In design magazines not geared toward the non-designer, (although accessible to them) there will occasionally appear a kitchen that is "hidden" in plain view.

I have seen everything from the sink and flat cooktop/hidden vent hood being surrounded by cabinetry that looks more library-like but is still a fairly conventional kitchen, all the way to a kitchen that had four "pavilions" each hiding something. (Fridge behind doors; sink/DW behind doors, oven stack behind doors, pantry storage behind doors) surrounding a central work table. --This one seemed like a non-working PITA to me and I like to think outside the box.

So the dishwasher and fridge have gone undercover, and I have seen faucets that retract into the countertop, but do you think people will go for cooktops under sliding hatches? Ovens that can be paneled to match? Could the pendulum swing that far often enough to make a dent in more mainstream kitchens?

In 1959 my grandparents built their dream home, in an upscale neighborhood of Lubbock, Texas. My Nana was a great Southern cook and was so proud of her spacious "St. Charles kitchen." I recently checked and St. Charles is still in business, on the website their cabinets look very similar to hers of 50+ years ago.

Honestly, her kitchen (especially the general layout) would not be terribly out of date today. She had some great features: a built-in stainless trivet in the counter next to the stovetop, double wall ovens, a slide-out table like a breadboard where we used to eat all the time, a breadbox drawer, undercabinet lighting, a heavy-duty lift-up platform for her fancy mixer, anti-tarnish cloth-lined silverware drawers.

What has definitely changed is appliance colors. Her appliances were PINK (GE), no kidding. She also had a PINK Lincoln, Grandpa called it the pink party car. The one changing trend we will always be able to depend upon is new colors for appliances, because appliance companies have to sell new products. (Of course, what's recently happened to force large appliance sales is the manufacturers are cheaping down their products, so they don't last 15-20 years like they used to.) The stainless of today will look dated, mark my words.

And I agree that in no universe is a 10,000 square house with half a dozen Sub-Zeros "middle class."

Salvage Chic. Reclaimed materials and objects, which are of necessity unfitted. Riots of color. Materials that are repurposed for new, hitherto unexplored uses. Chalkboards and old doors as tabletops. Vintage baby cribs as vegetable bins. Old mahogany bookcases as island supports.

(Am I biased because of my roofing-copper counters? Perhaps. ;-) )

Grlwprls, please please please do the butterscotch. I've got a few pieces in the kitchen painted an antique yellow, a slightly darker yellow although not full-on butterscotch. (Look into the Mustard color in Milk Paint!) Yellow is so warm, everyone in the entire house simply gravitates towards it. And I have chrome, copper and stainless steel in there...

plllog: Do you think unfitted will catch on? I mean really unfitted, with dressers and china hutches and tables rather than cabinetry?

I was thinking that young eco-conscious cooks of the kind you describe so well might go for them (probably in a partially unfitted kitchen; lots of them aren't going to rip out all the still-worthwhile cabinetry on reuse-recycling grounds). My thought was that the unfitted kitchens are more easily put together piece by piece, with scrounged and renovated items.

But I could be way off base; I'm 57, childless, and know very few young people well enough to get a sense of their home furnishing tastes. (The ones I am familiar with are serious cooks and their tastes seem to be, somewhat surprisingly, heavily influenced by their mothers, who are my childhood friends.)

@palimpsest: I find it almost impossible to imagine who would want the "hidden kitchen" look. Could you explore the thinking behind that a bit?

We're entering a depression ("recession" or "prolonged downturn" if the d-word scares you too much). Many people will be cooking at home much more. They will be gardening more. They will entertain more modestly -- more potlucks, more informality.

I don't see any of those trends encouraging a hidden-kitchen look.

I never said the house was middle class, I said the owner was. He ended up with this house for various reasons, but he is not in the "wealthy class", sorry. I know people there and he sure isn't one of them, as much as he is a wannabe With the back pedaling that lenders are doing, and other things happening, were he try to buy this house today, it probably wouldnt happen unless it was a short sale. Mention the word "class" and people totally miss the point. He lives in excess because of certain economic conditions that existed at the time he bought the house. My point was that he is an (extreme)example of what was happening in the bubble. Ask Subzero where their increase in sales was...the wealthy already had theirs.

Anyway, back to topic:

Ellabee

There are people who like to cook, but not all the time. There are also people who live in a relatively small amount of square footage who don't want the kitchen front and center. There is a unit similar to mine that has a very nice high end kitchen: U shaped + island or G shaped, I can't remember exactly. Maple with Absolute Black, l-o-n-g SS bar pulls etc. Very classy urban 2000.

It replaced the small semi closed off kitchen-with-passthrough that is abundant in our complex.

Its great, but when it went on the market, I was looking at it (nosey), and I heard more than one person walk in the unit and say "What a great kitchen....um, where's the Living Room?" In the endeavor to create a modern kitchen in terms of space amenities and luxe, the homeowner basically turned the apartment into a two bed/ one bath apartment with Kitchen. And I have seen this with a number of conversions. If you have only so much living space, perhaps a good option is to create the larger kitchen, but discreetly, so it doesn't overpower the other functions.

Well, yes, I think you're onto something with the "hidden kitchen" in plain view concept. Over time the kitchen has moved from its position of being the pretty much the exclusive domain of the cook to that of being a highly-favored social gathering ground. In the process, and especially with new construction, we're now seeing the architectural trend towards open floor spaces and away from the kitchen as a room that is distinctly separate and apart from the living room and dining room areas. Assuming this trend will continue, my guess is that at some point the line of demarcation between food storage and meal prep, dining and other social activity areas will blur completely.

I began to think about this concept only last week when someone posted a link to photos of a teeny kitchen in a NYC studio apartment. We all marveled at how the designer-owner managed to pull off major feats of organizing and design deception in order to "hide" her kitchen in plain view within a 170 sf room that also contained her living room, bedroom and office. Then after seeing that lilliputian-like design scheme, I also began to think of it's inverse -- the NYC loft space. In much the same way, NYC lofts (converted factory spaces) combine kitchen, living, work and sleeping areas all in a single area without clear demarcations of space, the difference being that loft space floor plan is typically of a size that humongous.

Now I recognize that as I write this from the clearly segregated kitchen space of my century old NYC rowhouse, the idea of open living/dining spaces is not new at all. Far from it. However, I can also imagine that the next level of the trend could go to a dramatic, intentional repositioning of the kitchen back into the very heart of the home's social/living spaces (think return to the "hearth" or to "little house on the prairie"). Or, conversely for some, the kitchen just might become that place that is situated completely within the home's central living/gathering space, yet is otherwise "hidden" from plain view when not in use. I'm also thinking that such seamless integration of the social spaces within the home might somehow encourage stronger bonding within the family unit at time when the cultural impact of the new technology can often work to splinter and separate.

Thanks for helping me understand that idea, palimpsest. I was thinking of houses, not apartments.

If people in my generation move into smaller houses or apartments now that their children have households of their own, I can see the idea might catch on. We're a gigantic cohort, so even a fairly small percentage of us makes for a good-sized market in absolute terms.

grlwprls, you better resurrect your old thread and tell us what happened to my "H!"

I can't see unfitted kitchens becoming much more popular than they are now. The look is already more expensive than standard walls of cabinets. And any house that a young person buys is already likely to be full of fitted cabinets already.

Have now read marthavila's thoughts, and am reflecting that the 'hidden in plain sight' kitchen is going to have a lot more appeal to people who do not (yet) have children, or people whose children are long gone.

What about a shallow wall of closets, (pantries, but for everything), A sink and range with a bit of adjacent counter and a big worktable? (Back to the 19th c. with a more ergonomic DW/sink/range layout?)

I like the thought of eco-chic, re-purposing items into tables and counters for the kitchen. Partly because it's green; partly because it's economical; and mostly because it would be nice to see kitchens brought back to their essence: a place meant to feed and nurture friends and family, rather than to impress.

Palimpsest and Marthavila, I think you've hit it. I'm too unfocused today to find the examples, but we've discussed here before the German kitchen in armoires, the one with the upper cabinets that move down to cover the sink and work area, etc. And the whole kitchen in a large armoire items too.

I, personally, don't like a kitchen that's open to the "formal" areas of a house, though I don't mind open to the family room or great room idea if there are closed doors to other seating rooms. But that's for a kitchen where a lot of cooking is done. More and more people are cooking less and less. They're buying premade or frozen, getting fresh cooked delivered, or just all the day's meals packed in catering boxes and dropped on the porch before breakfast.

People eat out and use the kitchen for cereal and sandwiches. A heck of a lot of people only need the kind of kitchen that people with huge houses have as a secondary kitchen in the basement. So the kitchen work, noise, smell, etc., doean't really impact the living areas they're in the middle of. Being able to hide even that much could be a boon.

People used to talk about hiding the fridge. Now they talk about hiding the oven, and even putting the toaster oven behind doors. So you're right--next it'll be the sink!

Translating the very modern very German ideas into American comfort, imagine a wall of built-ins. Big screen in the middle, including computer interface in a subwindow. Media and books surrounding it. Behind one door a sink and worktop, behind another a speed oven and a small cooktop with vent. Fridge drawers under the TV. Everything that's ever been part of a hearth but the fire.

Plllog -- hidden like the revolving German RoundKitchen?

I agree with many of the ideas being expressed here- the decrease in full fledged renos and increase in diy, the trend towards eco friendly, the unfitted kitchens and the hidden kitchens will probably all increase in the future. Hopefully with these trends some of the emotional attachment will decrease as the desire to have kitchens that "make our hearts sing" has gotten out of hand IMO. Not trying to say that kitchens should lack personality but to be personally offended when someone does not like the color of your cabinets is ridiculous.

One of the discreet kitchens I am thinking of had a glass cooktop and a large island. The oven was on the island so it would not interfere with the line of the cabinetry, and the countertop had openings in it so appliances could be plugged in inside the cabinetry. The fridge and DW were panelled. It was all pretty conventional, and out in the open, but you didnt see stainless or control panels or excessive outlets or exclusively kitchen-y looking surfaces. The footprint was large enough to be a full fledged kitchen, but you could be standing in it and not really know it.

There have been a number of times when I've wished my kitchen - which is open to the family rm., which flows into the LR, and can be viewed from the DR - was distinctly separate from the other main floor living spaces.

Can't believe it, since the open kitchen was one of the main features that drew us to buy this house 7 yrs. ago.

I wonder if many other people who've torn down walls and exposed their kitchens will also have the same feeling in years to come.

Anyone think we'll see new homes designed with kitchens that can be closed off - - - again?

Peanut, that's a total hoot!! And exactly the kind of German toy I was talking about combined with the armoire approach. Great if you have more floor space than wall space and not much space total at all. But did you notice, the interior of the DW is bigger than the interior of the fridge? The Germans may not have DW drawers, but I know they have 18"ers. In the pictures, that one looks full sized. I suppose the DW is meant to be the dish storage as well?

There has been a trend, now that people have home electronics of "their own", and its not the family TV, for example to start closing things up again and creating rooms for (several, perhaps) specific purposes.

One my favorite reasons for eating in my parents' dining room at holidays is not having to look at all the pots and pans and preparations while I am eating dinner.

Maybe here's what's next for the super wealthy with enormous kitchens in which they never cook - the old fashioned basement kitchen where the servants prepare the food and serve you in your dining room on the first floor.

If you really want to show off...

I think several of the ideas mentioned will become more common in the near future. They aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Each of them could go into a different kind of house.

The repurposing/eco/reuse trend, unfitted pieces from CL, is for young couples (plain old middle class) buying a smaller older first home where the kitchen needs work and they can't afford the Big Reno. So they pull out and replace it themselves but with reclaimed items instead of custom cabinets or big box store.

As far as young people go, my son and his friends, as well as a number of recent young hires at my work, are all into The City. They loathe the 'burbs they grew up in and are all gravitating to the urban environment (many of their parents left!). They are getting these tall skinny houses that are like one room above the other. A roof top to party/grill on is key. DS is 24. They love to grill and somehow finding a small patch of space to do this in the city is like a some kind of challenge.

They like computers and all high tech and want their homes to look high tech modern. He grew up with antiques but would NOT want to inherit any of them. Glass, steel, black, that's his colors (and red). They like to eat out. I think he would love a hidden kitchen with only 1 or 2 burners you pull out of a drawer. Their fridges are mostly empty. Could be smaller. That's one sub-group of young people anyway.

I'm going to go with a little bit different of a scenario. I think the formal dining room will merge with the kitchen to create a "secondary living room". So instead of that huge open living room there will be two/three rooms; A great room that holds the large livingdining room with comfortable long term seating and kitchen, then a second good sized room that will hold the noise makers tv etc, and possible a third room that will replace the formal living room spaces as a quiet zone.

I definitely expect to see more room division with all the extra noise being generated... but I also think that you'll see it because there will be more multigeneration families (living together obviously) and you'll see a need for a different type of life style.

I'm not even going to try to predict the future, but I will say that all the comments about what "young people" like today are pretty much exactly what "young people" liked when I was one of them...city living, townhouses (those "skinny" houses) or condos, glass/steel/black/etc....all these were also popular when I was "young". I think it's the rebellious stage...we all wanted to be different than our parents!

It's not until "young people" really grow up (say, 30s!) and, possibly, start having families that more "conservative" or "traditional" preferences start to emerge. Even those who don't start families for whatever reason generally also start gravitating to more "traditional" styles.

As to "reuse", etc. I have to disagree that "young people" are better at it...growing up we were always "repurposing" things rather than throwing them out, something I also learned. I think our parents through out less things than today's "young people". Ditto for my grandparents.

We're in that young-people-growing-up stage (mid 30s) as are most of our friends, and I do think there's a lasting push in our generation towards cities and smaller homes in general. This may be a regional thing and it may just be backlash against what we grew up with, but the vast majority of people I know (myself and DH included) grew up in the suburbs and now live in the city, and almost all of our friends now own here, thanks in part to the housing bust and the first-time buyer credit, which prompted a lot of people to jump into the Bay Area market when it had previously been out of reach. (This is, of course, biased by the fact that I live in a city and thus know mainly other people my age who do!) Many of our friends and neighbors have young children and plan to raise them here (and we live in a city that does not exactly have a reputation for being a great place to live, let alone to raise kids---but you would never know this if you wandered our neighborhood or stopped by the weekend farmers' markets!)

Will this change as kids get older and factors like schools become more critical? Maybe---hard to say. Most of us are in small 2 or 3-bedroom homes, and almost all of us grew up in larger homes with our own bedrooms, big backyards, etc. Here, we have a tiny yard, tiny kitchen, one-car garage, and so on. But we love our home and our neighborhood, and right now only see ourselves moving within the city. We also use the space very differently because it is limited, and that definitely factors into things like kitchen design.

As far as repurposing, I don't think that's necessarily generational and hopefully isn't just a trend---some of the most incredible salvage yards in our area have been in business for years. The only real distinction, I think, is that we were trained as kids to be very cognizant of reduce-reuse-recycle, which wasn't really the case before the 1980s in many parts of the country, so it's just more ingrained. (Honestly, though, in Northern California there are lots of people who think we young'uns are spoiled by things like municipal food composting when they've had the backyard piles going for decades!) It's safe to say that in our house, we are better at conserving/reusing than our parents, who grew up in the post-war boom when goods were in abundance, but nowhere near as good as our grandparents, who grew up during the Depression. (But I imagine that also depends on which generation you are and which your parents and grandparents are!)

1. Painted cabs in non-white colors, especially gray and black.

2. Monochromatic counters, natural or synthetic. A LOT more synthetics in general. I'm predicting the near-disappearance of granite in the to .5% of houses. Not the mainstream, though.

3. Multi-room kitchens. A food pantry, a dish pantry, a butler's pantry, a baking pantry, a scullery. The laundry and mudroom have already separated even when they're on the same level. This is next.

4. I think kitchens will be a greater percentage of a house's square footage. Formal dining rooms will become rarer as informal rooms become more a focus of design.

5. The hearth room will combine eating and family rooms.

6. Woods will come back--I'm predicting yellow pine! I also predict brass coming back.

7. Since this is what I like and, frustratingly, my tastes have seemed to lead trends by a few years recently, I'll say unlaquered brass (got it, will get more), chrome (which is already pretty much back!), glass knobs, porcelain knobs (not plain white ones but painted or, especially, fluted ones), heavy zoning, and unfitted style. The incorporation of real or pretend antiques. Legs will get less chunky and more "authentically" historical in traditional designs. The elaborate moldings of the late 90s through 2004 won't come back for a long while. Bail pulls on cabinetry--ring pulls, too!

I'm exactly 30. A small house in the city is a cute idea when you have toddlers, but since most parents are loath to give their children the kind of freedom city kids used to have, modern middle-class city kids either have parents squeezing for the nanny and the private school...or the kids go without the nanny and essentially become prisoners in their own houses. Small houses work fine when kids roam around outside all evening! They don't work when bored, under-exercised kids are cooped up in the house all day. I can't tell you the number of people I know who thought that all they'd ever was a townhome or apt--until their kids hit elementary school.

Now, here in the suburbs, my kids roam around all afternoon. As do all the neighbors'. We've probably got the lowest childhood obesity level in the state. Not an accident! :-)

Conspicuous consumption is rampant in my generation. It's just clothed in the hypocrisy of "green"-ness. Organic is a status symbol. Even the lowly veggie garden (I have one, too, so I'm not bashing veggie gardens, as such) is a status symbol. I nearly peed myself laughing when I saw an overpriced onesie made of "organic cotton" and a logo saying "organic baby"--with a picture of a BOTTLE on it! How much more backward can you get?????????? I think that pretty thoroughly sums up today's "green" movement among the "new yuppies." One car's a Prius. The other is a small SUV--because, you know, they'd never be caught dead in a minivan. So you'll see a lot of engineered surfaces made with resin touted as more "sustainable" than ROCK, etc., etc.

As far as REAL furniture in the kitchen--I have a real antique sideboard in my kitchen now and don't recommend it. Lacquer finished just don't stand up to kitchen abuse, and the tops particularly are very fragile. Kitchen drawers also see a LOT more use than furniture can handle over the long haul.

*groan* I meant...

... I think our parents throw out less things than today's "young people"....

I don't want to veer too far into urban/suburban dynamics, but the urban "pioneers" who moved back into my neighborhood (and primarily the one East, initially) are dying --at age 90. It happened really early right around here. Further South in my city, suburban flight is still happening: I worked with a couple people that lived as adults on the street their parents were born on, and people there started leaving that part of town in droves in the 90s for some reason, and moving to the suburbs.

I am adjacent to a different neighborhood that in the 1960 census had one of the highest infant mortality rates, lack of indoor plumbing(!), and lowest per capita incomes in the US. This neighborhood is still kinda redeveloping-- The "ideal" planned suburb that was built outside my city at that time(1959-60) is now a place that the working class and lower class are now "moving up" to, and it is regularly featured on the news as the site of violence, drug problems and all the rest.

I'm with reyesuela - so much phoniness with the green thing. Heaven forbid you should hang your clothes to dry (at least some of them!) Some towns don't even allow it. Gas lawn mowers, tractors, leaf blowers and weed wackers all working at once on a 75x125 lawn to cause such noice (and air) pollution that windows have to be closed on beautiful days.

I guess maybe it is a regional thing, then; the school-aged kids in our city neighborhood do roam around, though they all seem to have cell phones and most are required to call to check in periodically. I will say when we first moved in, I was a little surprised by it---"really? you're sure that's okay with your mom?"---but now I actually think it's one of the coolest things about this area. (Our first introduction to several neighbors was when their kids showed up on our front porch and wanted to climb the trees in the backyard b/c the PO had let them do it!) The middle-school-aged kids are allowed to take the city bus around town if they have a friend with them, and seem to do so without getting into trouble.

For what it's worth, many of the engineered surfaces *are* more sustainable than rock, if the rock you're talking about is granite that's mined in India or China and then shipped across the globe, and the engineered surface is made nearby of post-consumer products. There's a life cycle analysis to look at for everything (how long will it last? what energy was consumed in making it?) and I absolutely agree that many "green" products are anything but that---but granite in particular has one of the biggest environmental impacts of any counter material. (That's not to say you can't choose it anyway factoring that in, and understanding that there are tradeoffs---I still think it's one of the best performing counter materials out there, so obviously that's a factor---but being "natural" does not automatically equate to harmless.)

@palimpsest, it's funny because I was actually thinking about the original urban pioneers last night---maybe part of why there are so many young families where we live is just that the generation that is moving out is largely people our grandparents' age who are moving into care facilities, passing away, etc.---so those are the homes that are for sale. Our parents, on the other hand, plan to stay in their homes for some time to come. So maybe the 30-somethings in 2030 will be moving to those neighborhoods simply because that's where the most homes will be turning over. We do have the same challenge in this area with some of the older suburbs inheriting the violence and drug problems that were once in the city, though.

@lucretzia, hanging your clothes out to dry *does* help, even if doesn't look cool. Even if you don't do it to be green, it saves money, too. Our gas bill dropped by a huge amount when we switched to line drying. And I don't entirely understand the mower issue---if anything, that would seem to be an argument for going green (e.g., replacing your lawn with something that doesn't need that level of maintenance), not an argument against it.

I'm not sure I have any idea what the next thing will be, but I hope it is a continuation of the kitchen being more like a room in the house than "just" a kitchen. Perhaps more open kitchens, lack of uppers, unfitted, use of furniture in kitchen. Definitely more colour in cabinets.

I think the trend in the '80s and '90s towards mega suburban homes will continue to slow or reverse, at least in my area (which is in central Canada and likely very different from most of the posters here). I live in a medium-sized urban house - i.e. I could have had a huge house in the suburbs, but chose instead to live in a fantastic urban neighbourhood, so had to settle for a narrow small lot and a "not huge" house. Definitely worth the trade off in my mind, and I have a five-year old and a two-year old. My urban bias might be caused by what Artemis78 referenced - I grew up in the suburbs and will never go back - some kind of residual of childhood rebellion I guess!

I move back home into my freashly renovated home and kitchen in a few days, so I just hope that it won't be completely outdated too soon!

I agree with plllog about the "Eco-chic", and what she means by that. I am putting a little bit of that into practice myself. I am reusing pieces of Kraftmaid trim and v-groove from my parents remodel 5 years ago. I am painting all of my cabinets, so it doesn't make a difference that the finishes are different. I am using some salvage materials as well- the shelving in my pantry and china closets will cost $20 AND have great patina; I am using salvage wood floors to match the rest of my house (a steal at $280 for 180 SF)! I may even use salavage beadboard in there too. I think we are going to see ALOT more of this in the future. Look at Habitat's Restore stores, Community Forklift (MD), and Second Chance (MD)- all salvage/builder remnants/etc. Two reasons: Cost and Environment. I also think you will see more antiques incorporated as well. Antiques are green! I have seen this many places.

However, I don't agree that kitchen remodels (and other home remodeling) will come to a stand still. Quite the opposite in a way. Two reasons: first, I think the trend of "nesting" and "staycations" has people investing what discretionary income they have into their homes, rather than on expensive vacations, clothes, jewelry, cars, etc. Second, many people are chosing to stay in their current home for considerably longer (or maybe they have to) and therefore not buying another larger and more expensive home. This will translate into more renovations of current homes.

I also think that the desire for less expensive materials will drive designers and entrepreneurs to create new products and materials to meet that demand.

And, I think more people will take up the DIY torch. I agree with others that painted finishes (sans glaze, which I think has already seen its heyday) will become even more popular, in any color. Many people who want a drastic change can paint their existing cabinets (reduce, reuse, recycle!) for great results. I would have personally done this if my cabinets weren't so far gone.

I think that the size of future homes is based entirely on location. the cost of a 3000sf house in San Fran is not the same as rural Kansas. It is all local/regional. Many people would be aghast at the value of my small rowhouse on the literal outskirts of Baltimore. Buyers looking for a large kitchen are just not going to get it in this neighborhood. If that is a priority, they will choose a home somewhere else.

I do not see an end to combining the kitchen with either the dining room or living space, or both. I do not know anyone who does not have or does not want their kitchen open to more of their home. I think that this is particularly true of parents (we are in our mid 30s with 2 young kids) and I do not see that "trend" changing anytime in the near future.

I do see a greater empashis on making the kitchen feel more like a "regular" room, rather than a completely utilitairan space. This is something that I am trying to achieve in my own remodel.

Although I love them, truly unfitted kitchens will never exist here as they do in Europe. Americans will never go for moving their kitchens with the rest of their belongings. It is just not part of our culture.

As far as the phony green stuff- that drives me nuts. We buy organic as much as we can, because it is good for you. I don't drive much, because we moved, purposely, to a neighborhood that has almost everything you need a short walk away. I like old stuff and locally/regionally made stuff because it has a history and a story, not becuase it is trendy. I could do more to be green. I plan to do a potted vegetable garden this year to complement my new kitchen. But to use a "green" material or two, just to tout your eco-consciousness! THAT drives me nuts.

BTW, the organic cotton baby onesie with the bottle- I would have gone balistic if I saw that in person. I can't tell you how many moms I know that consider themselves totally eco/green/etc. that both bottle fed and used disposable diapers. Drives me nuts! Sorry for the downward spiral....maybe the snow is getting to me...

There will always be a place for the latest luxuries with the upper income folks. But for the rest of us, I think this recession will change the purchasing habits of a generation. I am in my 30s. I and people younger than me are not likely to achieve the same wealth as our parents did. Most of us will work harder for less. We look around, and many of our friends lost their jobs. Maybe they found one by now but they are making thousands less than before. Maybe they are STILL on unemployment benefits months later. We tried to climb the corporate ladders or start our own businesses and were smacked down by the economy.

But our love of spending runs deep. When the economy improves most of us will be back spending more than we should

It will be our children whose lives were changed by the downturn. The ones who watched mom & dad not make the mortgage payments. The ones who saw us spend when we shouldn't.

It'll be that generation that really changes the way kitchens are done. There will be less major remodeling when these kids grow-up. They will carry some of that depression mentality...making do, being frugal, living without that my grandparents still have from their childhood.

I think the trends constantly change because they have to. If companies want to sell new stuff, there has to be something different about it. The unfitted kitchens like in Europe might stand a chance here but probably not in the main stream middle America. Colors will change. Stainless will look dated. I bet white and black appliances will be back in vogue. They're cheaper and don't look as showy.

I'll be really curious what my 12 year old son and his generation think will think is important in 15 years.

1) I have heard from cupboard salespeople that this new generation does not cook, but I believe that shrinking budgets will change that. I have been impressed by the number of stores which are carrying large pressure canners. Were these in the stores ten years ago? I don't think so. If there is a return to food growing and food preservation, the show kitchens will not serve.

Personally, I'm designing a kitchen with 3 pull-out wooden boards which will act as sit-on-a-stool stations for bulk food processing, whether it's the deer, the morrel mushrooms, the green beans, or the broccoli. There will be two sinks and the microwave is not in the vicinity of the stove. There will be two composting bins, one by each sink. The closet will hold the dehydrator, the canner, the blancher, the foley food mill. When fresh food arrives in bulk, it's got to be worked on! I have asked myself, "What were the virtues of a farm kitchen?" and that's what I'm working toward. I do find others trending the same way, but they are not featured in the shelter mags. Perhaps kitchen options will enter the public's awareness through other media? Media not dominated by advertisers and shills? I sure hope so, says Polyanna!

This is not to say that there is not going to continue be a lot of reliance on ready-made foods, etc. But even the obesity problem may make end the trend toward "let the kids help themselves" appliances and spaces. Having a special appliance just to keep kids content is a dangerous thing, in my old fashioned opinion. Let the kids have a drink from the faucet!

2) I suspect that the bigger-is-better concept has peaked. The drop in home values has made the kitchen rehab or addition a more expensive endeavor, relatively.

3) You'll know that the conservative depression mode has really hit when "early American" in some form comes back. Right now, friendless brass colonial-style fixtures are heaped in the re-use centers. 1930s and 40s Cape-cod and federal-colonial houses are out of fashion in my neighborhood, but they're treasures that will be rediscovered and loved, I am sure, says Polyanna.

4) As more and more homes are given up by the generation that is heading to senior citizen residences, the cash-strapped younger generation may stop taking down the walls between kitchen and dining room. Sociologists say that conversation at a side-by-side bar is differnt from conversation at a face-each-other table. It's the latter that cultivates personal interaction, real conversation, real thought about the other person. Educators tell us that kids who grow up at a family table are better students, in contrast to kids who graze and do not eat with adults regularly. Formal eating at a table gives children lifelessons that are a leg up socially. I believe that the kitchen table will make a come-back, at least among earnest parents and the educated.

4) I agree that more lower-cabinets-only kitchens are appearing. Here in Mpls-St. Paul I talked with an interesting company Otogawa-Anschel which recommended that I not use upper cupboards. Gave me a lot to think about.

this is such a timely topic for me!
we've decided to wait out the economy and remodel our kitchen/entry in the meantime.
the house looks like a nantucket farm/beach house outside, dark grey shingles with bright white trim, but an open L shaped living/dining room.
my instinct in the new addition, which is basically a slightly larger reconfiguration of the current tiny kitchen and poorly organised strung out entry/ mudroom space, will now have an 18x28 kitchen and a 22x12 entry.
i see it as the heart, the main room of the house now.
dh is an avid cook, and whenever we have any guests or family over, we're all crowded into the current 9x11 kitchen watching him do his thing.
this new kitchen will have a rumford style pizza fireplace anchoring the far corner, with our big farm table in front of it, and on the near wall a walk-in pantry for dishes.
we do have two fridges and a freezer which we'll place along a long wall, and my prized antique six door icebox along the other long wall. the walls upon which the pot/prep sink and dh's range are placed face the water, so no upper cabs there. there will be an upper cab for glass ware next to the beverage fridge, but that's about it.
we're using drawers instead of doors, painted cabs instead of stained, and soapstone and marble counters.
the marble is salvaged,commercial range, windows and doors re-used, etc.
we're certainly on a budget, but i think we'll end up with a highly functional family gathering space.
the new kitchen sounds very much like what you guys are talking about, i'm glad to see!

I think people will tire of the open concept and want separate spaces for separate functions.

I also think people will eventually dislike being told how much water or electricity they can use and there will be a backlash against the green police.

I think any trend that has people eating home more will actually spur the open concept...they'll be spending more time prepping, cooking, and cleaning up and most people (men and women) will no longer stand for being isolated from everyone else while these tasks are handled.

As to kitchen vs dining room table...I have found that manners/etiquette are taught/used more at the DR table than the Kitchen table. That's not to say they aren't at the Kitchen Table, but I think most people are more "aware" of them at the DR table.

Personally, I think as long as you eat at a table, it doesn't matter if it's a DR or Kitchen Table as far as "family time" is concerned. Yes, we took down the wall b/w our Kitchen & DR and eliminated the Kitchen Table (that was in too small an area anyway) and there has been no reduction in family meals...we still all eat together 6 or 7 nights a week. The counter seating is more for snacks, projects, working from home, etc.

My DH made the comment last night that it's great that we use all the rooms in our house now. The DR used to be unused most of the year...ditto for the LR as it was also cut off from the rest of the house. By opening up the wall b/w the Kitchen & DR, it also opened up the LR somewhat...enough that we actually use it now!

Like artemis78 I live in the SF Bay Area, although I'm quite a bit older. I do have a lot of friends her age, though, and what I see is similar.

- People chose not to live in the cheapest suburbs here. The commute cost is too high, and the time it takes is too long. You might think a 4 bdrm house is ideal for the parents of 3 daughters, but one woman I know who lives this lifestyle, has a commute of 1-1/2 hours EACH WAY, every weekday (assuming no accidents or lousy weather, BTW). Ten guesses how much she enjoys it - not!

- There are three strong design trends amongst my younger friends:

1) Contemporary, clean lines but not cold. This, BTW, is my personal style as well. The glossy column hidden-kitchen shown in the photo above could easily have been an avant-garde prototype in the 1960's from House & Garden magazine. A little too shiny for my tastes, but closer to my preferences than a fake Tuscan kitchen, for example.

2) Arts & Craft/Shaker. This is huge with my younger friends, who really respond to the warm beauty of wood. It's funny to think that 30 yrs ago you could hardly give away the classic Arts & Craft bungalows found in the Rockridge neighborhood, but for today's generation, they are the penultimate in architectural design and craftsmanship.

3) Retro 1940's through 1970's. A smaller group numerically, but rabid fans. Offer them a real 1960's rotary dial phone and they'll literally swoon (I've done it). Turqoise and orange make them happy. They covet the authentic chrome-and-green-vinyl diner style banquettes with table. Black and white checkerboard vinyl flooring with a retro styled toaster on the counter would be their first design choices for the kitchen of their dreams.

Finally, although the economic pinch has them eating at home more, they all cook LESS than I did at their age. They simply don't have the time for lengthy, laborious, multi-step recipes. They work long hours and come home exhausted. Trader Joe's and Costco are preferred to Wal-Mart and Whole Foods. The only stew they regularly make is chili; this is a generation that only discovered Boeuf Bourguignon after one of their peers blogged about it and a movie was made. An extremely large percentage of them are flexitarians or vegetarians.

Not a single one of them has ever eaten in, or is familiar with, classic French haute cuisine - the last great French restaurant in San Francisco, La Bourgoyne, closed down twenty years ago. But they are familiar with bistros, fancy cocktails, and everything from Peruvian ceviche to Japanese sushi to Ethiopian injera. They are more interested in locally sourced foods (something like an everyday splurge) than an eco-green kitchen remodel (which most of them can't afford to do yet). They enjoy cooking together in groups, as potlucks are the way everyone entertains these days. The type of formal, sit-down one-cook-does-it-all dinner parties that my mother did, and I used to do, are a vanished way of life.

I don't usually participate in these kinds of threads, but a nerve has been hit here.

In 2007 only 2% of households earned over $250,000. What is the definition of wealth, then? I think to suggest that anyone living in a 2-3 million dollar, 10,000 sq ft home, under ANY circumstances, is middle class is insulting and completely out of touch with the way most people live. I don't feel rich because I can't afford everything I want, but I know I am because I can more than afford everything I need and then some. I feel like the tone of this thread is a bit haughty and out of touch with the real world. I mean, "depression chic"? It's downright offensive. People are suffering, for goodness sakes!

I know the current trend is to say that no one cooks anymore, but I'm not so sure. I grew up poor in the South which meant 99.9% of meals were home cooked - and not necessarily in a good way ;-) Moving up to the Pacific-Northwest in the late 80s, I was shocked to find all my high school friends lived on Bagel Bites and Hot Pockets. They were all busy with sports most nights of the week and they pretty much ate what could be bought bulk at Costco and heated up in the microwave.

And I can't say I've really seen a lot of 80s appliances built for hardcore cooking - one of my girlfriends, for instance, has a vintage Fridgidaire Flair and it cooks the *pants* off my horrible 80s Jenn-Air cooktop. Were 80s appliances so bad because no one cooked? Or did no one cook because 80s appliances were so bad?

Either way, I know an awful lot of the Hot Pocket generation in the Seattle area who are cooking at home. Some are over-educated Omnivore's Dilemma converts, some are old-school hippie kids, some are newly broke and some are just plain foodies. But very few of them seem willing to cook on poorly designed stoves in inefficient work spaces.

Given that, I'm hoping kitchen trends keep moving towards functional and convenient - the Hot Pocket generation knows that cooking is healthy and cheap, but now *we're* the busy parents trying to balance "healthy" with "easy and convenient". I agree with JulieofMinn - more ergonomics! Better design! Easier to clean! My kitchen was obviously designed by a builder who'd never cooked/cleaned/watched kids in his *life*. And there's no way my 80s kitchen could have functioned for a family that did more than heat food up between soccer games.

Please, Lord - no more builder designed kitchens in the future! And hopefully we'll see an increased trend towards kitchens thoughtfully designed to be the functional work space they need to be, with appliances that are actually pleasant to use. Still warm and inviting - just less stupid.

So, yeah - "professional style ranges" for values of professional that include boiling water in under a half hour; easy to clean surfaces that work, like induction cooktops; small, efficient speed cookers, like the TurboChef and the Advantium; and flexible cleaning solutions like dish drawers and more than one dishwasher: these things can be pricey, but not as pricey as eating out. (Not to mention the extreme gadget appeal to the techy generation, and the extreme function appeal to professionals used to highly organized work spaces.)

Might be wishful thinking based on my current mom-life, but as I said to DH - "Would you put up with a work space this inefficient and broken at your office?" I like to think that if more kitchens were designed as a pleasurable space to cook in, more people might cook.

cheri127

The point of bringing that situation up is that he lives in excess. Yes his family income is at the $250,000+ level, but to live in a 10K square foot house with all its trappings is beyond his means, really.

There is a vast gulf between someone who makes $250K a year and the super wealth present in this country. As I said, true sustaining "wealth" is somewhere up around $10M in assets according to some analysts. How many of the people up around that $250K per annum mark have that? Then, there is a vast difference between what upper middle class is and the lower ends of middle class.

I grew up in a working class town. To this day, the wealthiest people in town (factory owners) live in large houses that have a market value of $300K. A run down house goes for $300K in parts of the city I live in now. People who have working class jobs are shown on House Hunters buying houses at this level in California. By extension, A $3M house is different things in different places.

This thread was supposed to be about now that people have had the ultimate (perhaps in excess), ---what is next? Not about espousing a particular lifestyle. Don't look for insult when its not there.

Maybe with the recession and all the eco-green hype it will result in more modest cosmetic updates and fewer people gutting fully functional kitchens that have not yet reached their life expectancy.

I always find it kind of interesting when people talk about their new green, eco-friendly kitchens after they've torn out a perfectly functional, relatively "new" kitchen and sent it to the landfill.

Green is very tough to gauge. I live in a neighborhood that was on its second round of development in 1840-50 (primary environmental inpact was 200 years ago) and walk or take public transportation everywhere. If I clock 10 miles in someone's car in a month I would be surprised. I live in a building where everyone has approximately 1000 sq ft of living space, or slightly less. I shop with canvas bags.

On the other hand the building I live in is an energy sieve because it is so old. I drink prepared green tea by the gallon--thats a Lot of plastic.

So on one level I am very green, on the other an energy waster.

If you replace an appliance that uses a lot of energy, but it ends up in a landfill, what is the green balance?

What if you use sustainable hardwood, but its shipped halfway round the world?

Granite makes a big hole in the ground. The production end of cement is not good for the environment.

I think there is an awful lot of accounting is needed to figure out what is green and what isn't, and that I am probably doing things that I THINK are green that are not.

As palimpsest pointed out, there are many shades of gray in green. We all make choices in what we do and how much of it we do. Small steps should be celebrated because they lead to bigger steps.

This isn't a prediction as much as it is a hope: green design will be a matter of degrees, with more thought and understanding behind the choices. I hope that we consumers will look beyond a pretty face, so to speak, and see what it is we are truly getting and at what cost.

I think Bibliomom's point brings up a different, important issue. Houses used to be built by craftsmen. Now they're developments put together by MBA's. It's not so much about the '80's appliances as the '80's houses. Just like people want cheap, disposable stylish clothes and furniture from China, they want (or have wanted) these cheap, landless, disposable houses. The kitchen is put in as a "selling point" with the cheapest possible, snazziest cabinets, granite (of the cheapest variety) and shiny appliances. The whole thing is master designed for what looks best to first time buyers, not what will be a good, ergonomic, functional kitchen.

To a certain extent these developments eventually mature, especially if they don't have HOA's, people settle in and customize, and create real neighborhoods. They tear out the impossible builder kitchens and we help them replace them with something nice. And it's good for them to be able to buy less house at the outset so they can afford it before they're otherwise ready.

But that does give us disposable kitchens that are showy but not great for cooking in.

I don't know if there's any way to insert better quality into a large volume, bottom line kind of an ethic. Other than one off infill, which has been and will continue to be happening.

I do think it's important to tease apart "volume" and "disposable." We live in an area where there a huge number of homes were developed in the 1920s and 1930s; several adjacent neighborhoods were built on spec, with tiny homes and lots packed in, and many duplexes and fourplexes sprinkled in. They have HOAs that date back to the 1920s and still help pay for sidewalk maintenance, playgrounds, sewer work, community services, and the like. But in spite of being built en masse, many of those homes are in better shape as they approach 100 years than the homes built 15 years ago in the suburbs here.

It's definitely possible to do volume with quality. In fact, it's easier and more cost-effective now than it's ever been. It's just that if buyers are only interested in the bottom line, that's always going to mean the cheapest thing available, and as we outsource more and more trades, those materials are likely to get shoddier and shoddier. The only real way to prevent it is to put public policy into place that prevents sub-standard materials from being used or incentivizes those that will last longer, but generally we as a nation have been extremely resistant to that except in the most extreme cases (e.g., Chinese drywall).

Oh, I agree! It's the MBA thing maximizing profits and the designing a kitchen as a sales tool rather than a kitchen that does it. Back in the 20's and 30's the people who made houses, the workers, generally had pride in workmanship, at least where I live.

>and people younger than me are not likely to achieve the same wealth as our parents did.

I'm 30. I don't think that's true in the least. We've been broke, sure, but mostly--not. I would never make the kinds of decisions my parents did. We live for ourselves, not other people--drive our cars into the ground, don't buy name brands, never carry consumer debt, etc. Live under our means. But we don't want to be poor (or lower-middle class, or even most of middle-middle class) and have consciously made career decisions in that direction. And most of my friends are similarly minded. Money isn't everything--isn't most things--but establishing a threshold of comfortable living and taking steps to stay above it is only sensible. Hard work, sure. But there's no point in having your nose to the grindstone for nothing.

I certainly hope my kids make more individually than both of us put together, too!

---

My great-grandfather built a house in the '20s. Badly. Just wasn't any good at it. It's gone now--and good riddance.

>The only real way to prevent it is to put public policy into place that prevents sub-standard materials from being used or incentivizes those that will last longer, but generally we as a nation have been extremely resistant to that except in the most extreme cases (e.g., Chinese drywall).

Yeah, nanny states! That'll do it! I guess Britain's high level of building standards is why they allow PLASTIC (let me repeat that--PLASTIC) to be used as part of a water heater tank without the kinds of mandatory pressure fail-safes we have here so that an infant could be boiled alive in her cot when the thermostat malfunctioned and melted the tank above her room. Well, you know, as long as the water didn't get super-heated, it wouldn't MELT THE PLASTIC WATER HEATER TANK, so everything's fine, right? The government's response was that the thermostats should be recalled, not that it's an insanely stupid idea to have a meltable water heater and no system to bleed off dangerous water pressure in the case that the water gets superheated.

We've ALREADY got regulations that specify what materials can and can't be used already--and it also specifies what those materials, in fact, are. It's called a building code, and it's applicable to most areas. And if it's followed, the trimwork may be cruddy and the sheetrocking shameful and the floor plan ridiculous, but the house is safe. We don't need "incentives" (aka, tax dollars) going to bribe people into doing what someone paper-pusher things is "better." It'd be the LEED farce times one thousand.

I'm not sure where Britain got into this mix....?? My point was just that, left to its own devices, the market will not opt for higher quality materials as long as developers can slip by with lower quality materials, the high-end market excepted. First-time home buyers (and even some seasoned home buyers!) don't necessarily know the difference until they've lived with materials or products for some time.

I'm fine with simply having a stronger, more specific building code in lieu of incentives. I don't really care on that front. The issue is that right now, we have neither in most parts of the country, and a totally hands-off approach is not likely to yield lasting mass-produced new housing (or anything else) any time soon as long as that cheaper disposable option is out there. As a society we have to decide that creating high-quality housing that is not disposable is a value that we hold. And honestly, for some people, I'm not so sure it is.

Am finding a number of louvered doors and cabinets in some trendy photos. Is this telling us something about what's coming?

Also, am wondering whether the "shaker" style cupboard door is so ubiquitous now that it's become, like blue jeans, a timeless thing, or if it's the most likely thing to be used in future to date the kitchens from our time. My custom cupboard man says that 80 percent of his work is requested to be in this style and thinks that it's the same for other vendors.

And I am also wondering about what the trend will be for decorative cupboard and door glass, now that the etched Victorian mania is abating.

[Personally, I have looked hard for cupboard inserts that mimic the rough mod glass texture of Iittala Finnish glassware; would very much like to know if it's "out there." I do know "Croco" has dot patterns and "Corsica" is rough wavy glass. These were my two best almost-translucent choices at a glass vendor showroom which just went out of business here in Twin Cities. But few other vendors have these as choices, although the now-defunct vendor said that a major custom door mfg company has recently chosen to include Croco in its custom door options.]