Elaine Markoutsas
Primary Color

Remodeling a kitchen, one of the most popular and expensive undertakings associated with home ownership, is all about refreshing — no matter what the style.

It’s an effort to revive drab or dated space and reconfigure layouts, often annexing square footage where families and friends can hang out and entertain in the true nexus of the home.

When they remodel, homeowners are looking for updated aesthetics and upgraded appliances that improve function, and sometimes there’s an element of fantasy. Thumb through specialty kitchen magazines and you’ll find a bit of Provence or a hint of Tuscany in the choice of materials and palette. It often reflects a homeowner’s desire to import travel experiences home.

Designers resist trotting out plans that can be as tired as stale baguettes.

“We’ve lived through these patterns of strong thematic designs,” says Chicago designer Mick De Giulio, who notes that they sometimes can become cliches. “It’s often not reflective of what people are and who they are.”

His clients are becoming more reactive and artistic, says De Giulio, whose high-end designs often command six-figure price tags. “Instead of coming in and saying, ‘I want an arts and crafts kitchen,’ they love the idea of doing something truly unique.”

That means, perhaps, incorporating elements of a given style but stretching the spirit of it, doing something more modern — or less modern — and juxtaposing materials in offbeat ways.

“It’s a counterpoint in design. It’s doing a very modern kitchen, but not having it all match,” he says.

And today, that still means adding a personal touch.

“It might be a grandmother’s table and chairs that sit in the space,” De Giulio says. Even in a modern context, “when they’re thinking about what table to use, they decide that it’s perfect.”

As cleaner lines of contemporary furnishings have evolved in the past five years, along with a desire to de-clutter interiors, it’s not surprising that there’s an analogous movement in kitchen design.

In addition, some commercial and restaurant-style appliances, which have been a hot trend, now have more streamlined residential counterparts. Although most of these still are stainless steel, some manufacturers, such as Jenn-Air, have introduced oil-rubbed bronze finishes for a warmer look.

Sometimes it’s difficult for high-tech electronic gizmos to co-exist, say, with an English cottage idiom. But the latest options are hard to resist. The AvantGarde multimedia hood from Siemens integrates an LCD flat screen into its chimney and also features a CD and DVD player. And Samsung’s 10.4-inch LCD TV screen, which is built into a refrigerator door, even functions as a message center, a handy way to also keep inventory of what’s inside.

Consider a design by the German manufacturer Bulthaup, which describes its products as “architecture of the kitchen.” White high-gloss cabinets and panels are standouts in a room with craggy-wood ceiling beams, a 600-year-old pebble floor and a cook island with a solid walnut top.

The most striking difference, perhaps, is the way all sorts of woods have been integrated into the look. Unmistakably clean-lined cabinets in matte white or high-gloss red take on a different personality with wood veneers.

Wenge, the espresso-hued wood that has become the darling of high-end furniture design, also has wended its way into the kitchen. There’s also serious competition from medium tones and even lighter-hued ashes and cerused oaks, which celebrate their grain with a kind of whitewashing achieved by liming. And some of the woods are exotics, with distinctive figuring.

SieMatic, a German-based kitchen maker long known for its lacquered looks, also is serving up natural walnut, bamboo, elm and teak. And a new collection designed by De Giulio, called Beaux Arts, shows how style from different periods and cultures can be deftly mixed.

In an uber-clean kitchen designed by Bulthaup, a pair of anodized aluminum-clad islands (yes, just like Calphalon pots) oppose cabinetry crafted from random-striped apple wood veneer. Not only is the grain design interesting, with its unusual horizontal bands, but the cabinetry has a green element in that the wood is sustainably harvested.

Another distinction of new modern designs is a strong horizontality to architectural elevations, expressed in long shelves, often with thick profiles, or an integrated system for hanging utensils instead of a run of upper cabinets. Utensils and food products take on an artistic sensibility in such a display.

Chicago designer Jessica Lagrange, who partnered with Thermador in a Dream Home show house at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, created a wall framed by a pair of refrigerators, all clad in wood with a horizontal grain. Just a pair of long shelves hangs above a countertop between the refrigerators.

“I wanted it to look like a full living space, not a kitchen,” says Lagrange, who chose burnished gold hardware as accents, inspired by flatware she scooped up at Crate & Barrel. “We stayed away from stainless steel and granite, so ubiquitous in kitchens today,” she says. The walnut she chose is from an eco-friendly line by Jill Salisbury, and the countertop is 3-Form, a recycled and recyclable material.

Mixed media hits strides at every price point. In a recent ad for Lowe’s, which focuses on the entertainment nature of kitchens (”remember, the party always ends up in the kitchen”), a slate tile floor is set off with dark cabinets with stainless handles, a bar-height counter made of a transparent material, stainless appliances and garage-door-style cabinets with glass panes.

These cabinet doors, which open from the bottom, are a fresh and convenient option. Canac’s aluminum-framed Cosmopolitan doors sport glass inserts available in trademarked Vapour colors — blue, orange and green — to perfectly match Kohler cast-iron sinks to fashion a contemporary European aesthetic.

At least one manufacturer is targeting male customers, who are increasingly showing an interest in the kitchen. Poggenpohl, a German company, has teamed with Porsche to design a “sleek and functional” modern kitchen that takes cues from the racetrack. The aluminum-framed cabinetry will be available in two unsealed, textured woods for a natural look: Driftwood, which is a brushed pine, and Dark Oak, a fine-brushed oak.

Glass, painted on the back and finished in satin or glossy, also is a panel option. Worktops are available in satin-finished glass or black granite. The Poggenpohl-Porsche system will be fitted with Miele appliances and includes an audio-video system with analog and digital connections. It will be available this summer in the United States.

As in any design that’s an investment. What’s most important is to choose what you love and can live with for the duration. In kitchen design parlance, that means at least 10 to 15 years.

De Giulio likes bold marriages of materials that look fresh and clean. On whatever side of modern you lean, the key, he says, is simplicity and restraint.

“With architecture from the 1920s, a modern, classical look is compelling,” De Giulio says. “The key is not to overdo flutes, pilasters, carvings, corbels. Too much of a good thing is too much.”