Fade to black and white — appliances, that is — as the decade’s homeowners embraced neutrality and, eventually, stainless steel. They also loved oak, granite and hunter green.

By Donna Heiderstadt

As NKBA celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2023, we’re taking a retrospective look back at major kitchen and bath design trends over the seven decades since our founding. This month, we’re revisiting what happened in kitchen design in the last decade of the 20th century — 1999-1990 — as we continue to take a trip down K&B memory lane. 

1. Appliances ditched color for neutrality.

Twenty years after the avocado, gold and brown appliances craze that defined the 1970s, homeowners began to remodel, moving away from bohemian hues and toward more neutral black, white and ultimately stainless-steel appliances. In this decade that gave us “Seinfeld,” Seattle grunge-inspired flannel and the Spice Girls, the kitchen began to boldly define itself not only as a utilitarian space but as a barometer of the lifestyle of the people who lived there.

2. Homeowners obsessed over 50 shades of green.

Before there was gray, green was king of the kitchen. Whether it was cabinets painted dramatic hunter green or an accent wall sponge-painted in soft sage for a farmhouse effect, various shades of green were embraced to create a space that made a statement in the 90s. But it was hunter green, accented with Ralph Lauren-style floral wallpaper borders, poufy window valances and faux ferns that collected dust atop kitchen cabinets, that conquered ’90s decor. Greens are making a kitchen comeback in the 2020s — just without all the frilly accessories.

3. Oak cabinets had a heyday.

Yes, they were real oak, but not the sleek, flat-faced white-oak cabinets of today. In the 1990s, oak cabinets ranged from light gold to pumpkin orange and were beveled, some would say, bulky, and often paired with white ceramic knobs and pulls. By the mid-2000s, many of these oak cabinets had been painted white and the hardware was replaced, in keeping with the time’s HGTV-inspired DIY frenzy.

4. Refrigerators went French.

Lots of homeowners said “oui” to newly introduced French-door refrigerators with a lower freezer drawer when they upgraded their kitchen appliances in the late 1990s. An evolution of side-by-side models, which feature a freezer on one side and a fridge on the other, the wider French-door style caught on both for its good looks and its practicality and remains among the most popular styles in the market.

5.  Granite began to rock the countertop space.

The rising popularity of granite countertops in the early ’90s — either in solid black or, more often, the course-grained, igneous-rock type in varying shades of beige and brown — started a trend in kitchen design that would continue for decades.