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The home – and particularly the kitchen is the focus of many factors affecting our lives and with recent recessionary chaos and insecurity, sometimes our kitchen and living spaces are the only places for refuge and comfort! Whether planning a complete kitchen refit, or just buying new accessories, it is always important to be aware of current trends.

Below, in no particular order, are six current trends for you to integrate into your kitchen and home improvement thinking for the coming year.

Blending Between Kitchen and Living Space.

The distinction between living and kitchen space is becoming less defined as more furniture and soft furnishings are appearing the kitchen, making it a new home comfort zone. The use of wall space is increasingly given over to decoration and personalisation. Also there is a trend towards larger, open plan living spaces where every one can get together.

Finishes and colours which do not match, fit an overall theme are being used more. Different finishes, textures and ornaments can add sophistication. Individual artwork, wall clocks, mirrors and items associated with the living room in the past, all add to the feeling that one is really in a living social area, not just for cooking.

The Eco-Friendly kitchen.

Eco-awareness is now essential for the your kitchen, this can be integrated seamlessly into your existing format. The recycling of kitchen and home refuse is now part of everyone’s daily routine and as such occupies a space in our kitchen/utility areas of the home.

If installing a new kitchen refit – you can use inexpensive natural materials such as recycled glass for work surfaces or recycled wood for work surfaces and flooring.

Wood furniture has superiority in gaining the elegant and beautiful touch for the living space. Finishing attached to the furniture is one of the main processes affecting the touch of appearance and sustainability.

Finishing is the final layer attached on the surface of the wood. This process aims to provide better aesthetic value in wood furniture, cover up some drawbacks in terms of wood color, texture or quality of the surface resistance of certain materials, to protect the wood from the outside conditions (weather, air temperature, etc.) or a collision with another item to increase endurance and durability of wood products.

Materials and term of application used for wood furniture finishing can vary. There are two types of wood finish based on the kind of material, namely: solid material finish and liquid finish.

Solid finish. This material covers 100 % of the surface of the wood and hides the original look. Physically, the material is formed into sheet or roll and applicable for indoor furniture with the basic material plywood, MDF, hardboard, softboard and other types of sheets.

Liquid finish. There are so many types and variations regarding to liquid finish wood furniture. Its characteristics make it as the most popular used in almost all types of wood furniture. It is more flexible to use than the solid finish, best used for curvy and wide surface, has the same quality on the strength of the broad surface of plywood or MDF. Type of liquid finishing materials that have been used today include oil, nitro cellulose (NC), melamine, polyurethane (PU), but the most popular today is water based lacquer. These finished require thinner oil as liquidator except water based lacquer which uses water.