On our latest podcast, Schloegel Designer, Megan Bringman stopped by to dig into the 2022 home design trends. It was so much fun hearing her perspective and her valuable knowledge in design.
The first one is hues in green. What do you think about green?
I love it. I love green and Green’s always been kind of a neutral in our industry. It’s an easy color to bring in.
It’s such an earthy feel. Good color. So, I love that it’s on our 2022 lists for this year. All kinds of green you know, ranges. Sage is certainly up there. Hunter green, Kelly Green, army green with like more kind of an olive undertone. It’s really funny. You see this photo here of some bold green wallpaper.
I just absolutely love it. And again, it’s neutral, so I think most people see it as something that they can live with long-term. And it could be, you know, wallpaper, it could be paint colors, cabinetry, tile, so many different opportunities to bring green.
Have you put any green in your projects lately?
Gosh, yes. So many colors of green, like, especially that Kelly Green color, like very fresh, crisp, sharp, just really accents. Some of the white Carrera is really pretty the quartz countertops, so yeah, certainly bringing it in green and then a little different take on it this year.
Again, kind of safe. I’m kind of a more neutral grain, maybe not as much you know vibrancy to it, but something a little more neutral is certainly popular as well. So like a bath vanity, like a single standalone piece picking any color off of the swatch deck or of Sherwin-Williams or Benjamin Moore.
We’re just having a lot of fun with greens. And I have, I want to know that you and I did a green cabinet in the showroom like three years ago. We were, so we were ahead of our time.
Next, we’re attacking curved lines. Can you talk about what this actually means? Curved lines. What do you think of it as a trend?
Yes, curvature. So, it could be like this bar backsplash, for example, kind of an unpredictable curve there. And straight lines and streamlines have certainly been the trend but adding just a little curvature to it. Softened edge. And that could be like at the seating area or an island or a radius of a corner radius of one cabinet and a whole kitchen.
Again, this one has kind of a backsplash design that has some curvature to it. So it’s just kind of unpredictable areas where we can interject some curvature to play off of the rest. You know, certainly curved walls. I’ve got a project right now in Fairway and it was original to the home that they have these curved walls and with the new project, we’re going to bring those curved walls back in.
So it’s just kind of fun to see you know, those in different spaces. Of course, our Brookside homes, we do so many of those and they have these really cool either Gothic style archers or curved arches. And we never want to remove that from the home’s character. Do you know what I mean? So, So fun.
And so we can recreate those details. Like, let’s say we’re going to get a kitchen and one of the doorways we’re going to get rid of because of a construction project. I mean, we want to bring those details back in and we can certainly do that with our craftsmen.
Adding vintage. How do you feel about vintage and design?
Oh my gosh. I love it. In fact, we were just talking about, before we jumped on this podcast, we were talking about some hardware and I have a client that has a condo down on the Plaza and an old building from the 19 hundreds. And we couldn’t find any hardware piece that was going to match the rest of the doors in this unit.
So we jumped on. And found an original hardware set that was completely covered in paint and we ordered it and got it in and our lead carpenter stripped all that paint off. So I, a hundred percent love vintage, and anytime we can bring something old, it just looks like it’s been there forever, and it also kind of acclimates the new space to the rest of the home.
So, you know, For me, it’s like, it gives it a lived-in feeling like it’s not, this is brand new. It belongs. Yes, exactly. And that’s why we were on the search for that one little backplate of hardware because we knew if we put anything else in, it was going to look like we bought that at locks and poles, you know, and that project just called for something different.
So it’s just really fun to do that. And of course, furniture pieces. We do a lot of reclamation. And so I’ve had lots of pieces made for clients over the years from like antique Hartstein, Elmwood, reclaimed timber. They have a beautiful showroom and it’s all like Barnwood or restored would, you know, that came out and it’s just nothing like it.
And the beams that are right today, I feel another thing we’re seeing a ton of is those old wood beams, right. Right. So yeah, absolutely love the vintage makes it one of a kind. And especially when clients have things that they want to put into the project like this photo, this is a, a lower level and you can see the stained-glass windows were original to this house on the website.
Dark and earthy tones. I feel like that a little bit plays into what we’ve learned. We’ve been talking about.
We love white. I mean, we’re going to forever love white kitchens. I think if I had to do my kitchen over again, I’d probably pick white again. But you know, I think we’re always looking for something fresh and different and like, what’s next, you know, if it’s not white, what is.
Well, it’s stain again. And so, we’re seeing stain and a whole variety of shades you know, coming in with some of the really dark stains again. And then also some like very light kind of weathered. I don’t want to say yes, I don’t want to say the word pickle for
I’m almost saying like, it’s the new version of. That you know, your cabinets, it’s pickled, it’s the, it’s the new pickled. And so that’s what we’re seeing though is like this bleached wood. And you know, we can take hardwood floors where we did a whole house and they had Oak hardwoods, like two and a quarter red Oak hardwood, but she wanted a fresh and look on them. And so we did, we stained them. You’re still going to see a little bit of red and but that’s the charm of it. It’s not like you’re going to see a whole floor of red, but you aren’t going to see some of the darker boards. But it was really fun and it just instantly modernized that kitchen.
Talk to me just to hear more about this.
The process doesn’t require more work than regular stain. You just strip them like you would on a regular refinish. And I think that the color was called maybe country Oak. I’ll have to look at the stain chart. It was a fresh look at a new take on hardwoods.
Return to natural. Talk to us a little bit about returning to natural materials.
No stone, a hundred percent and we see stone always remaining timeless and classic. You know, whether it’s travertine or whether it’s a marble I mean, there are so many options when it comes to natural stone wood, again, using reclaimed wood warm, earthy tones and all of that. And then. A lot of mixtures of metals.
I think people sometimes have it in their mind if I do Chrome, I’ve got to do Chrome everywhere. You know what? Not necessarily, because think about your kitchen. You’ve got stainless steel in there for the appliances. Maybe we want to put a little bit of brushed gold on the hardware, but let’s keep your faucet in something like a brushed brush finish, stainless or Chrome, you know, just to keep that classic look. So, lots of mixtures of metals, which is really fun. It’s kind of an eclectic take on it. And I think it’s kind of out of the norm, right? Like we’re not expecting to see a whole myriad of different fixtures, so makes it fun. Cause then no two things are the same.
Number six on our list is light wood. We talked about cabinets. We talked about floors. Obviously, wood tones are back.
Yes, yes. And whole kitchens, you know, kind of a bleached wood look and it’s like still keeping it light, but it’s no longer painted white. You see a little bit of the wood grain through it and it’s interesting. It just has a certain depth to it, but still keeps kitchens light. And lots of different options in the bleached wood category. It’s almost like white, like white paint, but it’s stain.
Walls with wood design.
No matter the design of the home, the age of the home, there’s always an opportunity to bring wood onto the walls. So, whether it’s traditional or more modern, it provides depth. And it also gives some framework, which is what I love.
Stairwells are so much fun. I had a project I looked at in Brookside last week and we just kind of sat there, looking at these walls and it’s a huge two-story staircase. So, we’re looking at these walls and there’s so much expanse of space. What if we did a panel design and we started to frame in some areas for artwork? My client got super excited about that because it was just this whole big overwhelming space unexpected. It grounded that artwork cause she had some family portraits there that were kind of just lost on this big, huge wall expanse.
But as soon as we started talking about. Some ways to bring in some paneling and some dimension and its purpose to that space, we were off and running.
I’m also doing another panel project on the entryway at a condo unit that is more traditional-looking. So, this has lots of different ways when we start doing wall paneling and you can actually just apply it over drywall and then we do an enamel finish. It can be really economic.
Down at the condo project, we have two hidden doors in it. We have this whole scenario where we had multiple doors, but we didn’t really want to see the doors. So, we created them within this paneling and they’re hidden. They also got the molding treatment and then they just have a push release. We’re excited and I love wood paneling.
Bars in your home and we’re not talking like bars on the windows. We’re talking like bars where you go mix a cocktail, whether that be coffee or cocktail.
Yes, when we go in and renovate a kitchen or look at a whole space, we are for sure talking about where they’re going to have coffee or where they’re going to have a bar like mixing cocktail spaces.
And sometimes it’s both spaces. It’s certainly a highly used area. Everybody has a little different preference in terms of what they want to have there, but under-counter refrigerators, built-in coffee makers, are so fun. We’ve done ice makers just supplemental areas for those specific items that are.
Finally, patterns in hardwoods, it’s not just straight lay anymore, right?
Exactly, so many different options when it comes to hardwoods. In so many homes that we’ve done it, especially in our kind of old Kansas City area, Brookside it’s pretty straightforward when we go in and we have the hardwoods that are in the whole balance of the, of the house but doesn’t necessarily mean that when we’re remodeling a kitchen, we can’t think of something different. Bring in a different charm with a herringbone, or maybe it’s a border with an inset. So many different options when it comes to hardwoods. And then also wide plank is still very popular or different size planks. So maybe. Three different sizes of planks.
Again, the whole rest of the house still could have hardwood. But there’s an opportunity to make an accent within let’s say it’s a dining room or kitchen or an entry lots of opportunities to lay that floor differently. I love it. And to your 0.1 room is almost just right. Cause it can be over the top, right.
Are there any trends that aren’t on the list that are in your portfolio?
I’m love terrazzo, such a throwback to like mid-century design where they had whole floors of chipped marble and poured concrete. Terrazzo’s coming back. It’s not for every project, but I just kind of love when things that we’ve seen in different eras in the 1960s come back and become trendy.
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