Take a look around any new kitchen and bath, and you’ll probably see the effects of globalization. In my own remodeled kitchen and bathroom, products from Italy, Germany, New Zealand, and Japan are partnered with homegrown goods. I wouldn’t be surprised if those rooms in your houses are even more multinational.
This is a fairly recent phenomenon. When I remodeled a kitchen and bath in another house in the mid 1980s, my choices were all pretty much made in the U.S.A. I don’t want to come across as unpatriotic, but those choices today would be described as plain vanilla. I could have white, almond, or black appliances. Cabinets came in a narrow range of domestic hardwoods or plastic laminate and in styles I remember as traditional, very traditional, and (for the architecturally daring) flat laminate doors set off with a strip of oak at the bottom. Tile, laminate, and vinyl were just about the only options for horizontal surfaces. All of it was nice, but kind of bland compared with the wide selection we now enjoy.
The increased availability of foreign-made products for American kitchens and baths has been good for consumers, for builders, and for domestic makers of kitchen and bath products. Homeowners not only have more choices, but they also have better choices. Just consider the range of countertop materials: In addition to tile and laminate, today’s counters can be made of marble, granite, soapstone, wood, lava stone, stainless steel, polyester, engineered stone, and concrete. I’m sure I’ve left something out, but my point is that there’s something to fit just about any desire, circumstance, and budget.
European appliance makers, as an example, have brought to the American market their high design values and concern for energy efficiency. This new competition has focused American manufacturers on the aesthetics of industrial design as well as the practicalities and spurred them to make appliances better looking and more efficient than ever. And the benefits of competition flow both ways. One foreign maker’s spokesman told me his company’s product had become better as a result of having to meet the engineering demands of the U.S. market.
The expanded palette of products and finishes that are exciting to look at and a pleasure to use has, I believe, riveted the attention of homeowners and home buyers on the kitchen and bath. It’s a major driver of the desire of many Americans to move up to a better house or improve the one they’ve got. They now can have a kitchen worthy of being at the center of the home and a bath that lifts their spirits after a long day. And that’s good for builders, especially custom builders who can give home buyers these two rooms in any flavor they desire.
