Trends In Kitchen Furniture
Kitchen furniture trends keep changing over the years. Old style kitchens had all built-in cabinets, and the only furniture was maybe a kitchen table and chairs.
1980s Kitchen Furniture Trends
During the 1980s, the baker's rack was the newest hot kitchen furniture item. It's not that anyone used it for baking. A baker's rack is an open cabinet - usually made of metal scrollwork -- with a countertop surface that may or may not be metal. Most baker's racks have one or more shelves below the counter surface and one or more shelves above the countertop.
Many baker's racks were used decoratively to hold cookbooks, plants, decorative plates, fruit, and other decorative items. Baker's racks are still available today, and they look good in country style kitchens.
1990s Kitchen Furniture Trends
The biggest kitchen trend of the 1990s was the kitchen island or counter-height bar. During the 1990s, the kitchen stopped being a separate room in the house and became part of a bigger room - the living room segued into the dining room which segued into the kitchen which segued into the family room.
With an eat-in kitchen, everyone needed a place to sit. Kitchen islands fit the 1990s lifestyle, with work surfaces and cabinets on one side and counter-height barstool seating on the other side. The 1990s also saw a preference for the use of natural materials, like stone and steel, in kitchen furniture.
Today's Kitchen Furniture Trends
With today's busy lifestyles, families have all but given up on sitting around the table together and eating a meal. Rather, the goal of today's modern family is to do all their different tasks, but in one big room together. Today's kitchen furniture adapts to this behavior.
The open floor plans of the 1990s are still popular today, so all this kitchen furniture has to look good. With all the rooms blending together, the kitchen is always on display from the public areas of the home.
With today's lifestyle, Dad might be chopping vegetables at the kitchen countertop and watching a TV mounted on the kitchen mall while Mom sits in a barstool at the granite kitchen island, surfing the Internet on her wireless notebook computer.
Across the room, a brother and sister play video games at an entertainment center while the youngest child draws pictures or reads books at the gathering table - a large, counter height table that the family uses when it has company over for dinner or when the whole family eats together for birthdays, holidays, or other special occasions.
Today's kitchen furniture has pieces that perform all these functions, and still look great.
