When it comes to remodeling your kitchen, you might have heard of the term “transitional style”. You may be seeing it all over design magazines and blogs, and there’s a big chance that this is what your hired professional will suggest to you as it is a pretty popular trend nowadays. You might be tempted to incorporate a transitional style into your kitchen, but what exactly determines a transitional style?
When people say transitional style, it generally refers to a style that is a mixture of contemporary and traditional. Statistics show that over 50% of kitchen remodels are patterned after this style. The idea of a transitional kitchen style might sound a bit far-fetched, considering that it can be hard to mix traditional and modern style, but this is actually not very difficult to achieve.
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First, you need to take into consideration how you are going to “borrow” certain aspects of both traditional and modern styles. One good area to start with would be the materials of your kitchen. For a traditional touch, you can use natural materials such as granite countertops, but to also keep it modern you may opt to incorporate some manufactured materials here and there. Consider, for example, a combination of wood cabinets, glass inserts, stainless steel hardware, and marble flooring or backsplash.
To keep things in harmony despite the differences in material, you may use a neutral color palette so as to keep everything balanced. This does not mean that you cannot experiment with colors. You may opt to use one to two complementary bright colors within your decor that will pop out of your neutral palette. Many people worry that a neutral color palette will make their kitchen look boring, but in a transitional kitchen style, texture will dominate. Another aspect of your transitional design that you can work on would be your furniture. Again, you may use a natural wood material for this to make it traditional, but make sure that you keep it contemporary by keeping it simple – try to avoid intricate detailing and patterns.
So why do so many people prefer transitional kitchen styles over any other kitchen style? There are various reasons why people choose this kind of style, and one of them would be aesthetics. Traditional styles have arguably been the most popular trend of all time, and purely modern styles are prone to being overused. It is not to say that they’ve become boring over time, but homeowners and designers alike now prefer to have some sort of deviance from the norm in kitchen styles. Of course people want a look that is different and unique without being outrageous, and the sleek simplicity of a transitional style can give them that. This kind of style makes the kitchen look clean and organized, and shows the perfect balance of harmony between both styles without compromising the beauty of your kitchen. It also has the hidden advantage of being much easier for the homeowner to be flexible with the kitchen in terms of redesigning it in the future. This is very important, especially for homeowners who love to be creative with their kitchen, as they will not necessarily be confined to a certain type of style. If you want your kitchen to be clean, organized, lively, unique and conducive to your creative appetite, then a transitional kitchen style is the way to go.