Kitchen Design Trends – looking towards 2023

Keeping in touch with kitchen design trends is an important part of planning your renovation to make sure your new space is modern and up to date. When using trends to help define your kitchen design goals, it’s important to consider both emerging trends as well as enduring trends. And, you don’t want to incorporate every new trend into your kitchen – focus on what will suit you and your family into the future.

We asked our Mint Kitchen Group kitchen design experts for their picks of the design trends we should know about as we head towards 2023.

The heart of the home

The kitchen has long been considered the central hub in the home but never has this been more relevant than in today’s post-pandemic world. Never before have we spent so much time in our homes – with lockdown after lockdown and Covid restrictions hampering our ability to focus on rest and recreation outside the home.

The result has been a renewed focus on what we want from our homes and how we need them to be designed to create a lifestyle that works for the way we live. This has significantly changed how we think about the kitchen and its function in the home. And this, in turn, has altered our focus towards spaces that are calming and relaxing, that feel warm and welcoming, and that can make us feel safe when the world outside is unpredictable and scary.

Designed for cooking

Whether you’re a serious home chef or simply someone who sees cooking as a necessity, there’s no doubt we all undertook a lot more home cooking during our months inside. So we’re seeing a renewed focus on the cooking zone within the kitchen and how to make it a super functional and enjoyable space. That means the design of the kitchen must be carefully considered not just in terms of layout but also in the choice of materials, fittings and fixtures.

Although we still want our kitchens to look amazing, we’re also very focussed on how they perform. And that means making clever choices when it comes to what goes where.

Colour schemes are muted

Gone are the days of the “bling” kitchen with its bright lights and shiny surfaces. The kitchens of 2023 will focus on colour schemes from the natural/neutral range. In keeping with the trend towards our homes being spaces of calm and comfort, kitchen colour schemes will predominantly be matte finishes and muted tones to provide a feeling of relaxation and repose. Where brighter tones are used, we see them as highlight materials to create light and shade, rather than the dominant surfaces of the past.

Multi-Use Spaces

Another extension from our extended periods at home, the open-plan kitchen – always the central gathering point for entertainment and family time – will be designed around how the space can also be used for home-schooling or working from home as well as be utilised for the many hobbies we took up during the pandemic.

It’s here we see more and more clever hardware solutions that allow the various zones within the kitchen to form and reform to suit different needs.

Technology

Ever prominent in our lives, technology during the pandemic became our way of staying in touch with the outside world. We have already seen an uptake in the way technology has been incorporated into the kitchen, but looking towards 2023 we believe there is a huge need for the services that support our use of technology – charging stations (in drawer and built-in to the benchtop), storage of devices, and places for devices to sit while in use.

Plus, there are now myriad tasks that can be completed by using apps on your smart phone or device including turning ovens on and off, controlling lighting elements, monitoring cooking activity etc…. which means kitchen designers need to be always cognisant of ways to incorporate our use of technology into the design and layout of the room.

Care for the environment

Within the kitchen there are a number of choices that can be made in terms of the materials chosen for both horizontal and vertical surfaces. The market for material producers is flooded with new ideas and new concepts that incorporate care for the environment including the choice of source of raw materials, the method of production or manufacture of the material, its lifecycle and how it can be re-used or recycled, as well as intricate details such as glues and solvents used.

Along with this shift has been the welcome development that more consumers are now making conscious choices with the environment in mind and are actively seeking kitchen designers who are knowledgeable about the products available on the market and how to apply them to a variety of interior spaces.

There is a lot to consider when it comes to monitoring kitchen design trends and which ones to look out for when thinking about your kitchen renovation. Working with an expert in kitchen design allows you to benefit from their extensive knowledge of colour and texture, materials and fittings to stay up to date with the latest in product releases and design concepts. Why not drop into one of our four showrooms in Melbourne and see how Mint Kitchen Group can help you today?