Top Designer Tips for a Timeless Kitchen (That Will Never Go Out of Style)

Welcome back to my channel, guys. I'm Nina. This is The Red Elevator, and today we are talking everything about kitchens. So here's the thing about kitchens. They're expensive to design, and they're usually where trends go and die. By the way, I am also renovating my kitchen. It's been 10 years. It's a little early for renovation, but as an interior designer, we've got the bug, and I need to do a few changes to the kitchen. So if you're interested in learning about how to renovate, how to remodel, how to refresh your space, especially when it comes to a kitchen, make sure and subscribe because we're going to take you for this entire journey. Also, we're going to show you the behind the scenes of how I picked these items and life in general on the vlog. Our vlog channel will be listed in the description section. Every few years is a new must-have glossy gray cabinet or waterfall island, gold everything, and then boom, two years later, it's out and dated. So today, I want to talk about how to design a kitchen that never goes out of style. This video could not have come any sooner because this is my exact dilemma as we speak. And stay with me till the end because I'm going to share the one design mindset that every timeless kitchen has, and it's not about materials or finishes. So make sure and stick around. Let's start with one of the biggest culprits of dated fast design problem, and that is wood tones. Now don't get me wrong, wood brings warmth, soul, and texture to a kitchen, but not all wood tones age the same way. You know that orangey maple tone that was everywhere in the early 2000s, even part of the 90s? Gorgeous then, but it didn't stand the test of time. So those strong orange or yellow undertones tend to clash with modern finishes and lighting. If you want a look that lasts, go for light to medium wood tones. Think oak, white oaks, or walnut. We are installing a lot of walnut kitchens, and we're also installing white oak kitchens with an actual finish to them that can mimic a walnut so that it can last longer and not turn orange. White oak is one of my favorite materials to use, not only in my furniture pieces, which by the way, this entire room now has all the Nina Takish furniture because, well, that's what we do here. We want to make sure we're living in our own design. And you will note that in my chair that is to my right, we will pop it in here, the quasi chair, we use a white oak, and we stained it to look dark. Now this white oak is not going to change over time. It's not going to yellow because of the fact that the oak itself does not have yellow in it. Whereas a lot of the woods that were being used in the early 2000s were not of that species and therefore turning in color. Essentially oak and walnut are the denim jeans of kitchen design. They always work no matter the decade. Think of a walnut library. It's in Paris, at the Versailles, and it's in libraries across the world, and it just never gets dated. Cabinets really are the backbone of your kitchen design, and they're also the most expensive element to change. So the goal here is longevity. I am changing all of my cabinets from black lacquer. Did you see that deep, painful sigh? Because it is an expensive proposition. And although I loved black lacquer at the time, I would have to say that I fell into my own trap. Even as an interior designer, we make mistakes. And I did something that was so bold and so fiery that after 10 years, I'm tired of it. So did the cabinets hold up? The majority of them actually did hold up, except the ones that are being used daily, such as the trash can and perhaps the cabinets under the sink. Those are the ones that are really beat up. Could I just change those and forego changing the entire kitchen? Yes. But am I a crazy person? Absolutely. Which means I will be changing all of them. But another reason why I'm changing all of them is that I would like to reconfigure my kitchen to today's lifestyle. So let's talk about what designs are timeless. And I would say that a flat front cabinet, which is what I have in my kitchen today, will throw in a picture of what now is considered an old kitchen, which really it isn't, in the video. So you guys can imagine what flat front is like and what the kitchen looks like. And another cabinet that is really timeless is called a minimal shaker cabinet. We're going to throw those examples in as well. Why? Because it has a rectangular frame. It's been around since the 1700s. And we've done a slight iteration to the shaker cabinet because we like the fact that we, meaning my design team and I, do like the fact that the minimal shaker is a little bit more refined than the shaker shaker. We tend to see shaker shaker in a lot of flip projects and sort of track projects that we do not want to mimic. Flat front cabinets, on the other hand, or what we call slab cabinets, are really one of the best designs that you can find because they are minimal, they're sleek, and they can't get dated because they're just flat. And they pair very well with marble. They pair very well with steel. For example, if you're doing steel countertops or marble countertops or any kind of countertop, plus you can really hone in on your handle. The handle can be what really makes your kitchen stand out rather than the design of a cabinet door. If your home leans more contemporary, the flat front always gives you sort of a seamless gallery-like feel, which is truly, truly timeless. Now, here is what to avoid if you want a timeless kitchen. You can easily avoid heavy moldings or ornate panels. They usually weigh down the space. So in the early 2000s, when everybody was doing the Spanish kitchen and they were doing all of the bells and whistles around the cabinetry, the extra molding, the French detailing, the bull nosing, plus the recessed molding under a crown molding, you get what I'm saying. That became extremely weighed down and dated. So mixing cabinet door styles in one kitchen also is a very bad idea. Might've been cool at some point, but it just looks disjointed. Overly trendy shapes like fluted or scalloped doors, beautiful for a moment, but really out in seconds. So timeless design is about proportion and restraint. Timeless design about opening a book that you find at your library from the 50s, the 20s, and noticing that that cabinet can still be mimicked today and can still be a very beautiful cabinet without being trendy. If you're at a loss as to what to do, honestly, go to your local public library, go to a bookstore. They're hard to find, but if you find one, especially an architectural bookstore, there is one here in Santa Monica that I love going to, but you can look them up online and find one. Open books that are dated and find things that you love. And you will notice that a lot of these cabinets have very unusual door styles or very minimal door styles or flat door styles that you can mimic. Now let's move on to lighting. This is the unsung hero of kitchen design. You can have the best cabinets in the world, the perfect countertops, the best appliances, and if your lighting is flat, your kitchen is dead, dead, dead, dead, dead as a doornail, as Charles Dickens used to say. Timeless lighting is all about layering. You want to light three separate things. You want light for function, you want light for mood, and you want light for depth. Some of these are tasks, some of these are just ambient lighting. Under cabinet lighting is a very important component. That's going to be your task lighting. And today, the new LED strips need to be considered because a lot of people have confusion about how to install LED strips under their counters, shall I say, under their cabinets. And putting LED strips under your cabinet has created a lot of confusion because the old halogen lamps we used to stick under our cabinets are now being replaced by LED strips, and people are just putting LED strips in every corner without really giving it much thought. So I would definitely recommend, there's not enough time in this episode to go through how to recess your LED light into your cabinetry, but there is a correct method so that you don't see the LED strips when you're standing a little bit away from your cabinets, and you want it to be done correctly. One day, we can get into that. If you're interested in figuring that out, that's a whole episode onto itself. Please let us know below in the comment section so that we can dedicate an entire episode as to how to do lighting in your kitchen, which is a very big topic. Now, let's get back to overhead pendants and sconces that will, in your kitchen, add the sculptural interest. The idea of having three pendants in a kitchen, which is what I have, guys, we just showed my kitchen, is dated as well. But do you have to do as you're told? Never. If you love three pendants in your kitchen, by all means, do the three because, by the way, you're doing this kitchen for you, not for anybody else, and if three pendants make you happy, then so be it. In my case, I love my three pendants. I've changed them out a couple of times, and now I want something different. So perhaps I'm going to do one pendant, keep the other holes in case I change my mind, which is very often, just cap them. Or in your case, you can add three holes and just use one or none and decide later what you'd like to do. Think about flexibility in your design so that if, for whatever reason, one day you want to get back to a three pendant or a two pendant or a single pendant off center or center, you're able to do that by having all of the electrical work done in advance. Toe pick lighting, another very important aspect of interior design today, only because of LED lighting, those subtle strips of light along the base of your cabinets, and I mean only the base of the cabinets, not everywhere. You want to make sure that you have restraint when it comes to LED lighting. After all, we are not in Nevada. We are not recreating Las Vegas. We are recreating a home with intention. Think of lighting like skincare. One product won't do it all. You need layers to create dimension. If there's anybody who overdoes the skincare and is very intentional about skincare, it's me, and I'm definitely the same way about my lighting. If you love flexibility, this is exactly why I designed my Ruggable collection around layering, timeless foundation pieces that let you play on top. So design should evolve easily and lighting works the same way. I love putting my Ruggable rugs and my collection in my kitchen. I think having runners in your kitchen is important, A, because it'll make it more comfortable, B, it'll make it feel more homey, and C, Ruggable, hello, you could just throw it in the wash and bring it back out, and especially in the kitchen where you are cooking all day is a great, great idea. Make sure and check out my Ruggable collection in the description section. Countertops are the jewelry, the foundation of your kitchen. And I'll be honest, the biggest trend trap that I see right now is overly veined marble. Now, don't get me wrong, every kitchen I've designed lately has had a lot of veining, and I love it. I love it so much. But I, again, have to exercise the power of restraint because soon a lot of this veiny marble that is very in, like arabescato, like viola, is going to look dated. And I just want to make sure that you don't fall into that trap. As much as I really want to redo the marble in my kitchen right now, I am going to leave it probably the way it is because my marble is timeless. It's a simple white Calacatta marble, but it doesn't have a lot of color to it. It's more gray than it is beige. I wish it had more beige, but it's such a neutral marble that even 10 years down the line, it's still very much viable. And I don't want to burn my cash, at least not now. So I will be changing mostly my cabinetry and all of the bells and whistles, such as my plumbing, my lighting, and the decorative hardware. And of course, the main reason I'm redoing my kitchen is my refrigeration, which has gone haywire. That's right. Now my refrigerator is now part freezer. Even though I have a column freezer and a column refrigerator, half of my refrigerator is now frozen. So for that reason, I got to change a lot of things. And this is the perfect time to make that change. If you want your kitchen to feel timeless, choose a neutral, subtle surfaces like my marble and hone marble in soft grays or beige veining, which is actually what I have. So I love quartzite. For those of you that are very precious about not wanting marble in your kitchen, quartzite is as strong, if not stronger, I would argue, and less and more stain resistant than man-made materials, which in my opinion are terrible. I hate to insult the man-made materials because I know a lot of you have them and if you have it, it's okay. I don't mean to be so harsh on it. But if I had to choose from scratch, and if I had a propensity to cook with food dyes, which I don't, but let's just say I love cumin and I love tomato paste and I love wine and those are my favorite things. And I love to cook by throwing food in the air. Well, in that case, I would still use a quartzite material because quartzite is very resistant to heat, to stain, much more so than even man-made materials. Limestones are always a good idea. And of course, marble for those of you who barely cook in your kitchen. Here's a rule. Your countertop should support the design, not be the design, not scream over the design. It's like makeup. Natural beauty never goes out of style and having that harsh green eye shadow over your lids, unless it's intentional for a specific dramatic reason, shouldn't be that way. So balance your finishes. If your cabinets have visible grain, choose a calmer countertop. If your counters have strong veining, then use a simpler cabinet design. Timeless design is really about harmony and not highlighting one specific material. We don't want your materials to compete. We don't want everybody fighting for attention. This is a very important play on balance. Now it's time to talk about the unsung hero of every kitchen. It's one of those conversations I have with clients that is very painful because your backsplash can ruin your kitchen if it's chosen incorrectly. It can make your kitchen if done beautifully. And there are rights and there are wrongs in my opinion. One of the easiest ways to tackle backsplash for those of you that are at a loss is just to do the timeless easiest solution, which is a good one. More does not mean less. In this case, if you take your counter marble or quartzite or any material that you choose and take that to your backsplash, there is just something really beautiful about that that works graciously in your home. And you can design the veining the way you like. It doesn't have to be bookmatched. I have bookmatched because 10 years ago, that was really the thing. And I still would do it that way, but you can certainly not bookmatch your marble and have fun with the veining that can seamlessly go from one end of the kitchen to the next. The next option are tiles. Hands down are the most timeless choice outside of using the same material, but we don't want Subway shiny white tiles because that seems a little bit dated. We want something that is a little bit more interesting, perhaps, if you're going to go through the exercise of changing your materiality. If you want something that just blends in nicely, stick with your countertops. If you want something that pops and gives you texture in a moment, well, Zelige tiles are great. It depends on the type of home that you have. If you have a Moroccan, Spanish, maybe colonial house, something that is more transitional, something that is a bit more traditional, then bringing in tile is a great idea. Just make sure they're not perfect. Make sure they have a little bit of imperfection, an ode to history, an ode to the past, and have fun with it. Maybe pick a color that's in your marble veining and go with that. Or if you're not sure, my best advice for those of you that call me with this big dilemma on The Expert, so as you guys know, I have expert calls where you guys consult me one-on-one via Zoom, which we will leave in the description section. I have had so many calls about backsplashes. People sometimes book even a 30-minute consultation with me and they're like, Nina, what do I do about my backsplash? If I had a dollar for every time that happened, I would be très, très riche. But in that case, just go with your countertop. Your gut is telling you that you don't want too many materials and trust your gut, go with the countertop. For those of you who really want something different, then of course, you can certainly call me and we can certainly discuss and you can show me photos. It's just an easy way to do so. You can just click the link in the description section. My Zoom calendar pops up and we are, next thing you know, we're on a one-on-one, which I've loved having with you guys. So you've probably seen those sort of Pinterest kitchens with bright white tiles and dark charcoal grout, which is bold and graphic. It's also a trend that dates very, very fast and you don't want to go there. So again, choose something that blends in beautifully. I would always choose the same grout color as your secondary material, your tile. And I would use things that basically match back to what you have. That will give you a seamless, elegant, simple look. That simple shift keeps the look clean and classic. It also lets the material, not the lines, take the spotlight. The more contrast in your backsplash, the more designed it looks, the more tonal and blended it is. The more architectural it feels, like it's always been there, is what we're trying to achieve. Next big topic of conversation, appliances. And this is where it can get very expensive fast. And that's where most of my budget is going, unfortunately. So what do you do? Well, you get the best you can with your budget. Whatever your budget allows, you should go for that. You guys know I'm a spokesperson on many occasions for Jenn Air Appliances. I like the quality of their product. I've put them time and time again. This is not a paid ad whatsoever, but I do like their product. I also have to say, since I'm talking about brands, I'm going to talk about ones that I know are tried and true. Wolf SubZero has great products because SubZero Refrigeration has been in my life since my childhood and my parents had my childhood home. Still has the same SubZero in it from what I hear from the new owners. I really believe it's been there for 50 years. So when it comes to refrigeration, SubZero has great product. And of course, there are lots of other brands, but that's not what we're going to get into today. We're going to be talking about once we choose our appliances, what to do with them. Do we get panel ready? Do we get stainless steel? It all depends on what we're doing. One way to really make your kitchen feel timeless would probably be a good idea to do panel ready appliances. That means whatever cabinetry you're using, you will panel your appliances with those such as your dishwasher, your refrigerator, and your freezer, your warming drawer. The things you cannot panel are ovens because they would melt off. But everything else, I would also argue your microwave and microwave drawer cannot be paneled. So everything else can be paneled and it just makes the kitchen feel a little bit cleaner, a little bit more seamless rather than steel everywhere. Now, if you're doing steel countertops, there's an argument to keep your countertops, your appliances, stainless steel. So if you love charm, consider vintage inspired appliances like a cream colored range with polished knobs. They feel nostalgic and still elegant. Additionally, today, you've got a lot of manufacturers that have appliances in different colors, knobs that come in different finishes. All of that can make your kitchen feel interesting. But remember, don't go overboard. If your hero item and your hero piece is your range, that's your statement, then perhaps that can be in a color and then everything else should be quiet. Or maybe you match the color of your range to your kitchen cabinetry. Remember, you have to do an interplay between these things and find a balance that works. Don't do a colored range and a different colored cabinetry with a bold marble and then something bold elsewhere, because then everything will look too busy and it won't look well-designed. It'll look over-designed. And that's a big mistake that we see across the board and have to fix. Many times we're hired when people purchase homes from others and they want to fix what they find to be overly designed kitchens. So let's now talk about the next part of the kitchen, which I love. And this is my favorite part. These are the handles and the poles, which are like earrings, like my Misoma earrings I'm wearing today. They are very important because they tell a story. You can either do something that's very classic, you could do rounded, you can do artsy, you can do simple. I mean, the possibilities are endless and all of it depends on your kitchen vibe, style, and everything else that is going on. Avoid overly geometric or trendy forms because they'll date faster. But remember, switching out hardware is not that hard, except that if you were putting in holes in your hardware that are unusual, for instance, in an unusual shape with unusual holes, you will have to patch up and repaint all of your cabinetry. So if you want to do something funky, let's hope it only has one hole that you can reuse in the future. Brushed nickel, unlacquered brass, oil-rugged bronze are all beautiful long-term finish options that you can certainly do without really thinking too much about it. And they patina gracefully. They mix well with other metals and they never scream 2020, which apparently is a huge insult. Now, if you want a bit of freshness, hardware is where you can experiment. Unlike countertops or cabinetry, this is an easy update. Every few years, a quick facelift can just easily be done by changing out, for instance, undated hardware or a dated faucet. Kitchen faucets tend to date very quickly because we're touching and using them daily. And I tend to change mine every five years or so, mostly because my spout's broken. I don't know if my family and my friends and the people who live here are too aggressive with my faucet, but these faucets don't tend to last. Now, a timeless kitchen isn't about freezing your design in time. It's about creating balance and flexibility, as I mentioned. Truly timeless design has room to evolve. And truly timeless design can take different elements of decor within your kitchen. So you can bring in a beautiful vase with some branches. You can bring in some kitchen decor and give it a little bit of a oomph, a little freshness to it. I love being able to do that and feeling like I have rejuvenated my kitchen. One of the kitchens we just designed, which will be actually published coming out in December, please look out for it. It's going to be on Living Etc. A brand new kitchen, which is beautiful, has a shelf in the kitchen, as you guys have seen, nothing new, but the items on that shelf can easily be swapped out for seasonality and things can feel really fresh and new because of those decorative items. That's why I always tell my clients timeless design isn't about keeping up. It's about creating something that still feels right years from now. That's the real, real goal. If you look at my kitchen, it is really, the reason I'm changing it is not because it looks dated. It actually has no timestamp. It is very original in its design. The reason I have to redo it is honestly because the paint finish is coming off of the cabinets and the refrigeration is breaking and I want to do better compartmentalization. So keep that in mind when you're designing yours. So whether you're remodeling or just dreaming, these are the principles to keep close to your heart. Choose warmth, choose simplicity, layer thoughtfully, and remember timeless isn't boring. It's an art of balance. If this deep dive gave you some ideas, hit that like button so that the algorithm can share this video with other people that might like it. That would really mean a lot to me and of course to my team. And I want to hear what you guys have to say. If any of you are redoing your kitchens or if anything I told you really made you pause. And don't forget to subscribe. That is ultimately the biggest gift you can give us. And guess what? This gift is free. So we really appreciate it. And we can't wait to see you again on this channel, The Red Elevator. Adieu and thank you for tuning in.