21 Questionable Vintage Kitchen Decor Trends We're Happy To Leave In The Past

When it comes to creating the perfect kitchen, combining vintage design trends with modern sensibilities is one surefire way to create a room you love. If done right, the end result should be a space that honors your home's story while adding and enhancing both style and function. But if you're not careful, you can easily end up with something that doesn't look curated and vintage — it just looks out of style.

Of course, as with any design decision, it's your home. If you love it, then that's all that truly matters. But if you're looking for a way to refresh your kitchen, and you're not sure what to fix, start by pinning down what elements are making your space feel dated. It's possible these features are the root of the problem, and with a few tweaks and design decisions, you can fix up your kitchen in a way that feels both fresh and timeless. 

For a while, every kitchen in America seemed to have the same shellac-finished wood cabinets. They featured a strong grain and a slightly orange-tint to their staining, often complete with an engraved border. Then, in the early 2000s, there was a rise of millennial gray and all-white minimalism in the same spaces, and these wood cabinets were the first to go.

That is, until recently. Lately, homeowners are leaning back into natural wood cabinetry, but within reason. The glossy look of the past decades is still out, while warm, natural wood with a more matte finish is much loved. If you're looking to incorporate more wood into your own kitchen, it's worth keeping this in mind.

After years of all-gray and white minimalism, people are finding a newfound love of maximalist designs. But adding more colors and patterns into your home doesn't necessarily mean opulent ones. And overdoing the ornate accents in your kitchen can often look fussy and out of place.

Depending on your home's overall style, use things like cornices, chandelier medallions, and columns sparingly, if at all. If you're looking to elevate your kitchen and add more character, you can instead consider architectural elements like crown molding, or lean into features like wooden beams. But leave any faux opulence in the past. This rarely makes the statement you're looking for and can often look cheap or forced.

A kitchen light plan can be a tricky thing to get right, and this is particularly true if you've bought a home from a certain era. At some point, homeowners felt fluorescent lighting was a great way to illuminate their cooking space. Unfortunately, it might be functional, but it's terrible for the ambiance.

Keep in mind that cool overhead lights can easily wash out the space, as well as you and your guests. Task lighting in a kitchen is undoubtedly important, but this is better achieved with under-cabinet lighting or even recessed lights. So, depending on your design aesthetic, you might want to consider adding cozier kitchen lighting like countertop lamps and toe kick lighting.

Microwaves took the world by storm in the sixties and seventies, and became a built-in staple in most kitchens shortly thereafter. However, these days, there's been a welcome push toward hiding small appliances away. This can be done with appliance garages, a dedicated space in the pantry, or a cabinet in the island.

Of course, there's no need to replace your microwave if you have a perfectly functional built-in unit. But if you're able to conceal it with a built-in cabinet, this might be another option for elevating your existing kitchen and making the whole space feel more cohesive.

Nothing dates a kitchen quite like a laminate countertop. While this material was once considered a cost-effective alternative to almost every other countertop material, we'd argue it's also the most unsightly. And, to be honest, it's not even that durable. Opting for laminate countertops is a mistake and a quick fix that should be left in the past.

Also called formica, this finish became popular in the '40s, and is still spotted in plenty of post-war buildings even now. But if you have any option to replace and refresh this, definitely do. It's highly likely your entire kitchen will feel immediately rejuvenated.

Much like laminate countertops, vinyl floor tiles are a thing of the past, and they really ought to be left there. There are definitely more cost-effective alternatives that look great and are sturdier for this high-traffic room. Vinyl can easily discolor, and, depending on its age, might be hard to replace anyway.

As if those reasons weren't enough, vinyl flooring is also bad for the environment. It's not biodegradable or easy to recycle, and often includes toxic chemicals both in the vinyl itself and the adhesive required for installation. If you already have it in your kitchen, an argument could be made for using it until it's ready to be replaced, but if you're looking for a new flooring option, this one is best avoided.

If you're cringing at the idea that word art is now classified as vintage, consider this: this trend gained traction in the early 2000s, which was officially twenty years ago. This is one trend that keeps trying to fade away into obscurity. But for some reason, it keeps coming back, and we're not sure why.

Sure, your guests might feel inspired to "live, laugh, love" their way through your next dinner party, and maybe it's helpful for others to have a reminder that the kitchen is where we "eat" or that we're at "home". But word-based wall art is a trend from another time that we're officially ready to see go away, and ideally stay gone.

Dating back to the mid-twentieth century, textured ceilings became a popular choice as an easy way to hide any uneven surfaces, cracks, or other imperfections. Also called popcorn ceilings, they've mostly gone out of style. Now, if you see them, they're sure to make the home feel dated.

There are a few ways textured ceilings appear in kitchens, most commonly as a swirl pattern or speckled paint. But whatever style you have, they're a relic of another time. If you already have them in your home, you can have them professionally smoothed or covered with on-trend wood paneling.

In the nineties, shabby chic took over plenty of home interiors. While some lovers of the aesthetic enjoyed the hunt for vintage pieces with true wear and tear, others purchased new items with a distressed look, or even tackled DIY projects to achieve this style on their own. In the kitchen, faux distressed kitchen cabinets became desirable.

These days, shabby chic is certainly still around. You can see hints of it in other design styles, such as cottagecore and grandmillennial. But if you're looking for a timeless finish, you might want to update your cabinets in more modern ways. Then, leave the distressed finish to other pieces, such as dining tables and sideboards.

A bright, candy-colored refrigerator or a bold stove can make a stunning statement in a kitchen, just as beautiful painted cabinets can set the tone for a gorgeous space. But if you decided to pair both for a full-on sherberty look, you're tipping into something that might feel more like a themed room.

In the 1950s, we saw plenty of pastel-colored kitchens, often with soft colors and matching appliances in pale blues and pinks. This means that now, if you go down the same path, you run the risk of creating a space that looks old-fashioned and dowdy rather than chic and intentionally designed.

If you truly have your heart set on painting your kitchen all one color, you're not alone. In recent years, we've seen plenty of color-blocked kitchens, especially in darker, moodier colors. Similarly, green kitchens have been on the rise over the past few years, too. But what you really don't want to do it combine these two trends together and revert back to a full avocado-green kitchen.

This seventies-era hue has become a bit of a joke. And that's especially true if you're looking at swapping out your appliances and fixtures. No one wants an avocado green backsplash and matching countertops to make a comeback.

Picking the right tile backsplash can be overwhelming when there are so many different designs out there. While we'd love to tell you that you can't go wrong, you can. This is especially true if you opt for the once-loved glass block tile that was big in the '80s.

Whatever backsplash you choose is likely to set the tone of your entire kitchen, and glass block tiling is tricky to pull off. It's often selected as a good option if you're trying to create the illusion of more natural light. In reality, even in small doses and used as an accent choice, this pick can instantly plunge you back into a retro aesthetic, and not in a good way. So, go with a gorgeous backsplash idea that's a bit more modern instead. 

There's no denying warmer kitchens are coming back in style, and the early 2000s have also seen a fairly recent resurgence. With these two facts in mind, it might seem like now is a great time to dive back into the once-loved Tuscan opulence aesthetic of the Y2K era — but we would suggest treading lightly.

The signature traits of a Tuscan kitchen include terracotta tiles, ornate light fixtures, and wrought-iron accents. But while all of these elements can look beautiful when incorporated gently, it's far too easy to tip into more of a themed room than a design plan. So, be conscious before you overdo it.

If you're looking for a great countertop material, granite often comes up as a top recommendation, and for good reason. However, this vintage faux pas isn't about the material, it's more about the pattern you choose. If you find yourself leaning toward a speckled granite look for your kitchen counters and backsplash, step away.

For a timeless take on granite, try instead to find an option that has a marble effect. Skewing more solid might also work well, and toned-down choices like suede granite are timeless. However, opting for anything speckled is likely to set your kitchen back several years.

For a brief moment in time, people insisted that open shelving was superior to kitchen cabinets. Inspiration pictures popped up showing beautiful stacks of bowls and plates. However, this makes your kitchen more like a place to artfully display your treasured family heirlooms than a place of function and utility. And perhaps, if you're able to keep your dishes in a permanent, beautiful vignette, open shelves are a good idea. But for the rest of us, they're a clutter and dust magnet.

Now that many people are realizing open shelving isn't particularly efficient or useful, many homeowners are undoing this mistake. Rather than rip out your upper cabinets, consider adding a few shelves elsewhere in the kitchen to display a few key pieces.

This one might come as a shock, and there are, of course, a few exceptions to the rule. If you live in a sprawling French chateau, for example, you can keep your overhead pot rack. You're also welcome to hang onto it if your kitchen is so impossibly tiny, you have nowhere else to store your pots and pans. Everyone else, think twice.

While overhead pot racks are kitschy and conversational in theory, in practice, they're kind of a nightmare. Much like open shelves, they look best when organized, and they instantly draw your eye. This means, unless you have a beautiful collection of aged copper pots, your personal assortment might not be the most aesthetically pleasing. It's simply much easier to keep your pots and pans behind closed doors.

Before WFH existed in our acronym vernacular, people created small workspaces in the kitchen with built-in kitchen desks that matched the rest of the cabinetry. This might sound like a good idea in theory, but it belongs to a time when people still needed to balance their checkbooks. These days, it's an awkward and dated concept that we don't need to come back.

In reality, if you need a dedicated workspace in your home, the kitchen is probably the least useful room for it. It tends to be the noisiest, and unless you live alone, it's the only room in your home where you'll struggle to keep people out for long. Instead, find another nook or alcove for your WFH space and leave the kitchen for dining and entertaining.

If you've ever looked up easy ways to update your kitchen, then you know that swapping out your cabinet and drawer hardware is one of the top suggestions. And to be fair, it's great advice. You can change the whole look of a cabinet by swapping out plastic knobs for something in brass or nickel, but the problem comes when you play with the scale.

Chunky, oversized drawer and cabinet pulls were big in the 80s, and especially in funky shapes and bright, bold colors—but they have no place now. You can still play with the size, style, and finish, but do your best to keep things fairly streamlined for a more cohesive and intentional look.

Designing a kitchen is a delicate balance. There are so few elements involved that changing any one particular thing too dramatically can turn the whole room into something else. This is particularly true of your countertops, and tiling them is one of the quickest ways to turn your beautiful kitchen into a seventies-era mess.

Along with being visually dated, tiled countertops are harder to maintain and keep clean, thanks to how easily grout can stain and discolor. Save yourself the headache and the time warp, and opt for one solid material instead. If you really have your heart set on beautiful tiling, play around with backsplash options instead.

If you currently have an open-plan kitchen, don't panic. You're certainly not alone. In fact, for most of the early 2000s, homeowners dedicated a lot of time and resources to turning their previously closed kitchens into a full, open-plan concept. And we get it. A large, bright, all-purpose space has its perks. But we're here to argue that there are too many downsides, especially if your home isn't naturally suited for an open concept.

With an open-plan kitchen, there's a lot more pressure to keep the space clean, tidy, and organized, and this is particularly true if you're entertaining. Otherwise, the mess of all your prep is constantly on display for your guests to see. It also makes it easier for smells to permeate the rest of your home and seep into the softer furnishings of your living room. For all these reasons and more, we're happy to see this trend fade away.

While formal dining rooms can feel nostalgic, they're not exactly functional for most families. With more and more people opting for smaller homes or living in apartments, most people don't have them at all. So, for those who do, ask yourself if it's necessary.

For anyone who regularly entertains, a formal dining room can be great. But on the other hand, if you're feeling tight on space, think about what else you can do with this room. If nothing else, you can at least update the furnishings so it works for more regular use, either for more casual meals or to enjoy hobbies in between the holidays.