Kitchen Design Trend Alert: Gray! It's the New.... Something

NKBA's Top Kitchen Design Trends

The National Kitchen & Bath Association just published its top ten kitchen and bath design trends based on data culled from the membership.  Unless you are a total kitchen and bath geek, you won't make it to the end of this post if we include all ten.  So we've chosen to highlight just one that for us pings as the top trend in kitchen remodeling.  It's the color gray.  In the kitchen.  Not your basement floor or porch deck gray.  Not your standard issue battleship gray, but gray nonetheless.

What Is Going On?

In the past six months we have seen (it goes without saying that our interior designers have had a hand in it) about half a dozen kitchen designs for which gray was the heart of the color palette.  Gray!  Could this turn toward a cool, aloof  painted surface be indicative of a design world rebellion against the smug tyranny of natural cherry and maple?  Maybe.  Or perhaps it is because modern kitchen lighting design allows designers to explore a range of subtle color choices in the kitchen.  In the past, because we relied primarily on natural lighting, we played it safe with the color choices (not too dark, not too bright) because a color choice had to be able to roll with the hourly changes in  light and shadow during the day.  No more.  The advances in modern kitchen lighting design allow us to go much further afield.  So for now, gray is the final frontier.

Here are three of the  kitchens we completed recently that feature the color gray.

Gray and White Kitchen Design Colors in Cleveland Park

GRAY PERIMETER CABINETS, WHITE ISLAND CABINETS, GRAY AND OFF WHITE BACKSPLASH

White and Gray Kitchen Design In Chevy Chase DC

WHITE KITCHEN WITH GRAY ISLAND

Shades of Gray in Chevy Chase Maryland Kitchen Design

FINE SHADES OF GRAY IN THE CABINETS, BACKSPLASH, COUNTERTOP AND WALL COLORS

The High Drama of Contrast v. The Calm of Nuance

The first two kitchens make use of contrasting cabinet and counter tops colors.  The light colored cabinets pair with dark or mixed colored counter tops.  The third kitchen plays with side by side shades of gray.  This nuanced approach to coloration is more daring than going the route of  dramatic contrasts shown in the first two.  It will be interesting to see how far this kitchen design trend goes over the next year or so.

Learn about how to approach a kitchen design and remodeling project by downloading The Definitive Guide to Kitchen Design & Remodeling Success.