Meet the Crew: Michael Teti

We would like to introduce our newest sales associate, Michael Teti. Michael was born in Washington DC, later attending Overlea High School in Baltimore County. He has been swinging a hammer since he was eight years old. Michael’s father did all of their home maintenance himself so he “learned about home repair and self-reliance very young.” Michael spent summers with his grandparents at a family property outside of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. His grandfather built all the structures on the property, and he introduced Michael to carpentry from a young age. Michael also worked on a framing crew during his high school summers.

READ THE FULL BLOG POST →

Kitchen Design Trends for 2019

Each year the National Kitchen and Bath Association (NKBA) surveys designers, remodelers, builders, architects and manufacturers throughout North America in order to forecast design trends for kitchens and baths. The purpose is to help designers be aware of what is now trending and what will be the most popular styles and features in the upcoming years. This report can be a fantastic assistance to you in making design decisions when remodeling your kitchen or bath.

Focusing on the kitchen survey, transitional and contemporary are expected to be the highly favored styles. Also farmhouse, industrial, traditional, mid-century and eclectic will be popular during the next several years. When kitchens are remodeled, most of them are enlarged up to 25 percent—the most typical size being 150-350 square feet. In terms of layout, the L-shaped kitchen with a medium-to-large island is the most in demand, with the U-shaped kitchen falling quite a distance behind. The majority of kitchen islands range from 12 to 35 square feet. Only 2 percent of the designers surveyed created a kitchen without a center island in the past year.

Innovation is showing up in cabinets, countertops and lighting these days. Many cabinets are designed in a contemporary European style with hidden handles. New materials, like large-format slabs with a concrete look and a matte finish, are on the upswing for countertops. LED lighting is everywhere, now with better color rendering and the ability to dim.

Alongside these innovations, designers are wishing for greater variation in cabinets, ventilation hoods, sinks and countertops. They would like to have a wider variety of transitional door styles available for cabinets and different materials for doors and drawer fronts. Designers often state they want more of a furniture-design element, such as legs for the toe kick on base cabinets. They desire ventilation hoods to be offered in an integrated form, minimal, shallow-depth and “invisible” in appearance. Designers want more workstation sinks in a variety of sizes, and a wider array of materials for kitchen sinks besides stainless, cast iron or granite composite. They are eager to have richer, more saturated colors for quartz countertops—bolder design options beyond white and gray.

According to designers, some of the most ingenious new products for the kitchen are appliances that are on the cutting-edge in several areas. New bright colors, as well as black stainless and a contemporary white (not the same as your mom’s) make the appliances stand out. Different sizes, such as refrigeration columns, microwave drawers and dishwasher drawers, allow appliances to be placed in a variety of positions within the kitchen for greater flexibility in the layout. Advanced technology, like video screens and touch sensors, bring appliances into today’s world. Mobile-device accommodations, such as the ability to control appliances with your smartphone; voice-enabled home automation platforms; and safety technology that alerts a cellphone of an undesirable situation are tech innovations predicted to dominate kitchens over the next three years.