There’s No Such Things As Timeless Kitchen Design

I love to flip through old magazines to revisit old trends. I still find myself being inspired by things I see in those old magazines. But one of them really caught my eye. Since we’re going to be doing a kitchen addition in the near future, this special edition Kitchen & Bath publication was especially interesting to me. I was so curious to see if any of these kitchens would still look “current” today.

This magazine was from 2007, so it’s seventeen years old.

Probably the most interesting thing about it is that it cost $4.99.

I bought a similar magazine just last week. It’s has about the same number of pages, same number of features.

But this one cost $14.99. How depressing.

But anyway, back to the 2007 publication. What really struck me was all of the dark cabinets. Almost every ad in the whole magazine featured dark stained wood cabinets. And I was never a fan of those tiny square mosaic tile backsplashes even back in 2007.

But the ads featuring dark stained wood cabinets were numerous.

In fact, in the whole magazine, I don’t think I saw an ad that had anything other than dark stained wood cabinets. And the travertine. My goodness, so much travertine!

This was during the time I had my interior decorating business, and I remember these trends. Everyone wanted dark stained cabinets with a travertine backsplash, and they wanted their homes decorated to look like a page out of a Pottery Barn catalog.

All I wanted to do was decorate with color, and yet, I was stuck in this never ending dark wood, travertine, Pottery Barn hell with a side of “Texas Tuscan”. I couldn’t escape it.

I mean, these ads with the dark wood cabinets just seemed unending! Every ad!

And even when they tried something different, like this more contemporary look, it was still dark.

Then I got to the features. This is the kitchen from the cover.

At least it’s white and bright. It’s definitely the closest to “timeless” that there is in the whole magazine.

Here’s another before and after feature. I mean, you can tell me what you think. Is this timeless? I don’t think it is. The after picture looks like a before picture today.

I was also surprised to see just how many black and white kitchens there were in this one publication. The one from the cover is white cabinets with a black countertop. The one above is the same. And here’s another one below.

I remember this look all too well. Even though the cabinets are a light color, the room has a heaviness to it.

Even this kitchen that is much whiter and brighter has a heaviness to it. I think kitchens back then were a bit overdone. Things seem lighter, brighter, and simpler today.

This one was probably the closest I found to being able to pass as a timeless design, although I think a new coat of white paint would go a long way in this kitchen.

This one is just a no from me.

I think this one probably looked contemporary in 2007, but not today.

And I don’t even remember this being popular back in 2007.

This one could still be nice today with a just a few updates, like the ceiling. And I’d also remove those heavy corbels. I remember those being so popular back then, but I just don’t see them being used anymore.

So you can tell me what you think. Do any of these pass as “timeless design” to you? I personally don’t think there’s any such thing.