The Number One Thing Making Your Kitchen Cabinets Look Dated, According to Pros
Have you ever walked into the kitchen of a home you were touring or maybe even your own home day after day and felt that something was off without being able to put your finger on it? If you don’t have a designer-trained eye (guilty!), it can be difficult to understand what’s giving your kitchen those dated vibes, and even more difficult to know how to fix it.
One thing that homeowners and renters complain about endlessly is kitchen cabinets. If the cabinets are looking like they’re frozen in time in the 1980s, it can throw off the vibe of the entire room. Even neutral, decades-old countertops can be saved by kitchen cabinets that look fresh and in style. Chances are, you don’t need an entire kitchen makeover to refresh your space; you just need to know what exactly is making your cabinets look so tired.
To find out what is making your kitchen cabinets look so dated, I spoke to a few interior designers and kitchen renovation masters to see what they think is the number one thing causing this kerfuffle.
The Number One Thing Making Your Kitchen Cabinets Look Dated
Experts agree that the primary thing making your cabinets look dated is their color — but those same experts are divided on what, exactly, that color is. Erica Lugbill of Chicago-based interior design firm Lugbill Designs says all-white cabinets are a dead giveaway that your kitchen is stuck in the stone ages. “Fresh kitchens often combine several different cabinet finishes to create a more elevated and thought-out look,” versus all-white, she says. “We recommend painting the island or the lower cabinets a contrasting color to update the look.”
David Peris, custom home builder and owner at Sagrada Homes, agrees that all-white cabinets have to go. “White cabinets in a white kitchen can often make a space feel outdated,” he explains. “The trend is shifting decisively toward darker colors and rich wood grains. We transitioned from travertine and warm browns to sleek grays and white cabinets, and now we’re witnessing the rise of darker tones combined with natural wood,” he adds.
Stephanie Pierce, who leads the design team at MasterBrand Cabinets, says the worst color for cabinets is a honey oak, orangey wood tone. “These stains are becoming increasingly difficult to easily integrate into current design trend aesthetics, which are more neutral, nature-based tones for both stain and paint,” Pierce says. “While light- and mid-tone stains are emerging again, they’re more organic hues, and these modern shades are often mixed with neutral or dusky colored paints to add a personal touch.”
Carr Lanphier, CEO of the painting service company Improovy, agrees with Pierce’s take on orange wood. “I’d say certain wood finishes and types of wood are what I usually see making kitchen cabinets look outdated,” he says. “We used to see lots of that orange wood finish for instance, and now it can definitely date your kitchen.”
However, whether you rent or own, all is not lost if you are dealing with dated cabinet colors. “Oftentimes this can be as easy to fix as sanding down an existing finish and either going with something more natural to let that beautiful wood grain shine, or even sanding down and repainting them to a more updated color,” Lanphier says.
Diversifying your cabinets is another way to update the look of your kitchen, Lugbill says. “Another option that modernizes a kitchen is to remove an upper cabinet and add in a floating wood shelf accent. This creates a more custom look, too.”