Do I have awful taste in kitchens.

I just can’t understand the obsession with the colour grey in home decor. I have recently decorated my bedroom and when I visited carpet showrooms I was amazed to find that about 70 per cent of the samples on show were various shades of grey.
To me it is the colour of fog and mice!

I prefer kitchens with character rather than the streamlined grey look that is popular. I have china and cookbooks on show....

Agreed, Quaver22. Hard to understand in a country when on so many days, you only have to look out of the window.
(Though it’s bright sunshine here today!)

From all I’ve read or heard lately, grey is very passé now, though.
Whatever the next decor trend is, that will also be passé in x years.

I had a modern kitchen diner in my previous house, it was a nightmare! It showed every finger mark, the floor cream tiles showed every footprint and dog hair. It felt cold and uninviting no matter how much we tried to warm it up.
There were no window sills to put photos, plants etc on as it had bifold doors all the way along one wall. When you wanted fresh air or it got too hot in there you had no window to open so had to open the door. The dog would escape to the garden which if it was wet out the wet was brought in! Also my friends toddler kept escaping out there too! Nice ideas? Definitely not practical in my experience and view!

I have a modern kitchen...shiny black doors which looked stunning in the showroom. What a nightmare they are to keep clean. I just want to have my old, dated kitchen units back much to my husband's disgust!

Yes GagJo it has become a sort of tyranny.
The open plan, plain walls, dreaded cream carpets or worse still “ tippy tappy” laminate flooring and ludicrously inadequate kitchen sinks unfit for purpose.
My current grrr is complicated bath taps and plugs and horrid flush buttons on toilets.
Also a bit fed up now with the ALL WHITE bathroom edict.
Some variety please?

I agree. I like painted Shaker style cupboards with pretty curtains etc. Not too much clutter, just enough to look cosy. I hate galley kitchens, it has to be square and accommodate a decent table and even a sofa. Islands I can take or leave as long as they don’t dominate the space and Agas, don’t even consider unless you also have a conventional oven. They’re really just for show these days, not like when they took care of the heating and hot water as well. Another thing I hate are stone flagged floors, I grew up in a farmhouse and they are cold, unforgiving and horrible to clean.

I have recently had a kitchen makeover. It's not a big area within a dining/kitchen. White units with a muddy brown work to. The flooring of light porcelain tiles was in the original and was retained. Small breakfast bar area. The change was really due to units in the wrong place, and lack of light. I have to say I enjoy working in the new version compared to the awkward pretend oak style with loads of edges that drove me mad wiping to keep clean. The new kitchen was custom made by a local contractor. All the equipment was selected by us, the contractor ordering and even collecting from stores on our behalf. I have added a touch of colour with a terracotta coloured remote controled blind. I do agree though that a lot of kitchens shown in magazines and on tv shows do look clinical and cold. Yes I too am amazed at how some people seem to renovate a whole house with new central heating, kitchen, bathroom, double glazing, electrics, plastering for about £10k. Including equipment I paid £15k for a kitchen. Worth every penny.

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I love an all white bathroom suite. Variety can be added with bright tiles, plants, pictures and towels.
Also don’t agree that a modern kitchen can’t have character. Mine is in between. I still have cookbooks, plants, pictures, baskets, probably not enough character for some but suits me.

When I meet my DH 21years ago he lived alone in a house he brought 12 Months before that had no kitchen he picked one up from local sale site £100. Beautiful solid wood , fitted it himself I loved it cared for that wood for 10years . Then we decided to treat ourselves to new kitchen spent many hours looking. Then made a choice replaced tiles with large white ones new workshops matt gray, and painted all the units white. We live in L shape, plenty of light, my kitchen is used has flow, just finished a repaint you can keep shiny no sole kitchens I love my old kitchen

No you don't have bad taste I would love a dated kitchen

We love our Neptune shaker style kitchen made of wood that can be painted over if scratched, (they leave a pot of paint for this purpose) complete with lamps and shelves and china sink. After 8 years of use, it has stood up brilliantly and is very cosy but so smooth to use.

I am somewhere in the middle.

We have a combined kitchen and living room and as two windows face due west we do have curtains - for the first time since the days when I lived in a flat without a bathroom and needed to be able to draw a curtain whilst washing myself at the kitchen sink.

To me curtains, carpets and soft furnishings do not belong in a kitchen, which should be easy to clean and keep clean.

If I could afford it, I would definitley have marble work tops, Nothing better for rolling pastry out on, or standing hot pans on.

I would not choose to have books in the kitchen, but DH wants his cookery books there. Being a bibliophile, I don't think books should be anywhere near steam, cooking smells or damp fingers.

Compromise has resulted in books and a fair amount of other non-culinary articles in our kitchen-living room. We haven't died of food poisoning yet on their account either.

My kitchen is forty years old. All wooden cupboards and thankfully only one high up. I have shrunk with old age. I have a very useful cool larder. Most neighbours have taken theirs out.
A lot of young people have posh new kitchen and rely on take a ways.

Oh I love an all white house. Lived in a rented one 30 years ago and have decorated mine that way ever since, I loved it so much.

But I definitely didn't want open plan. My current house has a knocked through living / dining room. I specifically wanted the two rooms separate so I had a dedicated teaching/tutoring room. But the house had other features that were not negotiable so I accepted it.

Unfortunately, it also had a beyond grim kitchen which I'm still living with as I gave DD my kitchen money for a house deposit.

I hate modern kitchens, I want loved and lived in, not sterile.

I’m painfully aware of how woefully outdated and unappealing our kitchen’s appearance is, and simultaneously how desperately I DON’T want a whole new one with all the hellish upheaval and (post-Brexit) supply-related complications that could bring.

Ideally I’d like a couple of inspired hardworkers to come in for two or three days to give it a considerable visual uplift, ie redecoration job. But my hub doesn’t want that, and has his eye on the likeliest ease of being able to sell our home eventually. He’s probably right. But still, I’m the one who works in it every day and it is a very comfortable convenient space indeed.

Galaxy

I am getting a new kitchen fitted in a few weeks. I cant really remember what I have chosen as its dragged on due to Covid. I am not going to show you lot photos

Spoilsport!

I agree with many on here, preferring something welcoming rather than sterile.
When we bought this house the kitchen had just been revamped, probably to help sell it ( since people are so ‘kitchen fussy’ these days.)
It’s nice, matt cream shaker style and very well cupboarded but I missed my previous kitchen which was all country style oak.

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I love my kitchen -definitely not sleek & modern & currently needing a bit of a sort out! We were building an extension 12 years ago & I found a guy on ebay making freestanding cupboards & got him to make this for a fraction of a showroom kitchen-apart from the dresser which was purchased later-another ebay bargain! Had the whole kitchen re sprayed by a company 3 years ago & lasting really very well. We have an edwardian house so it suits it & us! Really lived in but I accept not to everyone's taste

Surely a kitchen should suit the main person who makes use of it's facilities?

noni123, your kitchen is my kind of kitchen!

Josieann

I'm more of a lounge and bedrooms soft furnishings type person, so kitchens do not usually excite me. My favourite kitchen is probably shaker style. Colour is all important to me, so these dark greys that are currently in fashion would not be my choice though they do look smart if accessorised with copper for example. We are having a new kitchen this year and I am currently battling with my husband as I have chosen a pink art deco style. He prefers a toilet green colour!

He’s more of a ‘pee green’ man then??
Go for the pink! Although I don’t like grey as a rule, it would actually go rather well with pink.

Your kitchen should be your choice and what works for you.
You have to live and work in it.
However if you decorate with resale in mind then it's fashion dictates

Zoejory

*noni123*, your kitchen is my kind of kitchen!

Thank you x
For anyone that is interested we had the 'Kitchen Sprayer' when we had the units repainted. This was quite inexpensive & we didn't even have to empty the cupboards or scrub them beforehand. We could have had any colour we liked. They were in and out in a day & we had a new kitchen!