5 Hot Trends in Kitchen Cabinets

Choosing kitchen cabinetry for a remodel or new build is a serious endeavor. Your kitchen cabinetry represents a large portion of your kitchen's design - and a fair chunk of your building budget. What's more, kitchen cabinetry significantly impacts the ease of completing kitchen tasks.

Because the decision is so weighty, it may be tempting to go with the tried-and-true method - stock cabinets with shaker-style doors. That certainly provides a neutral backdrop to your kitchen décor and tasks. However, the following five cabinetry trends bear merit for upgrading both décor and storage options in the kitchen.

At their heart, cabinets are boxes for storing kitchen necessities. A hallmark of the modern style is stripping furnishings down to their bare essentials. This can come through in your cabinetry. Imagine a set of unadorned cabinets with sleek, glass-paneled doors.

The goal here is to emphasize the geometry of the cabinets and their minimalistic essence. You may want to opt for stark white cabinets. However, a dark finish enhances their minimalism. Likewise, hinges and pulls should be discreet. Stainless steel or even chrome is ideal because the gleaming metal speaks to the industrial nature of mod design.

The anatomy of a cabinet consists of a carcass - the cabinet box - and the door. With traditional cabinets, the doors are hinged to the frame. A new take on this standby is the transitional cabinet. With this style, the door panels are recessed inside the frame and attached directly to the insides of the cabinet box. There's no visible frame between the doors.
Also called frameless or European-style cabinets, this style offers you full access to the interior. Because there's no visible framing, the overall effect is sleek - indeed, it's an ideal option for the ultra-mod kitchen design aesthetic.

Many homeowners choose to create a homey feel in their kitchen by capturing an old-world or farmhouse style. These types of kitchens often feature weighty cabinetry. Indeed, the trend is to recreate the look of furniture by embellishing the cabinets' facades.

You start with the stock or custom-built cabinets and add trim to the doors. That already adds visual appeal. From there, you can also add corbels under the coulters and feet under the cabinets themselves. For an even more elaborate effect, you can have the contractors add carvings and moldings.

Cabinetry trends don't only revolve around the boxes and doors. You can also modify your cabinetry with customized hardware. For instance, HGTV describes how one of their Dream Homes features dark bronze hardware upholstered in leather. The result is a sophisticated complement to the kitchen's color scheme.

You don't have to order custom-made hardware. Rather, you could customize your cabinetry with your personal choice of hardware. If you take a standard shaker style cabinet door and add modern, stainless steel pulls, then you have an ideal backdrop for a chef's kitchen. The same cabinets outfitted in elaborate wrought-iron hardware make a beautiful backdrop for an old-world kitchen.

One of the most important aspects of your kitchen cabinetry is the storage it provides. The kitchen is a high-task place, and your storage options need to facilitate this work. For that reason, a practical trend to consider is customizing the storage your cabinetry provides.

For this trend to be most useful to you, it's important to think about all the kitchen tasks you currently undertake and any new ones you may want to try. Think about how storage can facilitate these needs.

For instance, if you want easy access to dry goods, you might consider a pullout pantry near your food preparation area. Customized storage is also a good way to accommodate small appliances, oversized utensils and serving ware.
Spend some time thinking about which cabinetry trends might work in your kitchen. Then, visit Carolina Quality Flooring & Cabinets to make your kitchen dreams a reality.