Pinch me- Fun article!

For me, I think if you choose a style you love, you won't care if it goes out of style. My kitchen is going to look about 80 years out of style (LOL) so that's not too big a concern! To me, it's like furniture...if it's well made and you love the look, it will always have a place in your home.

I very rarely get rid of furniture pieces, because most of them are flea market/antique store finds and I still love them. Some of my best pieces are from garage sales...and a few are even worth some money...but most of my friends probably wouldn't know which ones :)

They all look old, collected, inherited or I probably built them from a box (assemble your own furniture) which I also have a great time doing. It works (at least I hope it does) because they all have a similar style, wood tone, scale and they're all durable!

The same is true for kitchens. If it's well laid out, easy to use, inviting and fun to cook in...people will want to spend time in it. If it's look but don't touch, don't set that there, oh my gosh, you put what on that counter...it might be beautiful, but probably not fun to be in. Just my two cents :)

Things that never go out of style are things that are too rare to ever be in style in the first place. Use your personality to find something really one of a kind that appeals to you.

I always love that post, and think of it everytime someone says they're doing a "timeless" white, marble and soapstone kitchen with a "traditional" apron sink.

However, what the post says is contradictory. Everything goes out of style, so therefore don't choose blue appliances. Huh? Maybe in 10 years, HGTV will being showing people how to cover up their embarrassingly out-of-date white, black or stainless appliances.

What goes around comes around. Might take 50 years but someday someone will be building a timeless kitchen with stainless appliances, granite countertop and pendant lights.

I built mine to look old. It should be a bit harder to date it. Like Lass, my stuff is genuine, flea market/garage sale, antique, hand me down, Salvation Army for the most part. I would rather go to our local antique store and dig around in the "as is" department than go to the nice furniture store. That's back when everything was made from real identifiable wood.

I thought it was very educational to see the kitchen evolve every 10 years. Life was much simpler in 1920. They didn't have the Stuff we have.

Marcolo,

I few years ago I read something like "stainless is the new avocado", and flinched.

One reason its so hard to be timeless is that, any any point in time, we are only offered certain products and often in a certain set of colors.

The least-dated kitchen seems to be the one that fits the house. But I don't know if that really applies to the extremely tailored, buffed-up version of the "traditional" kitchen that people are doing now. I think old things--really old, not faux-old--age the best, because they're already aged. Yes, I know I'm talking in circles, but you know what I mean.

Occasionally design blogs will look back on really old issues of shelter magazines, showing which rooms still look good and which look like that stuff in the back of your fridge. Generally, really superb design ages well, but most of us can't afford that. But a room with antiques also ages well, so if you're concerned about timeless, put something really old in your kitchen. Like a worktable, armoire, or your MIL.

Marcolo- I can see the armoire and work table....but your MIL? LOL

I think it's like movies. Usually, only the really great ones are shown any more, so we see the best and think...that was a great movie era! The classics are what endure and grow more loved, the longer you have them :)

the article is spot on. quality ages well. and what is it about that 1971 kitchen wallpaper? it was all over the place! when my husband and i bought our first home it had orange floral wallpaper ...the same wallpaper my aunt had in her 1971 kitchen! and although i don't think the brady's had the paper, they DID have an orange kitchen.

i was very young back then and hadn't been out of new jersey -or design school yet. but i knew somehow aunt rose's orange kitchen was a really bad idea.

the solution is not to use old things just because they are already old. Hey...they started out new at some point. The reason they look good is not because they are old, it's because they are solid design pieces. I've seen plenty of houses with old stuff that looked dated. I've seen plenty of old furniture that looks like crap. I hate those pieces in kitchens that are beat up and the paint is all weathered. the original owners would have repaired it, painted it or threw it out and gotten new. Oh...they did throw it out. That's why it's in your kitchen looking like a beat up of piece of crap. If the design is solid it should always look good. Save and buy great quality new pieces that look like antiques you like. I like Stickley and Harden for wood pieces. These are timeless.

Not all Classic movies were classics when they were released. Some films are re-evaluated and re-discovered while films celebrated at the time now attract little attention. Same with design. What's classic is subjective - it's less what you do and more how it's received by others. Good news as we age ore friends age with us so their tastes are likely a byproduct of the same time period as your own.

I really liked this article. It's good hear what I think we've all known: that kitchen designs change and it isn't choosing the right "style" that makes a kitchen timeless. Choosing quality, functional components and building a kitchen that works for you and can change (to some extent) over time for you is the best way to make your kitchen function for you for a longer period of time.

Johnny- Thank you for saying that! I dislike peeling paint and always think that 'in real life' someone would have sanded this down and repainted it...or tossed it out. Peeling paint makes me think of old buildings that have been abandoned and are falling down, not a design style, but maybe that's because I live in the country and see this far too often.

Great one! Thanks for posting it...I sent it to everyone I know who is remodeling, building, or thinking about it!

DH and I were having this conversation yesterday, with him thinking about consulting a designer, since he didn't want us to build a house that wouldn't 'look good' and I'm on the other side, thinking $$$, and what about the hundreds of hours I've been online looking at the FKB, and Houzz. I think it's because he hasn't done the research that he's suddenly getting nervous! Hopefully he'll read the article, and realize that everything will eventually look dated, it's 1. whether you love it that counts, and 2. someday, 'dated' becomes 'antique'. It might just take 50-100 years.

lavender, I agree! I grew up in the country, and now live in the SF bay area. Whenever people talk about how beautiful and gorgeous the countryside is, I smile and agree, but I love suburbia more! The 'country' means boredom, and abandoned houses/barns, and junk cars piled up in front yards, and dusty gravel roads. It's like how kids in Hawaii sometimes have issues...there's plenty to do for tourists, but nothing to do for the teens, except hang out, getting into trouble. We had friends fulfill their lifelong dream, move to Maui, and 5 years later, move back, after realizing that "their dream" wasn't at all good for their pre-teen daughter.

I think the article, as often happens, confuses style and fashion

Style:
2. "The combination of distinctive features of literary or artistic expression, execution, or performance characterizing a particular person, group, school, or era." Fashion of the moment is also a definition but down further on the list.

Fashion:
1. " The prevailing style or custom, as in dress or behavior" --whereas this is the #1 definition for fashion.

So things go in and out of fashion but not so much out of style. Style has more to do, in this sense, with a cohesiveness of the whole. So, like Marcolo said... an espresso/quartz/glass-tile/SS kitchen may be the height of fashion in a midcentury rancher, but it may not be an enduring style for that house, whereas a variation of the mid-toned, slab fronted, formica topped, white applianced kitchen it came with (Say modern materials with a more historic palette) may be distincly unfashionable at this moment but a more enduring style for the house in the long run. Nothing looks sillier to me than a spaghetti strapped and tight jeaned 70 year old with shoulder length streaked hair, no matter how "young" or fit she looks, although she may be the height of fashion. Put her in a St John knit (never high fashion but never out of fashion) that is a little shorter and fitted than normal maybe to acknowlege her fitness, and a decent old lady hairstyle, and she looks great. Houses are the same.

Wow, that 1971 kitchen is just hideous beyond belief. What made people design things like that? Was the ugliness just hidden by all the pot smoke??

Reading this thread, especially the points about kitchens fitting into the house they're in, makes me think that choosing a distinct style is important. Whether it's Victorian, arts & crafts, art deco, mid-century modern, Tuscan, country, Mission, Asian-inspired or what have you, the things that end up lasting all have distinct styles. They take a stand. They are the opposite of the "paint everything white and beige so no one will hate it" school of design.

What I mean is that if you have a distinct style in a piece of furniture, a house, a kitchen, a car, a dress, etc., some people won't like it--I for one am not into mid-century modern--but there will always be some people who LOVE it. And that's why the style lasts--not because most people are okay with it or nobody hates it, but because SOME people just LOVE it.

What I got from the pictorial is that it appears two things are consistantly shown throughout the decades (with a few exceptions) WHITE appliances and chrome fixtures. In the comments section under the article someone said that they noticed a lot of stainless steel, but I didn't see it. Did you? I saw one, maybe two stainless sinks and a metal band around the laminate countertop, but the band looked more like chrome to me than stainless.

Oh I guess that's another thing I noticed: the lack of stone countertops that everyone is touting as so timeless. It looked to me like most were laminate or some type of linoleum. Maybe everyone now-a-days just has their own version of what history should have been and they are fabricating in their heads what has endured time. I'm not saying that stone or stainless was never used, just maybe they weren't as common as people are convincing themselves they were. In fact I know the kitchen of the Biltmore estate has marble counters with sink runnels as well as stainless prep areas, but the middle class never lived like the Vanderbilts.

All of this spoken from a person who fully intends to build an inaccurate kitchen in a historical reproduction house....

Um. Half the pictures have appliances other than white.

But no, people were not using marble countertops through the decades. That idea came from stone suppliers and residential developers.

Good taste doesn't go out of style. It may not be "on trend" at any given point in time, but it will still look lovely, even if it's not seen as "the latest thing."

I have a few items of clothing that I inherited from my mother. They are certainly "of an era," but they are beautifully made and fit well. And I get compliments every time I where them. I don't see kitchen design as being all that different. If you use quality items that fit together with each other and are selected with some editing and restraint, the design should have quite a bit of staying power.

One of the kitchens might have bisque and not white, but to me it looked like at least 5, maybe 6, had at least one white appliance. Of course there were other colors represented: brown, black, panelled, etc. But according to those pictures it seems to me that white was the most common color of appliance. Does most common = timeless?? Who knows? I think it is the marketing that has created the notion of what we should want in our kitchens.

I don't think the 1961 or 1971 kitchens in particular are that representative. That Merry-go-Round kitchen is kind of a fantasy kitchen of sorts and the 1971 kitchen looks like one of those San Fernando Valley houses where they shot vintage porn. Both are rather vulgar expressions of what was going on at the time.

I was in second grade but I remember my parents coming back from a house warming party in a house that was in that 1971 kitchen mode and my mother talking about how tasteless it all was. (She of the white on white on white kitchen built in that same era). Similarly,she bought reiterations of the same type of clothes for everyday her entire adult life, while my father wears shoes that are 30-40 years old...how much can a traditional leather oxford change?

But if that 1971 house still kinda looks like that architecturally, a white kitchen with soapstone counters will do it no favors either. The updated kitchen would have to be something generally compatible with the 70s "Spanish Mediterranean" vibe of the house, without aping it.

As an aside, just because these kitchens got press, it does not mean that the editors of the day necessarily thought that they were the best representatives of taste: Page Rense, who recently retired from Architectural Digest wanted there to be a layout that was vulgar, or in poor or questionable taste in every issue. (I think she succeeded in spades). imo.

If you believe that styles are born, die, hibernate for a long time, and are revived, then perhaps we should be looking at the styles that were popular after the styles that are being aped by today's trendy kitchens.

I'm not great on design archaeology, but if if you - for example - were to see American Craftsman in today's kitchens, then chronologically the next era is the 1930s and 1940s.

It is precisely the goal of the home furnishings industry that everything we choose will look "out of style" within 5 years. So it will happen, particularly if you fall in love and replicate what you see in a shelter mag. It is guaranteed.

I tried to find ideas for my house from a house museum in my old neighborhood, from other areas in the house i am reno-ing, and from European homes (browsing villas for rent in Provence or Tuscany, is always fun). But I am sure that something I pick will scream 2011 in a few years, no matter what.

Maybe if we learn to step away from the GW, from the shelter mags, when we are done, then we will be able to live in ignorant bliss with our outdated sorry little kitchens...

Unfortunately, most of our houses do not have architecturally distinct style. So any kitchen that we put in from a particular year/fashion will scream that era as soon as that fashion is passe because it stands apart from the house. For example, a white inset cabinets in a house built in 1980s with fiberglass 6 panel doors will look out of place as woon as white inset kitchen is not 'in' any more. While the look is in vogue/fashionable, the kitchen will look new and fresh. As soon as the look is overtaken by something else, it too will lose its leading edge look because the kitchen does not relate to the house. I have seen houses like that in this forum. I get a peak at the moulding or doors of the house and they do not relate to what was done to the kichen.....

Most of us live in suburban track homes devoid of 'style' or particularly strong architectural genre. We live in generic fashionable house of the year the house was built. So when the houses become remodeled 20/30 years later, there is incongruety of the house and its contents, and things age disparately....

I guess putting in a kitchen that is overdone for the 'track' house is liking putting pearls on a swine, IMHO.

I think my kids would love it if I had put in the 1961 kitchen! They love nothing more than campy, character-filled zaniness. Anyone want my white granite counters? Hahah!

It all goes back to that fact that styles will always seem "wrong" to many....always pick something for yourself. Trying to presciently pick what will work for the market, or your children or the local buyer is like trying to hit a moving target.

Loved the pictures! Thanks for the post :)

I'm not great on design archaeology, but if if you - for example - were to see American Craftsman in today's kitchens, then chronologically the next era is the 1930s and 1940s.

Deco makes a reappearance now and then. It was big in the '80s, although mostly in the form of ugly pink and black ceramic statues of pumas and skinny naked women. Very intentionally kitschy. I went to an astonishing Art Deco exhibit at the MFA a few years ago (bought the book, got the CD) that included some of the originally pieces from the 1925 Paris exhibition. The "real thing" is flat-out stunning and still quite modern today.

I'm putting a lot of Deco touches in my house here and there. My TV sits on my mom's hope chest from the '30s, with great Deco trim. I just ordered a couple of reproduction 1930s metal tables. Over my couch, I've got a cool book plate of a French flapper beaning her boyfriend over the head with her umbrella in a park.

I will say, though, that my efforts to do a real vintage bathroom made me rethink my commitment a bit. I've got a repro vintage toilet (not one that someone would recognize as weird, t hough); old fashioned flat mini subways; that typical Art Deco double-line of contrasting-color tile; etc. But I find that going vintage can be a real uphill battle. Every single contractor, salesperson, designer, whoever you deal with, will be fighting you ever step of the way. That means, rather than helping you achieve your vision, they'll keep raising unexpected new objections and yammer in your ear until you back down. Plus, sourcing just isn't very easy. You have to have a fair amount of time, money or both to go vintage. If you're in a hurry on a budget, it's a lot harder.

That is why so many renovations are so clearly time-stamped. The easiest thing to do is always what everyone else is doing, too.

Is there anything WORSE than peeling paint inside your house? I don't think so. I could never understand why anyone would want to put a piece of furniture in their house that would be better suited for the barn. At least scrape the paint chips off first, then paint it, for cryin' out loud. Those ugly things show up in "How to decorate..." every now and then. Why????

You HAVE to see my pantry. Came out of the As Is room at the antique shop. I washed it but that's all.
{{!gwi}}

I consider this piece timeless.
{{!gwi}}