When it comes to adding both value and “livability” to a home, the experts agree it all comes down to two rooms: the bathroom(s), and the kitchen. Get it wrong, and you could be looking at a lot of sparsely-attended open houses.
Get it right, however, and you could have a buyer signing on the dotted line sooner than you think. Design trends are constantly evolving, so it’s always a good idea to stay on top of each new movement to keep your home appearing modern and fresh. So what does 2022 have in store for home sellers looking to attract a buyer and up their asking price? Let’s have a look:
1. Update Your Countertops
- Inspired: Quartz and quartzite countertops
- Tired: Granite countertops
Your countertop may need some updates if you’re living in an older home. Trends are constantly evolving, and your style preferences may change over the years. What was once popular to home buyers has changed with the seasons, so keeping up with these trends will increase your home’s resale value.
Out With the Old
The look and durability of stone is always going to be a winner in a room that sees a fair share of spills. What’s not to love? While granite was once a coveted must, however, its visual weight is becoming less of a base and more of an anchor for potential buyers.
Granite also doesn’t have the same strength that other materials, like quartz, have to offer. Additionally, when granite countertops aren’t sealed properly, it becomes a porous material and can soak up liquids that can cause stains, like wine or juice. These stains become challenging, if not impossible, to clean.
In With the New
Driven by the popularity among home renovation stars like Chip and Joanna Gaines, quartz and quartzite are subbing in as the stone-of-the-moment. The appeal comes from the fact that you can customize quartz countertops depending on your preferences.
Since quartz is handmade, you can choose different patterns to match the rest of your kitchen or fun textures to add a three-dimensional effect. Play around with color to bring your kitchen design together, or choose a color that stands out.
Choosing a Finish
The finish you choose for your countertops will solidify the look. Polished countertops have remained a popular choice among homeowners, but honed, or matte, finishes are quickly rising to the top. A honed finish doesn’t shine as a glossy finish does, so it will be more difficult to notice any scratches or scuffs on the surface of your counters.
You can apply a honed finish to various surfaces, including quartz, so combining the two is the perfect way to stay up to date on the most recent kitchen trends!
2. Restore Your Kitchen Cabinets
- Inspired: Makeovers
- Tired: Replacements
Cabinets are among the biggest eyecatchers in a kitchen, so it’s good to keep old kitchen cabinets looking fresh and updated. There are multiple ways you can update cabinets without replacing them entirely. Try these kitchen cabinet redo ideas:
Paint
Something as simple as covering out-of-date cabinets with a new coat of paint can increase your home’s resale value. Painting is the easiest and most versatile way to change your kitchen cabinet color. Bring a modern look to your home by following emerging trends.
To get proper color saturation, you need to prime the surface of your cabinets first. The primer will act as a base, so any color you put over it will stick to the surface and appear more vibrant. Some modern color choices include:
- Light or dark grays
- Forest green
- Apple or crimson red
- Soft or dark blues
Once you’ve finished painting, it’s time to pick a finish. You can choose something more common, like a gloss or matte finish, or you can opt for something more specialized, like a chalkboard finish on the side of one of your cabinets.
A unique finish like chalkboard allows home buyers to get a little more creative and use the space to keep track of to-do lists, family chores or schedules.
Wrap
If painting isn’t a method you’re interested in, you can always update your kitchen cabinets by wrapping them. Using a popular medium like vinyl gives you an array of choices. There are various colors, textures and patterns to choose from so you can add value to your kitchen.
Crown Molding
Get creative with your kitchen cabinet redo ideas and add crown molding. The decorative designs and variety of styles give any cabinet an elevated look and can be easily installed.
Coordinate the color of your crown molding with the base of your cabinets, or choose a complementary color or something of a different shade to create a stark contrast that will catch the eye. Crown molding can also be extended to the ceiling to tie together the whole kitchen.
Crown molding is an elegant addition to any kitchen and speaks to your style. Many home buyers also find it to be an appealing addition due to its sleek appearance.
Cabinet Lighting
Ambient lighting emanating from your kitchen cabinets is a great way to add a modern feel to your kitchen. You can brighten up the room and bring attention to the beautiful modifications you’ve made to your cabinets.
LED strips make an excellent option to fit under your cabinets, and you can control the lighting remotely with customized color options. Freely choose to set the mood or liven up your workspace so you can see what you’re doing.
Throw on some ambient lighting for the season with oranges in the fall and greens or pinks in the winter. Or start a romantic evening off right with mood lighting. They also work great for parties, whether it’s a small get-together with friends or a big house party.
You can take this a step further by lighting your cabinets from the inside. This works best if you have glass-front cabinets. Everything inside will be brightly lit, easy to identify, and you’ll have created a unique flair in your kitchen.
Accessorize
You can pull your kitchen cabinets together by adding a few intricate pieces or details to make them stand out. Select from various styles of hardware to complement your design choices.
Use black hinges or handles to contrast your brightly colored cabinets. Silver or gold metal pieces add elegance to any cabinet and pair well with crown molding or other elegant features. You have plenty of room to customize here based on what theme you are going for and if you are looking for a classic or modern look.
To add an extra layer of flair, put up some wallpaper on the inside of your cabinets. Choose a pattern that matches others you already have in the kitchen or around the home. If this is the only location you’ll have a pattern, go wild with your choices but make sure it stays in line with the theme and color scheme of the rest of your decor.
You can also replace the glass of your cabinet doors with metal or fretwork to add a vintage or elegant look to your kitchen. Your cabinets will look even more unique when you add this extra design element.
3. Apply a New Backsplash
- Inspired: Unique tiles, such as handmade or Moroccan-style pieces
- Tired: Subway tile dominating the kitchen
It had a good run, but the polarizing slender-rectangle tile that practically defined backsplashes as a canvas is starting to fall out of favor. Instead, trendy modern kitchens are using the artistic irregularities of handmade tiles and colorful mosaics to bring in organic textures and less sterile hues.
A word to the wise, however: handmade and “DIY” are not interchangeable – stick to renovating your kitchen with pre-made tiles, as inexpertly-applied “personal touches” could end up negatively eclipsing important updates and details. Here are some pre-made backsplash tile ideas that can elevate your kitchen decor:
- White Cloe tile: This backsplash style complements all varieties of kitchens. The smooth texture and bright colors call attention to white Cloe tile’s natural radiance.
- Marble: Marble is more classic but is a suitable backsplash to most kitchens and pairs well with marble countertops and designs that focus on elegance and sophistication.
- Moroccan-style: Moroccan-style backsplash tiles are traditionally made from clay and involve various patterns and designs. The signature colors represent the four elements, but you can branch out and choose colors suited to your design style. Choosing this style for your backsplash gives you plenty of design opportunities.
- Geometric: Geometric tiles make an excellent backsplash for any kitchen. The repeating patterns elevate and bring a new life to the space while offering a unique design customized to your liking.
- Handmade: A handmade backsplash is perfect for homeowners looking for something a little more unique than what other backsplashes can offer. Handmade tiles are produced by professionals with an in-depth knowledge of the craft for quality results.
4. Bring New Life to Your Appliances
- Inspired: Unexpected colors in major appliances
- Tired: Stainless steel everything
Appliances are a huge part of any kitchen, both in function and in style. How your appliances look can pull your kitchen together, impressing potential home buyers if you make the right selection. There are a few things you can do to make your appliances a statement piece in your kitchen.
Limiting Stainless Steel
For a long time, stainless steel has been a facet of every major kitchen appliance. The sleek, simplified look appealed to many, but it is slowly falling to the wayside as more popular trends take shape.
More people are looking to customize their appliances so they blend with the rest of their kitchen. Others are choosing to find ways to hide appliances, like refrigerators, behind pantry doors so the large appliance doesn’t weigh down the design of the kitchen.
Revamping Major Appliances
Color is one of the most popular methods for updating kitchen appliances. As kitchens move away from a cool, industrial-inspired aesthetic, it’s not surprising that the historical appliance centerpiece of the room would follow suit. The range, one of the most utilitarian workhorses to be found in a kitchen, is finally getting a much-needed facelift.
The novelty of colored appliances has shyly peeked its head out from the 1950s, bringing in lush cayenne reds and thrilling icy blues to a palette once available in only white, black or silver. Likewise, stainless steel has been given its marching orders. It comes across as too chilly and impersonal in modern kitchen trends that skew warm and performative.
Find a color that speaks to you and meshes well with the rest of your kitchen and home. For some, that might be choosing a navy dishwasher, sink or fridge to bring out the lighter tones in the kitchen or match their current aesthetic. For others, choosing a lighter, almost pastel color is reminiscent of past design trends and evokes a feeling of comfort and light-heartedness.
5. Add Some Color
- Inspired: Light and airy colors
- Tired: Dark wood and stain
Color is what many home buyers are attracted to. They want something trendy but also within their comfort zone. It’s important to have a general understanding of color theory and its applications in interior design to make sure your color choices go well together.
Understanding Color Theory
Picking the right colors can mean the difference between a well-designed home and something that will have potential buyers shuffling in the other direction after taking one look. To know what colors work best together, have a general understanding of color theory and how it applies to interior design.
In color theory, there are three prominent hues
- Primary: Primary colors consist of red, yellow and blue.
- Secondary: Secondary colors are green, orange and purple.
- Tertiary: Tertiary colors are colors that come from mixing primary and secondary colors.
To select the best colors for your home, stick to a specific palette. If you choose blue as your primary color, you’ll want to stick with other cool-toned colors like gray, white, green or purple.
Complementary colors, or colors that exist directly across from each other on the color wheel, go well together and can be a good starting point to base your design choices on.
Neutral colors mix well with either warm or cool colors and can be used as an accent. They can add more contrast to your designs while still flowing well together.
Bring Life Back Into Your Kitchen
Now it’s time to apply color theory to your kitchen designs. Even if a kitchen lacks soaring ceilings or impressive floor space, dark hues will make it seem more cramped than cozy. On the other hand, light colors create the illusion of space and can open up a small room.
An offshoot of the collective bend away from ornate or “Tuscan” style kitchens in 2020, the use of light colors is being used as a decorative surrogate for minimalism. “In between” hues are hot right now, those that fall somewhere between a “greige” and a bold shade like teal blue or saffron yellow.
Think of a happy medium between strict neutrals and assertive pastels, and you’ll be in the right territory for a modern kitchen paint color that will age well. And while you’re at it, just go ahead and leave that cherry stain at the hardware store.
6. Maintain Home Continuity
- Inspired: Kitchens in whole-home harmony
- Tired: “Statement” kitchens
At the time, unmistakable personal touches like rooster-emblazoned tile in a country kitchen or burgundy wall paint in one of the aforementioned “Tuscan” kitchens likely made a house feel like home. However, as buyers wander through an open house and spot a “sore thumb” design, it can shift their interest right to the next house on their list.
Maintain the continuity of your home by making sure each room corresponds with the others.
Continue the Continuity
Home buyers feel more comfortable in a home if the transition from one room to the next makes sense. You don’t have to use the same style of furniture or items each time to create continuity, but you can use certain design elements to make each room look like it belongs in the same house.
Here are just a few ways to establish a continuous flow in your household:
- Choose the right colors: Repeating colors from one room to the next contribute significantly to a home’s continuity. Everything seems to be a part of a whole, and potential home buyers won’t feel like they’re walking into another house each time they step into a new room.
- Toss in a pattern: You can find patterns in kitchens, bathrooms, rugs and many other areas throughout the house. Try repeating these patterns as closely as possible in accents or larger features throughout your home.
- Theme your accessories: Accessories are a huge part of any home, whether that’s your lamps, your wall art or your knickknacks. If you stick with a theme and make your accessories appear similar to one another, you can create continuity in your home with little effort.
- Pay attention to details: Things like lighting fixtures, faucets, doors and crown molding should remain consistent throughout the house. If your faucet in the kitchen uses one type of metal and color, it’s a good idea to repeat this in bathrooms or any other area with a faucet so your design elements remain the same throughout.
- Find a unique style: You may be a fan of multiple decorative styles, and that’s great! To keep a continuous flow from one room to the next, try to incorporate at least one of the same style in each room. This can be as simple as repeating the primary color or having multiple accessories that correspond with one another.
You have a lot of options when it comes to designing a home. However, kitchens and bathrooms should make design sense in a modern house: designs that are made to stand out become a sizeable resale liability in all but the most niche of cases.
Instead, bring in the design touches and paint colors that dominate the bedrooms, living rooms and so on. Home buyers will appreciate these design considerations and feel more comfortable in a home with a sense of continuity. If the next owner really wants the kitchen to stand out, they can always repaint!
Kitchens, like the rest of the home, will change a great deal from year to year, depending on influencers and design trends. If you’re getting ready to put your home up for sale, these trendy features might help you catch the eye of an interested buyer and maybe even increase your asking price.
Of course, if you don’t have these features in your home already, it will cost a lot of time and money to get your kitchen up to par.
Sell Your Home As-Is With HomeGo
If your kitchen, or your whole home, has seen better days and you don’t want to spend money on an upgrade on a home you’re ready to part with, HomeGo can help. We purchase homes in as-is condition, meaning there’s no pressure to ensure your home is on-trend and appealing to buyers.
Enjoy a hassle-free sale with HomeGo and bring these trends to your next home, where you will actually be spending time in the kitchen.
