Counter Intuitive

Mark Martin, director of design services for the Drees-Zaring Design Center in Cincinnati, says that a growing number of production home buyers are asking for the ability to mix and match their kitchen countertop finishes. The hottest kitchen upgrade in his area is a blend of traditional solid surfacing and quartz-looking products (like Silestone or Zodiac). "Buyers are still into Corian, but they are combining it with equally low-maintenance quartz products," he notes.

digital art: drees

It's a sign of a shift in design tastes. Buyers have zealously embraced Old World looks for the kitchen over the past five years, surrounding stainless steel appliances with richly detailed cabinetry and rustic finishes and colors. But kitchen trend forecaster Renee Hytry, senior vice president of global design for Formica Corp., claims that buyers are now putting a priority on low-maintenance products in what she calls a "Transitional" style. "The cherry, stainless, granite look is what kids have grown up with and what parents have now had in their kitchens for ten years," she explains. Now they're craving something different. The Transitional style answers that demand by combining elements of the traditional kitchen with more contemporary touches.

Those contemporary touches include greater choice in surfaces. Hytry uses the term 'counterscaping,' to describe the use of different heights on a single counter. For example, a kitchen with low-maintenance concrete countertops might have traditional butcher block affixed to the surface in food prep areas, creating a layered effect.

Butcher block islands are also making a comeback. "Islands in general are huge," says Hytry. And they can include countertops made of rustic woods in plank rather than strip form. "Using distressed plank countertops in certain areas of the kitchen is part of a rustic looking kitchen, but heavy rustic wood goes in contemporary kitchens, too, in the Transitional style," she explains.

Linda Bergling, owner of Chicago-based Stainless Steel Kitchens, sees more demand for stainless steel countertops around the sink and range. "An integrated stainless sink with the countertop means there are no edges, so it's easy to clean," she says. Bergling points out that a good, upgraded stainless sink alone costs about $400, but adds that using a high-grade stainless sink is important to people who worry about whether the sink and counter will match their number-4 finish stainless appliances.

Where's all this headed? Toward an expectation among buyers that they will be offered even more choices.

Hytry says that Formica's global qualitative research has identified "texture" as the new buzzword for kitchens. "Buyers want to give their kitchens a third dimension," she explains. "So we're making laminate more interesting." In answer to metal's popularity Formica added Authentix, a line of laminates that looks like brushed metal, with stainless colors as well as warmer copper and bronze tones.

She predicts that the next kitchen staple will be glass. "The majority of glass you see in the kitchen [in Europe] is frosted, shiny blues, smoke, clear, and even orange," she says. She thinks the clear and frosted blues and greens will do well when they make their inevitable immigration to the American market.