Is Wood The New White in Kitchen Style Trends?

There's been a shift! Let's talk about it!

[tamaramartin]

i am obsessed with the white uppers / brown base cabinet look; just beautiful. And last night, i saw a tri-color look, with white uppers, brown base, and a lighter brown on the fridge. My word, it was stunning.

[hagun]

I'm building a new home, and the kitchen will have maple uppers and walnut lowers. I love wood.

[melissak]

Glad to see that we were ahead of the curve!Our new kitchen has beautiful wood shaker cabinets with incredible natural green quartzite countertops. Walking in is like entering a Zen sanctuary. My kitchen is really my happy place, which is good when you are cooking a lot!

[laurahopper]

Building a home and your videos come in so handy!
I am doing a walnut cabinet with a white Island and a nearly white quartz countertop. Also a white backsplash. Light wood floors. And here comes the brave thing.... Light aquamarine wall for the entire kitchen and living room open concept.
This is our retirement home and it is the final home I will ever have so I'm going to be very brave with color!

[dianelacy]

Hi Mark, Diane from Sequim, WA. We had a design consultant session a month or so ago and the kitchen demolition starts July 7th. The cabinets as I planned are alder from trees logged off my property, which are being treated natural, so sort of a blonde brown color. I've gone for a near white quartz countertop with a very slight caramel streaking. Also decided to change the flooring to a light oak. Still looking for the smaller appliances (dishwasher), but the Rev-A-Shelfs for the corners and pull-outs are wonderful. My cabinet maker is very impressed.

[trinaroe]

I’ve been a fan of white kitchens for over 40 years in and out of other fads. I’m totally devoted to going white!

[irinabeck]

Personal preference here, I never liked all white kitchens. They seem sterile, kind of the same and overdone to me. And keeping them clean is a pain (former housekeeper here). However, we live in a tiny lakehouse. The kitchen is very small and dark and I am thinking about putting white uppers with glass fronts to make the kitchen seem brighter and wood grain bottoms because this house needs wood. I am really set on Ikea Enkoping white for uppers and Enkoping walnut for bottoms. By the way, walnut Enkoping in real life looks more gray, modern and cool toned than in Ikea pictures.

[Carol_Pearson]

I switched from white cabinets (which were in my house when I bought it) to wood cabinets. While I think white kitchens can look beautiful, my personal preference in my personal space is wood. Perhaps it's because my dad used to be a forester, but I just love the look of wood. I'm a fan of going with what you like.

[flufwix]

One challenge is that wood types, colors and profiles go in and out of fashion.

[newsienurse]

Need to be careful. Some wood cabinets can look very cheap if they aren’t good quality

[trinaroe]

Maybe the high wall cabinets are for people that store Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving and Halloween specific dishes that they store in top shelves when it’s not that holiday! 😂

[LorisFL]

You can go from wood to painted cabinets relatively easily if you get sick of them in several years. You can’t really go from painted to wood with out replacing the whole cabinet or taking them off and stripping them. I recently remodeled and went with rift cut white oak and I love it. But if in 10 years i want a white kitchen again it won’t be hard to do.

[candacemommie]

You can tell what year the house was built by the maple or dark wooden cabinets. White wood forever.

[lhartwig]

The problem with wood cabinets you need a floor that is not wood or you end up with wood overload. Even with LVP most are wood looks. I had to delay a major remodel because I couldn’t find a flooring that would work with the Walnut slab door cabinets. I am glad I waited and did go with a stone look LVP and walnut slab door cabinets. I replaced white cabinets and hated them for the 24 years I lived with them. Painted cabinets need to be repainted every 3 or 4 years because paint doesn’t take the wear and tear that occurs in kitchens.

Just a note my $20, 000 US $ cabinets would have been over $40, 000 to grain match.

[trinaroe]

I don’t mind a sink in the corner if it’s a straight sink set on an angle under a double corner window.

[Rose_K.]

Hi Mark! I never seem to make the livestreams…what time are they usually?

[DahHar]

If you use panelled appliances, are the panels transferable when you replace the appliance?

[BobHarperPlus]

You mentioned this in the video, but I was recently chatting with some baby boomer family friends. They said when they were younger the thought was that you only painted your cabinets if you were using low-quality materials. For all wood cabinets, you would stain them or use a clear finish to show them off. To them, painted cabinets still look cheap. I thought that was an interesting perspective.

However, this move to stain-grade/natural wood cabinets makes it tough for me to find the perfect combination of color, door style, and wood type for my customers on a budget. If you can spring for customer cabinets, you are good to go. Otherwise, you have to settle for the options that pre-manufactured cabinet suppliers offer.

Also, it seems like the natural wood trends change more than paint. Nobody wants the same style and color of the wood gran cabinets from the 90's. I wonder if paint will go completely out of style or if it will be a safer bet for selling your house down the road... We'll see.

[ellenmcarthur]

What do you think about an island that has sink, dishwasher and plates, silverware in a drawer? I’m looking for a way to push that traffic to one end of the island while I maintain control of my cooking space at the other end.

[creativitybycarilyn]

I prefer a white kitchen cabinet because I already have wood on the floors. If I didn't have the wood floors, I would prefer a quality real wood on the cabinets.