Kitchen Designs are the Number One Design Trend for 2020

If you read this blog even occasionally (though we hope you read and memorize every word, every week), you know that we believe the kitchen is the most important room in virtually any home. While we certainly do grasp our own redundancy in stating it again – we would now like to offer proof of the importance of kitchen design.

(Yes, we’re NOT the only ones!)

We found a recent article at Houzz.com to be particularly interesting. With the title, 34 Trends That Will Define Home Design in 2020, we fully expected the trends to be evenly distributed among popular home spaces. Imagine our surprise then when we discovered that, of the 34 trends – 22 were all about kitchen design! (YES!)

Of course, we were not really surprised by the value placed on kitchen design by the folks at Houzz. After all, the greatest portion of their target audience is homeowners so it makes perfect sense. Second place may surprise you somewhat, however, because they put quite a bit of focus on bathrooms and very little on living rooms.

(If you still doubt the validity of our argument for the importance of kitchens to families, check out the articles here, here, and here.)

Kitchen Design Trends 2020

While space limitations make it impossible for us to share all 22 of the trends that are listed in the Houzz piece, there are a few that seem particularly interesting. Quick clue – look for the Pantone Color of the Year to be a huge influencer.

Three-tone Kitchen Designs

Two-tone kitchen cabinets — meaning the upper cabinets are one color and the lower cabinets another color, or the perimeter cabinets are one color and the island is a different color — dominated kitchens in the past couple of years. So it’s only natural that designers are building on the trend rather than doing away with it.

In a three-tone kitchen, one more color or material is introduced to create an asymmetry in the palette that helps define zones or functions and keeps the eye moving.

Refaced Kitchen Cabinets

Keeping the cabinet boxes while replacing the drawer and door fronts is an affordable way to dramatically update a kitchen, and it’s an option that homeowners will increasingly turn to.

Here, Kitchen Magic, which specializes in cabinet refacing, enhanced mid-tone oak cabinets to create a refreshing kitchen with the same layout as the former kitchen.

Blue Kitchen Cabinets are Trending

Speaking of blue cabinets, interior designer and color expert Jennifer Ott predicts that the color will catch on even more in 2020. “Both black and navy continue to be popular, and I anticipate seeing them used in even larger doses in 2020, such as for all of the kitchen cabinets rather than just the base cabinets or island,” she says.