Cabinet Trends

July 1, 2002
Professional Builder

How does one stay up to date on trends in kitchen and bath design? Pay attention to what the experts have to say.

The National Kitchen & Bath Association surveyed a sampling of its members, including certified kitchen and bath designers; dealers, designers and distributors of plumbing hardware; retailers; and manufacturers, fabricators and cabinet shop owners. Periodically in Professional Builder, we’ll take a look at the NKBA’s results to see what’s hot.

In cabinets for either room, the top three finishes are light wood, paint and dark wood. Three out of five people surveyed chose light wood as the hottest kitchen cabinet finish for this year, but the survey shows that it might not be as popular in the West as in other regions.

The top storage options for the kitchen are glass-front cabinetry, spice drawers/racks and recycling centers. Free-standing furniture for the kitchen is used significantly more in the South, and appliance garages are more prevalent in the South and Midwest.

In the bath, medicine cabinets continue to be the essential cabinetry — 79% of bath professionals use them — followed by linen cabinets at 64%.

Respondents prefer custom cabinetry (45%) and semi-custom cabinetry (35%) over stock cabinets in the kitchen. In the bathroom, the order of preference was the same, with slightly less difference in the percentage of users of semicustom and stock cabinets.

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