If there is one quality that all interior designers strive to achieve with the rooms they design, it is timelessness. The hope that in five, ten or 20 years time, the room will be as useful, beautiful and elegant as ever. A dated room is the antithesis of a timeless one, and as much as we all try to avoid creating spaces that can be pinpointed to any particular decade, it is, to a certain extent, inevitable. If, for example, a sitting room is embellished with a shag carpet or a conversation pit, it is likely the house was decorated in the 1960s or 1970s. Similarly, an abundance of stainless steel and white walls are tropes often found in houses from the 1990s. It got us thinking: what qualities are making kitchens look dated today, are there alternatives that will help to make a space feel more timeless?
‘I have the feeling the flesh tone beige kitchen is fast becoming to 2025 what navy blue or terrazzo was to kitchens five or six years ago’, says the interior designer Tom Morris. ‘I include the marble floating shelf, wabi-sabi limewash and huge terracotta pot with a massive twig sticking out of it in it too. It's very much the lifestyle influencer aesthetic du jour, which has been thrust into the mainstream through high street stores’. This uber calm aesthetic, which extends to limewash paint and an abundance of uniform, wooden cabinets is perhaps a result of our ubiquitous preoccupation with wellness: we want our homes to feel as calm and sanctuary-like as possible. Often, in reaction to one particular – for lack of a better word – trend, another, completely opposite one emerges.
‘People seem to be wanting kitchens that feel more like an assembly of furniture rather than off-the-peg fit-outs all in one colour’, says Tom. ‘I don't think this is the end of the fitted kitchen but rather we are incorporating other, freestanding pieces alongside it’. Among his favourites, the Welsh dresser works ‘in a traditional or a modern setting’, and shaker-style cupboards are ‘standard instead of a trend so I can't imagine either ever dating’.
For Duncan Campbell, co-founder of interior design studio Campbell-Rey, the key to avoiding the matchy-matchy look of some fitted kitchens is incorporating antiques. ‘Whether a reclaimed plate rack, a restored Belfast sink or mismatched kitchen dining chairs, these things all help to avoid the room looking like it was all designed at once (which kitchens usually are)’. Incorporating textiles in the place of cupboard fronts or on lampshades will also help to create an eclectic, less functional atmosphere in the kitchen.
For so long, cupboards above the counter have provided useful concealed storage for the hodgepodge of crockery, glassware and half-empty packets of dried food. While useful additions to the kitchen that should not be shunned, many are choosing to incorporate open shelving alongside them. ‘We often go into houses and rip out lots of the high cupboards and just keep the low ones. It immediately feels like a completely new space,’ says interior designer Scarlett Supple. ‘Keeping the space visually clear, especially at eye-level, feels so much nicer and more open’.
If space allows, you may want to heed the advice of interior designer Carlos Garcia, and do away with any kind of storage above the counters. ‘I am such a big fan of exposed shelving’, he says. ‘But I would rather it be kept in the pantry or utility room as it can make the kitchen look messy’.
In the spirit of mixing a variety of pieces into the kitchen, many designers seem to agree that in some years time we will look back on the classic kitchen island (the central, matching-to-the-cabinets construction that Scarlett refers to as ‘a heavy, blocky, solid islands’) and consider it a passing trope.
‘I am not a fan of kitchen islands’, says Carlos Garcia. ‘They are bulky and blocky and if not done properly can ruin the flow of a kitchen. I’d like to think that the idea of people sitting on stools at the end of the island with a glass of wine, watching others cooking or doing the washing up is very much now a thing of the past!’.
In their place, there seems to be a growing fondness for mismatched furniture which adds a sense of layered-ness to a room. A large, central dining table satisfies the need for an extra surface for chopping and eating, but feels less ‘put together’ and thus creates a more relaxed feel. ‘I like to look for a generous centre table (with deep drawers if possible), or a traditional old dresser’, advises Carlos. ‘Paint it in a contrasting colour to the rest of the kitchen units: it will give character to the room and make it homelier’. Duncan favours antique work tables (his favourites for making fresh pasta are marble topped patisserie tables) instead of a kitchen island. ‘They work really well in a country kitchen, and help it to feel less “done"’, he says.
Perhaps the answer is to do as the interior designer Beata Heuman does. When discussing a recent project with House & Garden, she revealed one of her most valuable tips: ‘Generally, when designing, I'm thinking about what was happening around the time that a house was built, then adding a little from that decade and every subsequent one, to make the space feel evolved’. In doing so, it is hard to accurately put a date on her projects. Not only does this allow for a little eclectic shopping, but creating a space which could belong to any era and will resist trends is after all, the end goal.
