kitchen design and creativity – and it’s on Pinterest and Instagram. Over 20 million home décor ideas are saved on Pinterest alone in the UK every month. And of all the rooms in the house, kitchens are what consumers are posting on most of all.
Acknowledging this trend, B&Q last year partnered with Pinterest to come up with design forecasts. A team from the platform and the retailer analysed year-on-year search and save data and combined them with B&Q sales insights.
Among the trending design themes this picked out was ‘Moroccan styling’, with Pinterest reporting a 128% rise in saves for Morocco-led décor. B&Q kitchen outcomes included floor tiles, gold lanterns and chunky wooden worktops.
Consumers also expressed concern about their kitchen’s environmental impact, hunting for natural and raw materials and finishes. Searches and saves for ‘eco-kitchens’ were up 164% and for ‘plywood kitchen cabinets’ 139%. B&Q’s answer included walnut worktops and bamboo flooring and lights.
According to creative director Stephen Garland, clients are coming to Papilio Kitchens with Pinterest mood boards, images from Instagram and Google and asking for designs based around them. This posed challenges, but opportunities too.
“The internet gives you access to interiors inspiration worldwide and it can be difficult to pinpoint exactly what clients want from multiple creative concepts, but we can distil them down to core themes,” said Mr Garland. “And it’s also exciting – opening the way to greater diversity in furniture design, layout and materials.”
This allows material suppliers to be more eclectic in their offer, including the timber sector, he added.
“One of our projects had a pink toned terrazzo floor and the architect featured solid Douglas fir in their mood board,” said Mr Garland. “But we needed a veneer option and found a cherry that matched the floor better.” The leading homestyle media agree that the internet has given consumers the tools to individualise kitchens more than ever. But they also say central design themes can be identified, albeit with ever more diversity within them.
House Beautiful picks out “the antidote to shiny, all-white kitchens of the past”. This includes use of “industrial materials and tactile surfaces”, such as bare wood surfaces in straight-grained oak, walnut and other timbers “rich in tone and texture”. It also sees a move to mixing free-standing furniture with fitted units, blending them through materials used, including oiled and unfinished-look wood.
The focus on sustainability is seeing more recycled products used, with “rough hewn” timber to match, and “generally more durable materials and designs”.
Country Living agrees all-white kitchens’ dominance of Pinterest boards is over. “Today homeowners want something more layered, inviting and personal,” it said. That included reclaimed-look wood and ‘butchers block’ timber worktops.
Rotpunkt’s head of UK operations Matt Phillips is quoted by House Beautiful taking a similar slant: “kitchen furniture is now defined by difference, with mixed finishes and materials to identify different pieces and create zonal and broken plan design schemes”. With kitchens increasingly the most used spaces in the home, designed for “living and relaxing, besides cooking and eating”, the magazine also highlights increased use of banquette seating, generally in wood.
Living etc notes the use of islands, peninsulas and breakfast bars as opportunities to use materials that contrast with the rest of the kitchen, so a “Nordic oak bar with moon blue units”, or a peninsula combining rustic timber units with a black stone top.
At Papilio, oak and walnut may remain client favourites, but it also occasionally uses ebony. It saw a period, now over, when zebrano was in, and also undertook one project in “fantastic spalted beech”. Another featured a soaped-effect Douglas fir to team with Dinesen flooring.
“Plywood is also still in vogue as part of the trend for a more industrial, less finished look, for which we’ve also used driftwood textures and sand-blasted timber,” said Mr Garland. “We also use Alpi wood composite veneers, which you can cut at any angle and don’t need jointing.”
Natural wood finishes tend to be mainly oil, or matt PU lacquer, but, in common with other manufacturers, the occasional Papilio client favours a bit more ‘bling’ and opts for high gloss.
Most popular colours, used either for the whole kitchen or teamed with natural wood and other materials, are darker “Farrow & Ball-type” shades, muted greys, greens and blacks.
In terms of cabinet styling, Papilio reports the continued popularity of Shaker-type looks, but also designs blending freestanding and fitted furniture.
“People also like wooden worktops, but are concerned about maintenance so tend more towards composites, granites and marble, although they might team that with a wood top on an island to give it more of a kitchen table-look as the social hub of the kitchen,” said Mr Garland.
For painted kitchens, US tulipwood is now the base material of choice for Papilio, largely replacing beech and maple. “But I’d like to use it in its natural state,” said Mr Garland. “It has amazing streaks of colour, which make it a shame to cover it up.”
Symphony has seen a rise in popularity of more “natural timber finishes that show off wood grain and texture of doors”.
“Our Alta range embodies this trend for natural, earthy styles, including a choice of wood grain finishes, such as character oak or dark walnut,” said retail sales and marketing director Simon Collyns. “It creates the modern contemporary style popular with consumers today who want something more rustic.” Symphony also sees the industrial look continuing to gain ground.
“This is characterised by exposed brick, rustic oaks and matt finishes. It offers practical cooking spaces with a back-to-basics feel,” said Mr Collyns. “Taking inspiration from factory spaces, recent additions to Alta highlight this trend, with matt finishes in Anthracite and Pure White, complemented by Dark Walnut and Rustic Oak.”
The manufacturer also takes into account the kitchen as living space in family homes. “They are never pristine or clutter-free, so we offer larder units or butler’s pantries, which are not just fashionable kitchen items, but provide storage that can be hidden away.”
Adrian Stoneham, managing director of Stoneham Kitchens, also notes a trend to natural look timber blended with other materials in their raw state. “There’s a movement towards connection with natural materials and textures; utilising wood and other materials that provide links with the outdoors and add authenticity. Focus on sustainability also means customers are looking for quality, natural wood that withstands the test of time, can be crafted to their needs and adds warmth, providing a lived-in, welcoming space.”
Stoneham is using oak in “a variety of guises”, including anthracite stained, and painted, while American black walnut is the feature timber for whole rooms, or teamed with plain painted or high gloss facades. It also uses character and burr oak, burr walnut, macassar and zebrano as accent timbers. Besides solid wood, Stoneham uses veneers, including ranges from Alpi and Tabu.
Another popular design option, said Mr Stoneham, are coloured finishes teamed with natural wood. “This works well with kitchen islands in natural timber and perimeter cabinets in a specific colour, or upper cabinets coloured and lower [cabinets] in wood.”
For Stoneham customers’ the issue of sustainability not only informs design, but also timber sourcing. “They do seek evidence of origin and sustainability is becoming a key feature in procurement policies for many organisations,” said Mr Stoneham. “We source wood and veneers from reputable importers with whom we have long term relationships, we procure FSC and PEFC timber where possible and are accredited to the ISO 9001/2015 standard.”
A key market trend highlighted by Egger is for matt finishes either as an alternative to gloss, or for use in combination for a contrasting look.
“Handle-less designs are also more popular than ever, so touch and feel is very important, with super-matt, anti-fingerprint finishes in high-demand,” said Egger UK and Ireland head of décor management, Elliott Fairlie. “Due to this we introduced PerfectSense, an electron beam-cured lacquered surface. It’s highly scratch resistant and has antifingerprint properties, making it suitable for kitchen worktops, and as a hardwearing and cost-effective alternative to paint.”
Manufacturers, he added, are also looking to differentiate using finishes with deep textures and highly realistic prints, creating a “more bespoke look and higher perceived value”.
“Within our Feelwood collection, ST37 has been a standout texture due to its natural appearance,” said Mr Fairlie. “Combined with Halifax Oak décor, it’s virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.” The on-trend focus in Egger’s Decorative Collection, meanwhile, is about mixing and matching wood, coloured and other finishes to “create the feeling of bespoke high-end design”.
As for the general state of the UK kitchen market, the consensus is that current economic and political uncertainty will have impacts.
“There’s a correlation between kitchen and housing sectors,” said Mr Fairlie. “A healthy housing market encourages home owners to move and/or upgrade their property, and [that generally requires] an environment of low interest rates and economic stability. The uncertainty created by Brexit may stall certain projects in the short term.”
The latest market report from analysts JKMR concurs with this. “Provisional figures show almost 1.23 million kitchen installations in 2018, representing little change from 2017,” states its Overview Report on the UK Fitted Kitchen Market. “The market, including integrated appliances, is expected to have increased by 3.2% in value for 2018 to exceed £4.2bn [AMA Research estimates kitchen furniture sales only at around £1.7bn]. However, that will be as much down to price increases caused by currency issues as to improved client spend.”
An increasing proportion of this business was forecast to be taken by trade retailers, Howden particularly, although JKMR says specialist studios still accounted for around 40% of the market.
Due to “factors external to the market itself”, Brexit among them, JKMR is projecting a 4% drop in installations for 2019, and 2.5% in 2020, after which, AMA predicts, growth will restart.
Some predict current market conditions will also boost the budget end of the market – and B&Q recently promoted being named 2018 “Lowest priced DIY retailer of kitchens” by www.kitchen-compare.com.
But JKMR predicts a further overall 2.6% market value increase in 2019 despite shrinkage in volume. That’s partly down to higher manufacturer selling prices, but also rising consumer aspirations, meaning purchases are more likely to be deferred than standards lowered. Manufacturers agree and believe this is again partly due to the internet becoming such an important factor in kitchen design selection.
“Online platforms like Pinterest and Instagram are all about aspiration, they raise expectations and result in customers being less willing to compromise on kitchen style and quality,” said one manufacturer. “They’re already impacting the market in multiple ways and their influence can only grow.”
