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Most Included Trends In 2018 Designs

Most included trends in 2018 designs.

If you have just recently renovated or are looking into doing so, you’ll probably already know about these common trends everyone’s diving for in 2018 and we don’t blame these choices – read on to see what everyone’s hyping over!

Banquette Seating:

Believe it or not, this is an older trend which has rocketed into today’s trends and we aren’t complaining! This simple, yet practical idea has an edgy yet comfortable look and has more room for family/friends for that Sunday night roast or even a nice hot cuppa’ tea on that rainy day with your favorite book. With its space-saving design of bench seating made more sense than including a full set of table and chairs in the space of the kitchen.

Furniture historians trace the banquette, derived from the Germanic word for bench, back to 15th century France. Having seating is the kitchen was to have a concealed entry to secret passages that may have been located underneath banquettes in palaces and castles and was typically made from wood whereas nowadays they are made with cushioning and material to match your style.

Flat front Cabinetry:

We all want the simple yet elegant look but also still want to be able to open and close our cabinets and drawers, so this is where our push touch system comes into the trends of 2018 – no more catching your clothes on the edge of your handles, no more bumps and bruises on the children’s foreheads from running into the edge. Unfortunately, this design has no history behind it but take it from us that if you’re wanting a clean, seamless edge then for sure go for this!

Tile splashbacks:

While the kitchen splashback is a common aspect in many houses now, it wasn’t always this way. In fact, the modern idea of a kitchen splashback is a relatively recent invention, but where did this fantastic, practical idea originate from?

Like many common household features, the splashback can’t be traced to one single source. What we can confirm about the original splashbacks is that they came into use shortly after running water became widespread around the 1930s due to the advent of running water, kitchen innovations emerged swiftly, and the backsplash became a common kitchen sight.

Originally, backsplashes were about 4 inches high and were made of fragile materials like glass or tiles. Many were simply attached to the then-popular butler sink. When under-mount sinks rose to popularity in the 40s, splashbacks were no longer directly attached to the sink, so the only solution was mounting the backsplash directly to the wall. Over the following decade, the splashback became a popular place to demonstrate decor tastes. Around this time, the bright colors and creative patterns of the cement tile backsplash became the stylistic standard.

Even though the cement tile splashback rose to fame in the 1950s, it’s held up to the many home decor style changes over the years with ease whether it adds liveliness to a simple kitchen or accompanies a lively, colorful kitchen, the cement tile backsplash shines in just about every setting. In addition to its persistence’s, cement tile has proven to be one of the best materials for a splashback, why? Because of Its natural durability and easy clean-up is perfect for facing the splatters, stains of cooking. Over the years, production quality has only increased, so modern cement tile is likely to last even longer and hold to even more sauce stains, oil spatters, and splashes of water than its prototypes.

Mixed Metals:

This is such an elegant touch to incorporate into your designs to give the kitchen an edgy yet modern touch, there are different sorts of colors and finishes to choose from to suit your style like Matte black/white, polished chrome, brushed nickel just to name a few. There isn’t much history behind this one as it’s more so a design compliment for the finishing touches.

Multi-purpose islands:

2018 has just gone a step higher with trends and practicality has seemed to really boost up there alongside all the trends – this is a great example.

Shortly after World War II, popular home design shifted from closed floor plans to open concept spaces (sound familiar?) designed to make the work within the home more efficient and less labor-intensive. An expansive, wide-open kitchen meant that dinner could be prepared while children in the family room were in clear view. Once dinner was ready, everyone could eat in the kitchen itself rather than the dining room, making it easier for the cook to serve and manage the meal but with all the benefits an open concept floor plan presented, it came with challenges, namely a shortage of storage and counter space. Therefore, the kitchen island was born.

The kitchen island became a solution to space challenges, providing more surface area, storage potential, and a place for everyone to come together while others were cooking (plus, as we well know now, it also serves the purpose of separating the kitchen from living areas in absence of walls).

It is very popular to add in a cook top or a sink into your island now, but the options of design are endless! Come and talk to us down at Next Edition Kitchens to see what we can do for you!

 

 

Style trends come and go, so don’t invest in the latest look unless you love it. That said, highly-personalized or outdated style choices can limit the appeal of your property for resale.

For major renovation projects, it’s always a good idea to stick to the more neutral colors and classic styles. It will give your remodel durability and appeal to the greatest number of buyers when it comes time to sell. It will also give you flexibility to update your look in a few years without a total overhaul. Use non-permanent fixtures – like paint, furniture and accent pieces – to personalize the space and incorporate trendier choices.

 

Toe Kicks

Why toe kicks are a MUST in the kitchen.

This blog is about an aspect in your kitchen you probably didn’t even know existed – the all mighty toe kicks. The toe kick for those who don’t know is a small panel located under your cabinets where the doors usually end, the toe kick covers the space from then to the flooring. It turns out that paying a little attention to this hidden away spot can make a huge difference in the look and feel of your kitchen.

There’s a reason the toe kick exists to begin with, the next time you’re standing in front of your kitchen sink or working at the benchtop, take a look down at your toes, chances are you won’t be able to see your toes because they’re actually positioned underneath the front edge of your cabinets, in the toe kick.

When you stand at your kitchen sink or cook at the bench, chances are your feet are positioned so that your toes are in the toe kick, without this little foot cubby hole you’d either bang your toes into the front of your cabinets, or have to learn over awkwardly to reach things at the back of your benchtop. It’s a helpful little ergonomic detail that’s so common that most people don’t think about it at all. (Bathroom cabinets that go all the way to the floor also have these.)

The toe kick can actually be more than just a practical thing in the kitchen – in most kitchens the toe kick is either painted black or the same color as the cabinets, to make it as invisible as possible. Although, some people like to make a statement out of these toe kicks, there is many different colors you can make these (you can even get a mirrored one! how snazzy is that?) reason being is it can actually be a good, simple way to tie in the color scheme of your cabinetry with the benchtop right up to the handles.

So there you have it, a toe kick is pretty much a tiny compartment for your feet to sit so you have a lot more comfort while working in the kitchen.

 

 

 

 

Dark panels in kitchen - Grey

How to maintain those dark colored panels/benchtops

As gorgeous and elegant as dark colored panels and bench-tops are they can definitely become a challenge when it comes to finger marks, food splatters etc, a lot of people are hesitant to go with these colors as they want to avoid that nightmare as some would call it – but I’m here to tell you that it is not as bad as you think.

Whether it’s a matt, satin, semi-gloss or gloss finish, finger marks and water spills always stand out and can be hard to remove sometimes.

Because of the way the light reflects off a dark surface, the marks are often more obvious than on a lighter colour surface. If the mark is from an oily product, (for example oily fingers from cooking) removing this with a standard household cleaning spray can sometimes be ineffective as it doesn’t break down the oil. The other consideration is the streak marks that can be left behind by the cleaning product itself.

There is so many products out there people will try to upsell to you saying “it works wonders, cleaning will be a breeze” BUT this is not always the case – you’d be amazed to find how easy it is to clean up marks using warm, soapy water (you can even add in a dash of disinfectant to keep it hygienic but don’t use too much!) with a microfibre cloth – most times this will clean the cabinets leaving them nice and shiny with no marks whatsoever but sometimes, it can leave a water marks, the trick to this is actually window cleaner (it’s safe and leaves the clean look you’re going for.) On a laminate door, a mixture of eucalyptus oil and water in a spray works well to break down the grease and won’t leave streak marks.

*Always use a microfiber cloth when wiping your doors as this will avoid fine scratches from appearing (especially important if the door is a gloss finish). The best brand we have come across for this is Norwex as their ultra-fine fibers are incredible gentle yet extremely absorbent. You can find these down at our showroom or even online!

Regardless of the finish you choose, dark cabinets will generally be more work to maintain the cleanliness, however – by sticking to this cleaning guide, I promise you will be at peace with your lovely, clean outcome.

Kitchen

Old kitchen trends that have made a comeback

We all knew this would happen at some point, lets just say living in the 70’s and beyond looked to be a creative era and in this aspect it’s making a huge comeback that everyone just loves, look no further than the kitchen, where a variety of once relived kitchen trends are stealing the spotlight again and leaving us in question as to why they ever left.

1. Pull out chopping boards – We’ve all been in an older kitchen and noticed a little drawer which pulls out to be a chopping board, reason why we love this is firstly, it has it’s very own storage sorted out (no excuses for misplacing it in the wrong cupboard/drawer) it’s got many uses for different design ideas –  one that i like is having one above your pull-out bins as you can have a hole cut into the edge of the chopping board so when you finish cutting food up there’s a little long-drop for your scraps, how easy would cleaning that up be!?

2. Colorful Cabinetry –  Once upon a few years ago (we’re talking 50’s, 60’s and 70’s) kitchens would be in a range of colours – red, green, blue, yellow, pink, orange, purple you name it, these where the normal. Venturing in to the coming years a lot of wood finishes came into trend pushing the colours aside and then the whites an your more natural colours shined upon our designs and was the most common colours (still is to this date) but now….. colour has made a fast approached comeback and the colours aren’t so bad, they are more subtler than the ones from the 50’s, 60’s & 70’s (we promise)

3. Shiny kickboards and handles – I’m not saying every kitchen had this feature but some of them did, the handles would come in many different, antique looking styles which we still have a few around today so this comeback wasn’t much of a surprise BUT we love the look so we thought we’d mention this one too.

4. Tiled Splashbacks – Tiled splashbacks were a more DIY job for making your kitchen look a bit unique and spruced up, there’s no denying how cost efficient this was and the outcome had everyone blown away as it was seen as “creative” and “quirky” – this has made an extravagant comeback as it was slowly introduced by the textures glass splashbacks are offered in.

 

So now we come to an old but new era yet again, it’s one we’ve all been waiting for so we can shine our true colours with creativity and bring back some good old childhood memories.

Whats your thoughts?

 

 

 

Colour pallete

How to choose the perfect colour scheme

Ever walked into a kitchen designing studio with a fair idea of what you’ve wanted but seen the colour boards and gone blank minded? the amount of choices are insane but at the same time pretty ideal – with heaps of colours to choose from you won’t be needing to change much else.

When picking out the colors for you kitchen, your first step is to pick out two complementing dominant colors. Keeping these two colors simple will give you more opportunities to change up your kitchen over time without really having to change much more than the colours of the panels and possibly the benchtop. The third color should be an accent color that brings the entire room together while giving the room a little character. Personally, i believe choosing what colors you want in your kitchen definitely plays a role in choosing your personal style of kitchen.

For example, black and white kitchens are mostly categorized as modern. On the other hand, neutral colored kitchens are mostly placed in the “Standard” category where as the wooden kitchens are more so “Vintage”.

BENCH TOPS:

Pick your bench tops first, why?  because they can vary in color, pattern, and style making it hard to match any existing flooring and cabinetry in your kitchen. When picking your bench top, it is vital to think about the possibility of having a splashback in your kitchen either in the present or future, reason being is because you will be quite restricted with what colour you choose in some cases when it comes to splashbacks. Picking your bench tops first also allows you better match paints, stains, hardware, and custom finishes. Whether you choose granite, tile, wood, etc., your bench top is a signature piece in your kitchen – if you are unsure of how to make sure it is going to match your existing panels etc, talk to the bench top guys down at Northern Benchtops in Whangarei (very professional and passionate about what they do)

CABINETS:

Choosing your cabinet colours aren’t looked upon as such a tricky task if you have chosen your bench top colour then this will be a very simple decision – if you have gone for a grey bench top for instance, your walls are white then you could go with a misty grey colour which will link these all up nicely. Having an all white kitchen is very common these days as you can easily link white up with any colour while keeping that elegant, modern look, Darker panels look nice against the darker bench tops or suiting darker panels with a timber bench top would just look absolutely stunning.

 FLOORING:

Before you jump into picking colours, consider whether or not you will be changing the flooring – if not you need to choose colours that will bring this all together and not draw too much attention to your flooring. For example, having a brown tiled floor would not compliment a darker blue unit. Go see your flooring professionals (i recommend the guys at Floorcraft here in Whangarei – never seen a disappointed customer and they have produced stunning finished projects) let them know what sort of colour scheme you are wanting (make sure to let them know of all colours you have existing that will be staying in the kitchen and what colours you are wanting to include in the new one, try take samples if you can a lot of places will have free samples to take.)

 

I highly recommend going to your local bench top guys or a kitchen designing studio and also the flooring places to get that much needed opinion as you could stem your own ideas based on what they have stated, while also keeping in mind what will definitely not suit – sounds like a lot of work but you will thank me later! Trust me.

 

Northern Benchtops Whangareihttp://www.kitchenbenchtops.co.nz/

Floorcraft Whangarei – http://www.floorcraftwhg.co.nz/