If like me you lived through the nightmare of the ‘Avocado Bathroom Suite’ era, you will know how colour can date almost everything. For years, the safe bet as far as a long term purchase of a kitchen was concerned was either a classical wood finish or a contemporary white style of furniture.
However, for a substantial section of the kitchen market, colour is now the key. We probably have the Shaker door style to thank for this increased interest in colour. It was the Shaker profile that demonstrated how a change of colour and handle could radically change the look of the whole kitchen.
But the colour effect has expanded from the Shaker door style. BA’s Bella Verona room-set seen here is a good example of how colour choice can breathe new life into an established format. The arch door used here has been with us almost as long as modern kitchen production itself has. And if the light oak of the over-mantle had been used throughout the kitchen there would be nothing too exceptional about this particular layout. But the introduction of Deep Space Blue base units and the Bronze Red wall units makes this kitchen look rather special.
Transfer those colours onto a Shaker or a slab door and the kitchen will look totally different, even if the same layout is used. We hear a lot about providing a ‘wow factor’ to a kitchen. Imagine if the over-mantle of the Bella Verona kitchen had been painted in dayglow yellow – that would have delivered one heck of a ‘wow’!
Increasingly the kitchen is no longer a room in isolation from the other living areas of a home and the style of the kitchen furniture has to blend in with these other areas. People are used to changing the colour scheme elsewhere in the home to keep it looking modern, or just to ring the changes. The same applies to kitchens now as well.
Article written by: Grahame Morrison. Grahame has been reporting on kitchen trends for over 30 years, is currently the editor of www.kb-network.co.uk and a contributor to designer kitchen & bathroom magazine.
