Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet News and Press

BUILDER Magazine
March, 2007

Home buyers want to live large, so they are extending their indoor living spaces into the outdoors.

Trend Spotting

What's hot in kitchen and baths?

By Nigel F. Maynard

Kitchens and baths sell more houses than any other space in the home. They are also, perhaps, the subject of more home shows than any other area in the house (except maybe the garden). What you put in the kitchen and bath, then, is extremely important. So how can you know what's hot and what buyers want?

You could conduct consumer surveys or check out every shelter magazine on the newsstand. This may give you some insight, but could you be sure you were getting an accurate picture? A better method would be to find out what buyers are actually asking for in showrooms across the country. A tough task but, luckily, BUILDER has done the leg work for you.

We asked design pros in key markets a simple question—What do consumers want?—and boiled down their responses on the following pages in our annual collection of hot kitchen and bath trends. Some of these trends are new must-haves that surfaced recently; others are so out that they are in again. Take a peek and see if your company is keeping up with Bob, the builder down the street.

Trend 1: The Great Outdoors

Despite increasingly smaller lots, home buyers still want to live large, so they are extending their indoor living spaces into the outdoors. An outdoor kitchen is an example of this phenomenon. "It's perfect for California," says Sandy Koepke, principal of Los Angeles-based Sandy Koepke Interior Design. "And, it's a relatively inexpensive way to add square footage to a home." But the rooms aren't just popular in sunny climes. Seattle-based LeeAnn Baker, president of LeeAnn Baker Interiors, says the trend is still very hot in her area. "I have done three such projects in the past year, and it is surprising to me the lengths my clients will go to accomplish such elaborate outdoor rooms," she says. "My clients are mainly in the Pacific Northwest, which is known for its year-round rainy season, yet it is filled with people who want to be outdoors all the time.

Steel Deal: Known for outdoor grills, the manufacturer now bills itself as a one-stop source for designing and equipping an outdoor kitchen. The Custom Outdoor Kitchen Collection is a full range of appliances and modular cabinetry that allows builders to integrate units into a masonry structure or assemble components into a freestanding, fully finished configuration. All cabinetry is 30 inches deep and fabricated of stainless steel.