Natural wood is now fully back in interior design. From oak to mahogany, hickory, teak, and birch, different types of hardwoods are now represented in the industry. Whether you want beds, chairs, tables, or cabinets made of raw wood, you are more likely to find them easier than you can expect.
But one hardwood, oak, is ahead of the rest in terms of popularity. Widely used to design cabinets, oak is a tough hardwood with a hard-grained rough texture. Cabinets made of oak hardwood are now trending in kitchen interior design.
Want to find out why oak kitchen cabinets are trending? Read on to discover more about cabinets made of oak; their features, why many people love them, and how you can join the multitude of homeowners and designers leveraging them for interior different designs.
About Oak Kitchen Cabinets
From the 1980s to the 1990s and 2000s, oak was present in almost every home because it was commonly used to design many types of furniture. As interior designers shifted to industrial materials in the early 2000s, the popularity of oak furniture declined.
However, the last ten years have seen the resurgence of oak furniture, thanks to the fact that designers and homeowners have shifted back to natural materials for their environmental benefits. Oak kitchen cabinets are now coming out, not in their 1990s traditional look, but in sophisticated contrasting designs, all of which are admired everywhere.
The following are the distinguishing features of cabinets made of oak.
- Naturalness
You can never take away the natural appeal that comes from oak cabinets. Because of their natural hardwood material defined by a coarse texture, these drawers have a natural touch that not even painting, staining, or varnishing can tarnish. Regardless of whatever you pair them with; oak kitchen cabinets will always have the compact, strong, and natural outlook of bare wood.
It is the natural appeal of oak cabinets that has drawn many homeowners and designers back to natural materials in terms of furniture designs. Because of their pristine appearance, you can blend oak kitchen cabinets with many things, from live plants to colorful hardware and metals.
- Ease of Cleaning and Maintenance
The best types of furniture to clean and maintain are made of oak. Considering the rough-textured oak finishes, any item made of oak is more likely to resist smudges, dust, and scratches. In terms of cleaning, the rough oak surface can easily absorb any type of cleaning solvent for long-lasting cleanliness and freshness.
Regarding maintenance, the coarse finishes of oak cabinets are perfect for absorbing stains, paints, and varnishes. This means that oak kitchen cabinets can stay for long without their surfaces getting peeled off by tear and wear if you paint, stain, or varnish them. Thus, there’s no way you can waste time or money in cleaning and maintaining cabinets made of oak.
- Simplicity in Design
In contemporary interior design, simplicity is the essence. With every homeowner on the lookout for design elements that are very simple to work with, the most popular cabinetry designs are defined by simplicity. Oak cabinets are generally simple in terms of design, from their colors, shapes, materials, and styles.
Honey-toned oak cabinets can easily be mixed with both overwhelming and neutral colors, for example, soft blue-grey and neutral beiges. Their bristly finishing makes them ideal for simplifying the interior design process. Whether you stain or paint them, their scratchy appearance can enhance every design element in your scullery.
Can I Make Oak Kitchen Cabinets Look Modern?
Regardless of their design, honey-toned cabinets can easily look bland and vintage if you don’t know how to work with them. In modern kitchens, they can look outdated or un-stylish. However, this does not imply that you should avoid oak kitchen cabinets. There are things you can simply do to make them look ultra-modern and lovely.
They include the following;
- Instil a Focal Point
The honey-tone appearance of oak cabinets can overwhelm every design aspect of an interior, especially if the cabinets cover a large space in the interior. To limit their dark allure, you need to instill a focal point by introducing a color that can contrast the honey-tone oak outlook.
Besides installing a tiled backsplash, you can add to the cabinets, whitish marble or quartz countertops as well as metallic materials like stainless steel, gold, chrome, and silver. If you pair oak cabinets with contrasting colors, their visual mass will be reduced to charming beauty through color contrast.
- Accessorize Oak Cabinets
Besides blending different colors with oak kitchen cabinets, giving them a touch of ultra-modern accessories can help to give them a facelift making them look modern. Because their material is wood-based, oak cabinets can act as a neutral for color pairing.
Hence, with oak cabinets, you can try out all kinds of accessories, from kitchenware to plant vases and lighting systems. As already mentioned, metals can enhance the visual attractiveness of oak cabinets.
Therefore, you can install fixtures like knobs, handles, pulls, and in-cabinet bulb holders entirely made of metallic materials. Gold, chrome, brass, silver, and stainless steel are the metals commonly used in the design of interior design accessories, including cabinet fixtures and ornaments.
- Paint or Stain
While oak cabinets can look great even in their indigenous state, painting or staining them is a great alternative in terms of enhancing and preserving their adorable look and features. Regarding painting, oak surfaces work well with different neutrals, including, colors, white, cream, taupe, black, and grey.
With their aggressive finishing, oak kitchen cabinets can not only absorb but also preserve all types of paints and stains. You will be fluttering two hearts with one heart if you repaint or stain your oak cupboards. Besides preserving their pristine properties, you will give oak kitchen cabinets a fresh new look if you paint or stain them
When painting or staining, it would be great if you considered the following.
- Cost of painting and staining
- Colors, stains, or shades that work best for your cabinets and kitchen as a whole
- Your interior design preferences
- How to paint or stain
Final Thoughts
Oak kitchen cabinets are now on top of recent cabinet trends. Admired globally for their strength and resilience, these cabinets are nothing but a great idea. They are easy to work with, congruent with all designs, and very versatile. You can use them to create any design you want, from traditional to modern and contemporary.