If your home improvement plans for 2022 include revamping the kitchen, taking a look at the latest design trends coming through will fill you with inspiration. George Forsyth from Drew Forsyth & Co joins BORA and Eggersmann to forecast the future of kitchen design.
So often at the heart of the home, the kitchen is a popular room to makeover if you’re wanting to create a fresh new look ahead of spring. Whether you are looking to completely redesign the space, perhaps as part of an extension project, or simply want to revamp on a budget, even the simplest of changes can have a big impact in this room.
Flexible kitchen design
Now more than ever the kitchen is a multi-functional space that sits at the centre of family life. Open-plan kitchen living spaces have long been popular, particularly as a way of making small rooms look and feel much bigger, but since the start of the pandemic this look has sky-rocketed in popularity. We are all spending more time at home, cooking meals from scratch and using the kitchen together as families for a whole host of different activities, so that the way this space is designed is changing too.
This is why broken-plan living is likely to be a big trend in 2022, as homeowners seek to create multi-functional spaces with added privacy. While the kitchen has merged into the living room, with lots of us working from home more and spending more time together, the layout of the space needs to incorporate cosy or quiet areas too.
The good news is that it’s possible to have the best of both worlds, by being clever with the use of space and zoning areas to allow for a greater sense of privacy, while retaining the best elements of open-plan, including light, space and flow. Use freestanding shelving units or seating areas to act as a natural division between cooking and dining, make use of glass to create a partition without blocking sightlines and perhaps incorporate varying floor and ceiling heights to create a split-level layout.
Open-plan zoning
It is also possible to use an island or peninsula as a multi-functional way to zone while creating extra storage and worktop space for work, rest and play, while if floor space allows including a dedicated seating area that can be used for mealtimes, as well as working from home and the kids’ homework is an ideal.
As whole families spend more time at home, dining spaces are likely to become the norm again. The living room will become an extension of the kitchen even more as designers look to create fluid living spaces where the whole family can interact in harmony.
Appliance choices
While it can be easy to be led by the style and visual impact of furniture, fixtures and fittings when designing your new kitchen, it’s important to remember their practical advantages and disadvantages too. Acoustics, for example, is an important consideration, particularly in the open-plan space where the noise from appliances can upset a happy ambience. Be sure to check the decibel level of appliances like the dishwasher and washing machine, even making room for these in a separate utility where possible.
Extraction systems are also often guilty of raising the noise levels, while being a vital part of the room’s design to keep the space free from lingering cooking odours. A downdraft extraction system, integrated into a cooker hob, offers a good solution. Drawing the cooking vapours downwards before they have a chance to permeate the air, this powerful solution is also low noise and creates an on-trend, minimal look without the need for a bulky cooker hood in the centre of your room.
Kitchen storage solutions
Storage is another key consideration in the modern kitchen, particularly when opting for an open-plan layout. Unnecessary clutter therefore needs to be stored neatly away, to create a sense of harmony, even when family life gets hectic. From deep wide drawers and pull-out shelving replacing standard cupboard interiors to cleaning cupboards becoming pantries for tinned goods, open shelving for jars bottles and spices, the kitchen will be organised like never before.
And with small appliances such as mixing aids and coffee machines much more commonplace since before the pandemic, clever design features such as bi-folding breakfast cupboards keep these hidden yet easy to get to.
What’s trending in colour?
Colour trends are also worth noting before making any concrete kitchen redesign plans. Introducing colour into the kitchen is a sure-fire way of adding personality and character and taking a look at the shades that are trending will ensure the space is modern and on point.
Smokey blue colourways create a classic, calming kitchen, adding character without being too imposing. Blue’s soothing tones and general softness mirror nature’s finest natural assets – with oceanic hues and summer sky shades bringing a sense of tranquillity to the kitchen.
However, green is staking a claim to the trendiest kitchen colour for 2022, with Instagram awash with nature-inspired green spaces. This is a shade that embodies renewal, rejuvenation, and energy, so it isn’t surprising that it is so popular as we head into a new year.
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Green and blue, as seen on these projects by Drew Forsyth & Co, are calming colours that look set to be big in kitchen design in 2022.
Incorporating a seating area into an open-plan kitchen, as with this Drew Forsyth & Co project which feature booth seating with hidden storage, brings all the family together at mealtimes.
Hidden storage from Eggersmann gives a modern update to the traditional larder concept, with everything needed neatly concealed behind closed doors so that the kitchen becomes an extension of our living space.
We’re all spending more time at home together and the kitchen is now used for a variety of activities, from cooking and dining, to home working and entertaining. Layout is important in the multi-functional kitchen, with open-plan spaces like this from Eggersmann encouraging interaction.
The BORA Basic is a compact cooktop and extractor system with a streamlined appearance and equipped with intelligent touch operation.
Thanks to a cleanrate of 100%, the centrally positioned cooktop extractor effectively draws vapours and odours away where they are created: straight from the pot or pan, an advantage in open-plan kitchen/living environments.
