If a new kitchen is top of your list for 2022, we’ve gathered together some of the latest kitchen design trends to whet your appetite and provide inspiration.
1 Limed oak kitchens
The use of natural materials has increased considerably during the pandemic with marble, granite and unpainted wood kitchen cabinets becoming a firm fixture. The trend towards natural wooden kitchens shows no sign of letting up. We’ve personally seen a high demand for limed oak kitchens. The limed oak kitchen gives a natural looking kitchen with a lighter feel to it.
Traditionally, limed oak is bare wood that has been stained with a caustic lime mixture to lighten its natural appearance. The name comes from the use of lime wash, a lime-and-water solution that gives wood a whitewashed look, and was once applied to barns and fences to deter insects and protect them from the elements.
Now created for purely decorative purposes, limed oak has a pale, washed appearance and we use different procedures at Dowers to enhance the grain of the wood to create the beautiful limed oak finish.
Because we use a bespoke process to achieve our limed oak wood, we can create any finish our clients desire, including darker edging or shadowy effects. In a recent kitchen build we produced six different samples of limed oak finishes for our client to take home. She was able to compare the samples in her kitchen, under different light conditions and choose the exact finish she wanted.
Limed oak customer samples 
Limed oak cupboard being made in our workshop
2 Pet-Friendly Spaces
With more people adopting pets than ever before during COVID, they’re thinking about how to incorporate them into the heart of the home. With storage at a premium in the kitchen, and unclaimed areas such as toe-kick space often being overlooked, we’ve created several kennel and pet areas for our clients’ four legged friends.
3 Clever storage space
Another influence of the pandemic, the kitchen has adopted multiple functions within the home. Storage has always been essential and it has become even more important. Not only have we acquired more gadgets and have stocked up on all those cupboard essentials, we also need more workspace for multitasking, so finding a good way of organising and storing our items are key. We continually create bespoke storage solutions for our clients, from pull out chopping boards and spice racks to cleverly concealed areas for food mixers.
Bespoke knife and cutlery draw 
Three pull out sections for spices, jars and chopping board 
Storage drawers for easy access
4 Built-in dining areas
The trend for built-in joinery is set to become even bigger in the 2022 kitchen. Bespoke built-in dining booths in particular are ones to look out for. They not only make the best use of the space and proportions of a kitchen – even small kitchens – but they also add a sense of intimacy and conviviality. When we created this curved kitchen bench for our client, we built bookshelves to go on the other side with different depths, making full use of the space created by the curve of the bench. The bench seats pop out for additional storage.
Curved kitchen bench 
Clever use of bench storage 
Bookcase to make the most of the space
5 Green is the colour
Many of the leading paint brands deemed shades of green as the colour of the year for 2022. It’s a shade that embodies renewal, rejuvenation, and energy, so not surprising that homeowners can’t get enough of it right now.
But if green isn’t your thing, the use of strong or contrasting colours remains popular, with many of our clients opting for two prominent colours in their kitchen, perhaps the shade of the island or base units in a contrasting but complementary colour to the wall units.
6 Pantry living
Whilst pantries might conjure up images of kitchens of yesteryear, in the last few years we’ve seen pantry cupboards becoming one of the must-have items in modern homes.
Having a pantry makes perfect sense. All the food goods are in one place and not scattered around in numerous wall cupboards, meaning people can be more organised when doing their food shopping. The other great advantage is that it frees up entire walls to create an open feel or have an attractive piece of artwork in the kitchen which in turn helps it feel less like a kitchen and instead more of a relaxed environment, perfect for open plan living areas.
7 Kitchen Home Offices
The need for more home working (and home schooling) has meant a rise in homeowners searching for space to carve out office areas.
The kitchen is the ideal spot and kitchen designers have caught on to this by coming up with all kinds of kitchen living space solutions, from units which conceal neat little office set-ups within, to layouts that allow for offices to tuck away in a quiet corner of the space.
Whether you seek to be on trend for 2022, or want the kitchen of your dreams, no matter whether it’s influenced by fashion or tradition, now is the time to get in touch with us at Dowers to discuss your kitchen build project for 2022. Contact us for your free consultation today.
