With bright white subway-tile-covered walls, and an ebony-stained limestone countertop to match similarly stained oak flooring, the newly expanded kitchen designed by Keni Neff of Kitchens for Cooks and built by Royce Flournoy and team at the Texas Construction Co. is a model for the “classic contemporary” style.

No single element stands out for its particular beauty or its uniqueness. Instead, the whole space — bathed in an abundance of natural light — conveys an understated luxury and quality that leading contractors, remodelers and kitchen designers say is becoming more common in these slower economic times.

The kitchen, part of a $700,000 whole-house remodel completed in February, is certainly like others that have been seen often in recent years. The style speaks directly to the Real Simple magazine tastes of many in their 30s, 40s and 50s. But where the classic contemporary style was once employed by a minority of remodeling clients, it seems to have achieved majority status and is called for more frequently than the heavily adorned, ornamented, and formally classic looks it now supersedes.

“The days of over-the-top crown moldings, very traditional heavy moldings and heavy ornamentation with lots of finishes is definitely becoming the 20 percent as opposed to the 80 percent,” says Judith A. Neary, CMKBD, an NKBA design education instructor who works for cabinetmaker Pacific Crest Industries of Sumner, Wash. “What we saw for many years was moldings, trim, accessories, fluted pillars, fluted columns, beaded moldings, beaded doors, distressed finishes, multiglazes, etc. Now we are seeing cleaner and less fussy, simpler designs. I would call it the classic contemporary.”

And, as Flournoy can attest with his whole-house remodel, clients with money are spending it to get what they want despite the shift toward understatement. In Flournoy’s kitchen, pictured on the cover of this magazine, his Gen X clients chose to incur the substantial added expense of putting a steel girder in place under their new kitchen as a means to support a desired monolithic, single-piece, 2-in. thick slab of limestone as a countertop for their center island. They were unwilling to accept anything but limestone’s unbroken, seamless perfection. Flournoy says it took 15 people to carry the limestone into the house and place it on the island.

“They didn’t like the veining found in granite and they did not like the cracking that happens with concrete,” explains Flournoy. “So the limestone, once it was stained, gave the look of concrete without the imperfections.”

When asked why he thought his clients would be willing to incur this type of expense, Flournoy touched on a theme echoed by many contractors, remodelers and kitchen designers whom QR contacted — an overriding interest in value. Something as pricey as a huge piece of limestone can be seen as a value if one considers its importance to the rest of the kitchen design and its durability.

“They were extremely value based in all of their selections,” Flournoy said of his clients that chose the massive limestone countertop.

Picking designers and making selections

It would be easy to conclude that kitchen design and the kitchen remodeling business is altering in step with the economy — that the gilded age of the mid-2000s has given way to a leaner and cleaner aesthetic in all parts of the country and across all groups of clients. But that is not the case. Kitchen remodeling, like most other businesses, has been impacted by the global economic decline of the past few months, but designers, remodelers and architects are feeling it differently depending upon the individual buying characteristics of their clients as well as local economic conditions.

There are those designers for whom the number of jobs have stayed the same but whose average ticket has fallen. There are also those for whom business has completely stopped, leading them to surmise their clients have decided that if they cannot have the best in kitchen design, they would sooner forego the exercise of redoing their home until such time as it is deemed safe to spend money again. Then there are those with clients who initially paused but quickly resumed spending on quality but in a different way. Likewise, Barbara Barton, CMKBD, a Highlands Ranch, Colo., consultant sees a broad impact on how designers interface with their customers. Clients, she says, are taking more time to get to know their designer before getting onboard.

“The focus is less on design and more on the designer,” says Barton relating the recent experience of designers in her home state of Colorado. “The buyers are shopping, par excellence,” she says. “They are speaking with at least five dealerships before deciding whom to go with. The clients are buying creativity and a willingness to listen and give the client the kitchen of their vision. I have heard this over and over recently. Designers are using and gaining more skills in the listening arena.”

But once a designer is selected, the impacts are then being felt across all of the major selection areas — from cooktops and hoods to cabinets and countertops.

“People are looking to save money,” says Jeffrey Holloway, CKD, CBD, of Holloway Home Improvement Center, Marmora, N.J. “When it comes to purchasing any product, there are still people who have money, but they are doing a lot more shopping. So with regard to the selection of kitchen products, people are looking for deals. And, obviously, there are some vendors and remodelers who are willing to deal in this environment.”

When it comes to appliances, Holloway is seeing a greater willingness to forego ultra-high-end built-in refrigerator units, opting instead to cut their investment in half in favor of a free-standing unit. “We are seeing people choose stainless steel and — believe it or not — in our last two remodels, white appliances,” says Holloway.

Across the country in the Pacific Northwest, where the housing market only recently began to see price declines, Judith Neary is seeing cost-consciousness but less so as it relates to the desire to upgrade to an appliance with a professional look and feel.

Years ago, “it used to be about the double-bowl sink, the dishwasher, the free-standing range, a microwave and a refrigerator. Now people have, for lack of a better phrase, ‘hemi-ed up’ their kitchens with appliances,” says Neary, using an automotive reference for powerful engines as an analogy for professional grade kitchen appliances, sinks and faucets. “We now have the 48-in. double-door refrigerator combined with a freezer. We have a 60-in. cooktop. We have a double oven with a warming drawer. We have a dishwasher if not two. And we have two or three sinks in the kitchen, depending on size. These things, oddly enough, are not going away in this economy. They are not willing to give up the performance or the pro look.”

Susan Jacobs, CKD, CBD, CAPS, of Pumco Interiors Kitchen and Bath in Petoskey, Mich., is among those that can verify the lack of willingness to sacrifice the professional or high-design look. But in her well-heeled, vacation-home corner of northern Michigan, the cost savings are often found in trading down from high-end, designer brands to a much less expensive, but quality brand, with the same look and feel.

“I recently did a kitchen where I really wanted the client to go with a Franke sink and a Grohe faucet,” says Jacobs. “But we ended up getting the same look with an Elkay sink and a Delta faucet — similar design, but costwise, considerably less. Right now, up here, it’s all about the price.”

Cabinets and countertops

The widespread desire for granite and quartz countertops is not likely to go away anytime soon. Nor are people willing to forego high-quality cabinets, but across the country there seems to be a common trend to find cost-savings in these two major areas. Jeff Holloway says he is showing a fuller spectrum of granite qualities to his customers. On a scale of 1 to 10, in terms of granite quality, he may start people off with a No. 5 and move up to a 10. If that is too expensive, there is a much greater interest in exploring solid surface options, he says.

“We are seeing more willingness to look at solid-surface solutions as opposed to a granite or quartz product,” explains Holloway. “We have been able to provide considerable savings — up to 35 percent — with just a change in the surface selection. So people are seeing solid surfaces as a solution for granite, and we’ve always seen that as a great solution anyway.”