Today I’m ansering questions from the IG community. Each week, I’ll be putting up a question box in Instagram Stories to give you the opportunity to ask me for advice with your design doubts and dilemmas. Here are the first round of questions:

Q: What are the current kitchen trends? I’m tired of all the white looks.

Color is back but it’s not super-new — the trend started a couple of years ago when green kitchens were popping up all over; see above for my sage green kitchen project for a client in Burien, WA. Now bright, saturated colors have taken over — think mustard yellows, teals. Wood cabinets are here to stay for a while, like mixing wood in with a paint color i.e. wood on an island, or on a double-height cabinet. Also trending are honed countertop finishes, leathered or suede and Non-polished countertops.

As for kitchen lighting, statement lighting is still here to stay, and usually the bigger the better as that’s where the style statement happens.

When it comes to barstools, retro looks are kind of coming back. Think 70-80’s style with lots of curved lines, and woven/leather/caning.

Q: Thoughts on the island counter being different from others when all lower cabinets are the same?

I have that! Here’s a photo of my kitchen above for reference. It’s important to plan out because if you have different surfaces you want to keep it looking consistent, so maybe all cabinets are the same. Perimeter countertops and cabinetry should be the same or similar, and island countertop gets to be wild and different. Keep the changes to a minimum to highlight the difference.

Have a design question? Leave them for me below, or keep an eye out for the weekly question box on my Instagram Stories.