchen, all the cabinets and appliances sold on Craigslist in a day.
At the time, I thought that the guy who started Craigslist should have gotten the environmentalist of the decade award. I was going trash those 40 year old Formica cabinets, but everyone wanted them for the garage or basement.
Theoretically utilitarianism is great for the environment except where actually practiced.
"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."
--Oscar Wilde
STYLE ?? Mr. Veblen, please call your office. In my extensive experience, with acquaintances -- and a few friends -- in the (nearby) county, one of the 1% wealthiest in America, almost nobody actually *cooks* in those kitchens.
Two delightful exceptions are one family with two adjacent 6-ring commercial gas stoves, and everything else set up as a very charming kitchen line when it comes to product flow. Parties there are great, and the half dozen of us who really know our way around a kitchen have an especilly wonderful time. The other family, in their custom house, had arranged for a large indoor kitchen charcoal grill with its flue tying into a living-room Rumsford fireplace. All the others? Insane fancy, but never used.
Reminds me of a close friend and HS buddy.
He went to Texas and started a demolition business. Specialized in removing concrete. He made a fortune when Texas Speedway was built. He followed behind new construction, ripping it out becuase of errors or change of plans.
One year he demoed ~50 concrete countertops, that were all the rage 3 years previous. The first Concrete counter top I had seen was up around Decorah IA . The lady had the concrete and had heat tape run in the concrete. It was perfect for her Kolachi she made and provided to local eateries
I followed the Poggenpohl link. I finally spotted a wall oven, but where is there a cooktop? How do you cook in that kitchen?
I have 35 acres of hardwood timber, primarily black cherry, red oak, and maple. 10-15 years ago black cherry was the most valuable. It has since hit the skids. Talking to the timber people, 40% of the cherry wood went to China. That has ceased. Two years ago maple was a thing, primarily because the demand switched to white painted (maple) cabinets. Recently that too has declined in demand. Just guessing, but I suspect the stellar economy *cough* has something to do with it.
It's all of the remodeling shows that are on cable television that are creating these trends that become immediately obsolete getting people to turn over their makeovers every time they sell their home in order to get top dollar. Fashionable market manipulation is as old as time itself.
I note a complaint (other than dated) is that something looks 'tired'. I can relate. Some days I feel as old as I am. Maybe older. But why is being tired a bad thing?
Tired is your body telling you to take a nap. Naps are a good thing!
Embrace the 'tired'!!
I can understand, to some extent, updating your wardrope to keep up with trends if needed for work or your social life. But your home should be decorated to what works for you aesthetically and functionally. Those who remodel their homes every few years are most likely doing so out of concern for what others may feel about their home rather than how they feel about it.
To paraphrase C.S. Lewis: The worst you can say about my kitchen is that it is old-fashioned. Yours will soon be the same.
Classically molded white or black cabinets, white or black (dark) counters. No patterns, no variegation in the counter material, just clean, simple and classic. You'll get 30-40 years minimum out of either.
"There really are two Americas, and one of them is doing great, and the other has to compete for jobs and wages with illegals in a kind of Hunger Games scenario."
Gavin Newsom smiles.
Renovation Angel, a charity that refurbishes and resells high-end kitchens....
How does this qualify as a "charity?" They currently offer things like a Wolf Certified Electric Steamer for $2,037 and a Sub-Zero certified Wine Cooler (wine cellar) for $4,999. Their search filter includes one for price, and has $50,000 and up, $20,000-$49,999, $10,000-$19,999, $5,000-$9,999, and $4,999 and under. Really helping the poor and needy, huh?
We were going to renovate in 2020 but family life events happened so we put it off. Looking at renovation now and man have styles changed. And the cost, especially labor, wow. Looks like it will be at least twice as expensive as in 2020.
Most people are too terrified to express themselves with decisions that reflect their own personal tastes and likes - because the pressure to conform to the current trend is over-whelming.
my advice - do what you want and screw the trends. The hard part tho - is locating objects (tile, cabinets, lighting etc..) that fulfill a desire outside of the trend.
All the gray and white - done to death - are already feeling cold and tired.
I hate stainless steel appliances, but I have them because that's what we had when we moved in and I wasn't going to replace the ovens when we had to buy a new refrigerator and microwave. Plus we put in a stainless steel backsplash behind the stove which is really nice. I do want to get rid of the rest of the tile backsplash and granite. White cabinets are my first choice and that will never change.
Sheep getting fleeced? Shrug. These people have so little substance to them that they can't even determine their own aesthetic preferences. They must be told what looks good and they will go along with whatever hideous design is "on trend." (See also the ugly flat gray cars that have been popular for a few years.)
I would never choose a kitchen design like TreeJoe describes above (white cabinets and white countertop - boring), but he knows what he likes. For me and my wife it is Craftsman with natural cherry or quarter-sawn oak. We renovated our kitchen in 2019 and will enjoy it's timeless design for another 25 or 30 years until we no longer want such a large house and we sell it.
I recall a video you posted some time ago - Ann - showcasing that actress Diane Keaton in her newly remodeled kitchen. Gray, drab, depressing. She was standing in front of the cabinets, and the uppers were too tall her her to reach. (another lame trend)
but hey - she is wealthy and it can all be ripped out.
That German stuff has a certain aesthetic, but a normal person can't live like that.
Normal people have 'stuff.' There is no stuff in those photos.
People like Shaker cabinets because they are clean, simple, and classic.
I don't think they will go out of style anytime soon.
Same with columns as an architectural detail...they are a couple of thousand years removed from Greek and Roman temples and still look great.
'There really are two Americas, and one of them is doing great, and the other has to compete for jobs and wages with illegals in a kind of Hunger Games scenario.'
The Rs need to be pushing this exact message...
Poggenpohl, ugh. Nothing worse than an ugly, never-used kitchen. Lots of sharp angles, which means bruises for a working cook. A house with a cold kitchen is just occupied space, no soul.
Back in high school I played saxophone for both the concert and jazz band, first chair. Occasionally, I would feel a little feisty, and intentionally start playing slower than the established tempo. Intentionally seeing if I could slow down the whole band. It always worked and the music teacher would stop everyone, and was really confused about what happened.
I think a lot of fashion and home design folks are the same kind of feisty. Let's see if we can get people to do stupid things or push aside anything that makes sense. Driving around my mountain resort community (I'm a full-time resident, over 50% of homes are airbnbs and vacation) I look at the curious number of mountain cabin looking homes painted all black and think how those owners got snookered by the home design trends.
I guess it reflects the art community too. A lot of people without any internal sense of form, function, or desire are told by others what to do and how to do it. Sadly, because the go-alongers tend to also have a fair bit of money around here, it makes for a lot of silly construction and home redesign. Contractors win out, of course, so they're not going to say anything different if someone wants to pay a lot of money to do something silly.
Meanwhile, we need to remodel our bathrooms for better overall use and such, but the prices for doing that are still off the charts, because all the richer folks keep redesigning the already redesigned parts of their homes to keep up with the trends. I guess, I have to turn my head until that darkness goes.
My natural cheapskate tendencies have thwarted all redecorating trends.
By the time I sell my house, I'm betting my natural wood cabinets, Formica countertops and popcorn ceilings are going to be what people look for in period-authentic housing...
"All of this is, of course, terrible for the environment."
Quaestor vehemently disagrees on principle, as he does with any argument made with "all of this is, of course, terrible for the environment" as a coda. Nothing is more antithetical to reason than the play of the environment card, the second joker in the pack of logical devices. If there are two jokers on the table, it's time to shoot the dealer right between the eyes.
"Most people are too terrified to express themselves with decisions that reflect their own personal tastes and likes - because the pressure to conform to the current trend is over-whelming."
The problem is resale. But I agree...once you are in your 'forever home,' do what you want and let your heirs worry about it : )
"I hate stainless steel appliances..."
They are practical in the sense that there very little upkeep. I think I might go with 'old-school' enamel of some shade if I ever do another kitchen. Or wood panels for the refrigerator. I like the 'blend in' look...
Some years ago I built a very comfortable and expensive house for my wife, spending a lot of money on a Brazilian cherry wood and black granite kitchen, with stainless steel sinks, as was the style then. My wife loved it.
Within six or seven years, though, some home renovation TV show or Instagram influencer convinced her that OF COURSE it was intolerably out of fashion and dark and dowdy, and all the beautiful and important people were installing white cabinets and porcelain sinks. I blew my stack and outright refused to change a thing. She sulked a while but got over it.
Now we are downsizing and building a more modest house for the two of us, and the kitchen will be white and porcelain and light colored stone as she had been craving for years. I told her I guessed she would come to me in five years more, begging for Brazilian cherry wood and black granite.
Get in the kitchen that was in the house we bought - forgot about spending that kind of $ on remodeling - and make me a sammich. And afterwards, meet me in the bedroom. You can look at the ceiling that I refused to scrape the popcorn off.
Super excited about the puffy shoulder and sleeve clown-blouses the fashion designers are pushing.
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Our condo came with Poggenpohl cabinets- not my thing really but very nice quality. Those silent close drawers never wavered…
I want to throw some Henckles kitchen shears at the ‘bad for the environment’ signaling lady.
If you are not a real hurry, you don't have to worry about replacing appliances you don't like, they will crap out after a few years anyway. We bought all Maytags when we re-did our kitchen 10 years. One by one they died, except the fridge, we're on third one of those.
Larry's Third Law states that "Fashion is for suckers."
People have complained, with good reason, about planned obsolescence for a long time. What better example of planned obsolescence is there than fashion? Fashion is about more than clothing; it includes cars, whatever is considered "in" for the moment, and of course homes, especially kitchens. My wife loves to watch a lot of "home improvement porn" shows which complain that perfectly functional kitchens are "dated", so the demand is to spend tens of thousands of dollars ripping and replacing.
Six burner stoves are a waste of space and money. They require upgraded hood fans and larger venting. Go with four burners. Smart appliances are a waste of time and money. Nobody needs to have the fridge ordering milk, ever. Low end dishwashers fail way too quickly, high end dishwashers surprisingly not much longer than the cheap ones. Refrigerators should be inset into the wall, not sticking out six or eight inches into the room, but nobody every builds this way except in ultra high level homes. Thank you for reading.
Layout is way, way, way more important than style.
Currently in the planning stages for bathroom remodels. My only intent is to keep it relatively simple and in line with the rest of the house (1999 "Southwest McMansion"). Most of the time I'd rather maintain what's there, unless it really is worn and ugly. And not have every other room representative of a different decade.
Close the kitchen off from guests. Why should they hang out in there? Do they hang out in the laundry room too? The garage? Who cares what someone's kitchen looks like.
We watch a lot of these shows on HGTV. I shake my head about how they rip out perfectly fine kitchens because they're "dated". We have to vault the ceilings, because you won't be spending enough on utilities to heat and cool the place. Knock down all the walls so we can put in $20,000 in support beams so we can have "open concept". Put in huge islands so we can spend a few more thousands on marble or granite, because reasons!
And of course, the homeowner doesn't get to have but a small amount of input into the design. Oh, we'll let you pick out some tile or colors (from a limited number of choices we "curated" for you), but trust us, we know what is best for you! So you'll be getting granite, marble, quartz, butcher block, concrete, whatever the flavor of the week is, for countertops. By next week, it'll be outdated again, and we'll start all over!
This is why I would never get picked for these shows. I want low ceilings, that make the space cheaper to heat and cool. I want defined rooms I can close off if I'm not using them. If I'm cooking, I don't want to talk to you. (As my mom used to say, "Y'all get outta my kitchen, I'm busy!") I don't want hand-crafted tile that costs $10 a tile. I also want them to be uniform, not "unique" or "textured". Plain, white, subway tile is just fine. And everyone wants a farmhouse sink, for reasons I can't figure out. Are you living in a farmhouse? No? Then just stop!
Yeah, I'm an old grouch. Got a problem with that?
Agree with most of mikee's comment at 1:09 pm, except: "Six burner stoves are a waste of space and money." It's not the number of burners that makes them worthwhile. Rarely does one need six separate burners. It's the spacing between the burners. I can have 3 large diameter pots/pans on a the same time on my six burner range-top by staggering the pots. I could never have more than two such pots on my standard width four burner range.
Agree with most of mikee's comment at 1:09 pm, except: "Six burner stoves are a waste of space and money." It's not the number of burners that makes them worthwhile. Rarely does one need six separate burners. It's the spacing between the burners. I can have 3 large diameter pots/pans on a the same time on my six burner range-top by staggering the pots. I could never have more than two such pots on my standard width four burner range.
My kitchen has painted wood shelves and cabinets that probably date from 1918 or so. The brass drawer pulls look like they were a 1950's addition along with the light blue patterned Formica counter-tops. I also have a maple butcher block. This is literally the first time I have ever given my kitchen decor and thought at all. Now my pots, pans, knives, silverware, and china is another matter altogether. Those things matter.
I rehabbed mine to look mid-century modern, as the house is. Granite countertops that mimic linoleum. Subway tile in marble. Pendant lights over the kitchen eating area. Counter depth refrigerator. I feel right at home.
Kitchen renovations are probably suffering since the interest rate hikes made home equity loans a lot more expensive.
If you're living in a tiny NYC space, I can see why a minimalist aesthetic might be appealing, if it's less crowded.
Someone asked about the cooktop; I think it's flush with the top of the island.
"Any recognizable style must be already out of style in the eyes of those who know better than you."
And do those eyes belong to Kim Velsey, who is Curbed’s real-estate reporter?
Most of my furniture are hand-me-downs. My house has been called a museum of old family stuff. Which is fine, they seem to me like comfortable old friends.
My kitchen is what I got when I bought the house 9 years ago, with one exception. The stove died and a nephew who was installing appliances for Best Buy came up with a used stove for me, free. It still works.
The dishwasher died 7 years ago. I live alone and can scrub sooo...that will be replaced if the fridge ever fails. Hang on there, Fridgy!
The basement I have been fixing up over the past 2-3 years. Biggest expense was the egress window. Should be done with it sometime this year.
I'm irritated by modern kitchen gas range design, where the burners are completely covered with cast iron grates, covering the space between the burners.
Yeah, you can more easily move hot pots on the stove, but if you drip anything through the grates above that formerly-exposed open space, you have to lift them aside to clean up.
On top of that you will likely have spilled liquids onto the grates themselves, so you have to schlep them to your kitchen sink to be washed.
Who thought of this bullshit?---certainly not anyone who actually cooks!
And oh yes, those black burners ugly up a nice kitchen.
I just moved into a house that had a serviceable if dated kitchen.
I realized this was my opportunity to have fun - so I had the cabinets painted emerald green and got black and white diamond vinyl flooring. Way cheaper than the fancy kitchen of my dreams but it makes me smile and I don't care if I make a mess because this is really just a 'place holder' kitchen while I deal with everything else this 95 year old house needs.
Today's kitchens are expensive horror shows that aren't even designed for cooking but to show off appliances, the more and bigger the better. There's the island. Islands are awful. You have to walk around them to get across the room, and they turn the kitchen into an oblong, which means even more steps as you are trying to cook. There is no real place to sit, except on barstools. Barstools are not only difficult to get onto (you have to clamber up) and uncomfortable to sit on for any length of time, but they prevent conversation, since you can talk only to the person sitting next to you, one at a time--OK if there are just two of you, but what about a family or guests? I've seen kitchen islands with four and even six barstools lined up along the island, like the kitchen is Joe's Tavern. Does the entire family actually line up there on those barstools--ever? Islands mean your kitchen has to be shaped like an oblong--more steps for the cook. A proper kitchen should be a square, with the kitchen table in the middle instead of way off at one end as in today's kitchens. At the kitchen table the cook can take a break now and then, and chores can be communal, a family affair: sitting in real, comfortable chairs with the kids shelling peas or chopping vegetables. Then there's the microwave: a huge, ugly, weird, noisy thing plopped in the middle of what should be a warm, cozy space. I refuse to have a microwave in my kitchen (there is this thing called an oven that takes only a few minutes longer to heat food). Then there are the enormous appliances that are either scary (the Viking stove) or don't work very well. And all the rest: the air fryer, the espresso machine, the Instant Pot, the toaster oven the size of a safe. And the color scheme: those forbidding all-white kitchens that look as though they belong in a hospital or the acres of dark, dark cabinets--or all-beige or all-gray: spooky! These are kitchens that are marred by the slightest sign of food-preparation, or even food itself. (And, in fact, some kitchens are set up entirely for show, with the actual messy food preparation hidden away in the "real kitchen," an alcove somewhere. The one thing to be said about today's kitchens is that there's a lot of counter space, but that's about it. The kitchen should be the warm, cozy, comfortable heart of the house, not a gigantic show-off space for cool things. If it serves that purpose, it will never look dated--it will reflect all the things that the the cook brings to it: the glasses she bought at a yard sale in 1996, Grandma's embroidered dish towels, the Le Creuset dutch oven her husband bought her for Christmas. It will be alive, not the sterile, dead space that so many kitchens are these days.
I bought a tear-down, put in a $2000 Ikea butcher block top kitchen ($3500 with stove and fridge), and plan to bring it to my next house unless I get an offer I can't refuse. I use a half price Boos Block for prepping. A nuclear war would leave that thing unscathed.
I've easily unhooked the cabinets twice to do foundation and electrical work.
My advice is to buy the best Ikea stuff, not the cheapest. It's still a fraction of shitty installed cabinets and is made to move. And there are a lot of videos online for help, though they're pretty easy.
Time consuming. Get some good podcasts.
We are in the process of redoing our kitchen. When we added a home office, we decided to match the house so, since our house has a mansard roof, the fireplace, moldings and so forth were based on early 19th century. This approach won't work for our kitchen because the functions of modern kitchens are much broader than those of the 19th century. For instance, if you look at photos of the kitchen in Monticello, you see cook surfaces and ovens that are wood fueled counterparts of modern ones. But instead of cabinets there are shelves: most food was stored in spring houses, smoke houses and root cellars. In fact, it appears that cabinets were pretty much absent from kitchens until the early 20th century. Moreover, while we are expecting to have a kitchen table for breakfasts etc, 19th century kitchens did not have such tables. Plus there are new appliances. So, it seems to me, since the kitchen of today is a combination of many household functions, it should be designed with ease of use foremost without resort to historic references.
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