So Over Stainless in the Kitchen? 14 Reasons to Give In to Color
Those who survived the invasion of avocado-green and harvest-gold appliances in the 1970s are still trepidatious about using strong color on kitchen appliances. In the 1980s we clung to white and sometimes black, and sometime during the 1990s, stainless steel took over as the must-have finish for appliances. Next we started to hide the appliances, camouflaging refrigerators and dishwashers with panel fronts that matched the cabinetry.
In typical fashion, now things are swinging back. Home cooks are proud of their appliances and want to make them stand out. Once only offered by a few companies, a wide range of appliance color options are now being offered by many manufacturers.
Lou Lenzi, director of industrial design at GE Appliances, has several theories about why colorful appliances are making such a comeback. “While stainless remains a popular premium finish, we’ve seen a rise in what we call ‘stainless fatigue’ — that feeling consumers get when they have to continuously clean fingerprint smudges and dirt marks off of their shiny stainless appliances,” he says. We also may need a break from technology. “Colors tend to soften the impact of the machine world we live in,“ he says.
While it used to be hard to find a range that cost less than a small car and that you didn’t have to import from Europe, American manufacturers are onto the colorful trend. Today there are many more affordable options, and soon you may even be able to switch out a colored refrigerator cover as easily as you switch out the case on your iPhone. Here are a variety of ways to add color via appliances; take a look and decide if your kitchen needs a color injection.
Inject a jolt of unique color. A few design professionals were onto the appeal of cobalt blue long before it became such a rage in the fashion world. When her clients told her they did not want a kitchen that looked like everyone else’s, architect Jean Verbridge’s mind went straight to this cobalt range and vent hood. It is a stunning focal point in this seaside kitchen.
Tip: If you’re going with stainless steel for your other appliances, stainless accents on the colored appliances and vent hood can help tie everything together.
Make a range a focal point. Some designers already have been taking advantage of the color options. “I try and use a colorful range wherever possible,” says interior designer Alison Kandler. “I think the range is the ‘fireplace’ of any kitchen and should be a focal point.” In this beach cottage, the pleasing blue of the stove sets the tone for the rest of the whimsical home.
This range is by Lacanche, a company named for the town in the Burgundy region of France where cooking equipment has been manufactured since the 1800s, on the site of a foundry created in the 1400s.
Add French elegance. La Cornue, whose range in Jaguar Burgundy is shown here, was established to take advantage of the new technology of gas running through Paris in 1908. The company not only crafts the colored ranges, but offers matching cabinetry that can give an entire kitchen a seamless look. The cabinetry also increases the range’s presence in a large kitchen.
In the case of this kitchen, architect Kate Johns used the additional La Cornue cabinetry but didn’t want everything to look too uniform; she mixed in white oak cabinets with bin pulls to keep things from feeling overly matched.
Continue reading So Over Stainless in the Kitchen? 14 Reasons to Give In to Color
So Over Stainless in the Kitchen? 14 Reasons to Give In to Color
