It has long been said that the kitchen is the heart of the home, and clearly kitchens continue to assert their dominance in design trends for 2025, actually stealing space from other parts of the house.
For this annual report on cabinet trends, we combined information from design and remodeling studies with anecdotal reports from cabinet shops, architects, and designers to come up with a guestimate (not at all scientific) of what we will see for major trends in 2025. We are about to head off to the Design Week event in Las Vegas, incorporating both the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show and the International Builders Show, so we’ll bring back more data to support or challenge this report.
In the big picture, it doesn’t take a crystal ball to predict kitchens will continue to dominate cabinets in residential construction and remodeling projects. It appears that so-called Transitional designs will continue to dominate, and projects might get bigger as kitchens expand into space previously occupied by dining rooms. Paint finishes are still on top, but the color pallet is changing and wood looks continue strong. Construction methods are less a matter of design trends and more a matter of shop preferences. And, technology continues to take a bigger role.
Bigger kitchens
According to the 2025 Houzz Kitchen Trends Study, dining rooms are shrinking to make room for bigger kitchens. While 64% of kitchen renovations still use the same square footage as previous construction, some 35% opt to increase the size. That comes at a cost of reduced space in either the dining room (29%) or the living room (12%). Alternatively, nearly a fifth of homeowners opt to add on to their home just to add more space to the kitchen.
Big kitchens mean big money. Houzz reports the median kitchen project is $60,000, but the top 10% of spenders invest $180,000 or more on a major high-end kitchen remodel. Even minor remodeling projects show a similar pattern, with a $67,000 spend at the high end of mid-range projects, which is more than triple the median $20,000 for a minor remodel, according to Houzz.
New countertops (91%), cabinets (85%), and backsplashes (85%) dominate kitchen remodels. And decreasing spends are seen for faucets, flooring, appliances and wall treatments.
What’s in a style?
Houzz claims the biggest reason people decide to remodel their kitchens is they can no longer stand the style of the old kitchen. But what style do they then choose? Today, the answer is more than likely Transitional or Traditional.
Let’s take a minute to explore style nomenclature because there are no hard and fast rules. Most designers describe the Transitional style, which has dominated many of these surveys for years, as clean lines with some embellishments. Call it Shaker-style doors with added crown moulding or other decorations. Traditional could cover everything from raised panel doors to lots of mouldings, corbels and the like.
From the cabinet shop perspective, the ever-popular Shaker door (including the trendy slim Shaker door), could well be the focus of a Transitional kitchen, a pure Shaker kitchen, a Craftsman kitchen, or even a Farmhouse kitchen. Let the designer sort it out.
But the trend to look for from the shop perspective is potentially more orders for raised-panel or raised-panel-look (MDF) doors after years of nearly nothing but Shaker. According to the Houzz report Shaker doors account for 61% of the market, flat-panel 22%, raised-panel 12%, and glass front 3%.
Paint still big
Look for the vast majority of those doors to be painted. Paint remains the leader in cabinet finishes, but wood looks and stains are remaining strong. And no matter what Pantone (Mocha Mouse), Sherwin-Williams (Grounded), Akzo Nobel (True Joy) or anybody else says with their Color of the Year for 2025 selections, white is still the king in kitchens, accounting for a third of all kitchens, according to Houzz. Off-white accounts for 14%.
But wood tones command about a quarter of all the kitchens built. That includes real wood in light, dark, and medium tones, and all the new wood-look panel products, including textured laminates. Anecdotally, we still hear that rift-sawn white oak dominates the requests for wood in cabinet shops.
Past white and wood, a bunch of other colors come in as both main colors and accents, each accounting for 6% or less of the market. Those include, in descending order, gray (remember when everything was gray?), green, blue, a color Houzz calls “greige,” black, and brown.
Under the finish
Terminology and perceptions are always hobgoblins in chasing trends. Some survey results just don’t make sense from a wood technology perspective. Take one question from the Houzz 2025 trends report.
That report claims that “solid wood” is the “primary material” for new kitchen cabinets, capturing 72% of the market, with medium-density-fiberboard (MDF) coming in second at just 10%. Plywood is listed at 8%, veneer at 4% and particleboard at 1%. Glass is listed at 1%. Now, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a full kitchen made primarily out of glass, and it’s been decades since I’ve seen a kitchen made primarily of solid wood.
The reality is that most kitchens today, including cabinets, doors, and to some extent drawers, are made using panel products such as plywood, MDF, and particleboard. Solid wood is a strong contender for stain-grade doors and drawer fronts, but engineered wood products are huge as a substrate in painted kitchens.
Clearly, the Houzz survey respondents weren’t clear about what they were specifying. This is a great example of why you should take all trend reports — including this one — with a grain of salt.
Pragmatic construction
For years we’ve explored the battle between frameless or Euro-style cabinets (sometimes called full-access) and traditional American face-frame cabinets. You can still touch off a spirited argument between frameless and face-frame shop owners about which is best, but almost everybody admits that most customers don’t really know the difference and it’s not high up on their list of priority specifications.
That means that as long as the overall kitchen look is what the designer and customer want, it really doesn’t matter what the box construction is. A frameless kitchen with full-overlay raised-panel doors can satisfy a so-called Traditional design just as well as a face-frame kitchen. Since more shops are moving to frameless for efficiency in construction, that all contributes to the fairly balanced market share between frameless boxes and face-frames.
Of course, there still are a significant number of shops building kitchens with full inset doors and face-frames, just as there are shops going full modern with slab doors and frameless boxes. Again, the percentage of the market for either is likely balanced.
Mixed styles, ages
Speaking of styles, looks, and design trends, the American Society of Interior Designers predicts a significant trend for 2025 is more mixing of styles and cultural narratives. “Timeless craftsmanship and nostalgia are making a comeback, with designers incorporating historical elements, vintage furnishings, and handcrafted details into modern spaces,” ASID reports. “This blending of styles reflects a growing consumer demand for sustainable, long-lasting designs that tell unique stories.”
ASID also points to a changing make-up of the workforce, with a more multigenerational mix. “The complexities of a multigenerational workforce that now includes Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z, is requiring businesses to navigate different work styles,” according to ASID. “While trends like reverse mentoring highlight the need for workplaces to bridge generational gaps and align diverse values.”
That mixed workforce also means a mixed consumer population when it comes to shopping for kitchen cabinets. Some segments might be more cost-focused, and others more design-focused. This will present additional challenges for shops as they navigate custom work.
Smart technology
We’ve long seen a trend for more technology in kitchens, particularly in lighting systems and more sophisticated appliances. According to ASID, “Energy-efficient appliances and smart home technology are seamlessly integrated into both new construction and retrofits, making ultramodern residences more accessible.”
Cabinet shops that leave all the lighting and electronics to electricians or other contractors are missing a huge opportunity for additional profit. Just as lighting systems have gotten more sophisticated, they’ve mostly gotten easier and simpler to install with low-voltage systems and turnkey setups that make it easy for shops to offer more technology options. Those include under-cabinet lighting, shelf lighting, lighting inside drawers and cabinets, and remote control systems that allow the homeowner to operate everything from a phone app.
According to Houzz, recessed lights are the most popular kitchen lighting option (73%), followed by under-cabinet lights (71%), and pendant lights (57%). But when it comes to lighting a kitchen island, pendant lights move to the top at 65%.