Kitchen & Bath Design News recently posed the question to dealers and designers in the kitchen and bath industry: What are your expectations for the kitchen and bath industry in the near future? Following are some of their responses.

“I am expecting things to improve, however business will likely remain slow throughout the entire industry for the foreseeable future. Our area saw some good activity at the end of 2009 that has carried through. In fact, we’re still doing some of the clean up on certain projects and making deliveries on others that came our way during that period.

Some of my competitors fell out of the market more than a year ago, and there is still some fallout happening now. Honestly, I am not sure [the challenges] are quite over yet for our industry, but I choose to stay positive and expect things to get better eventually.”

Rich Norman, owner
Kitchen & Bath Design Center
Fort Collins, CO

“I think things are going to get better throughout the industry. I’ve gotten a nice amount of projects from remodeling. That’s where I think everything is heading.

Right now, I’m noticing that the people who have money may not want to go out and purchase a new home, but they do have the money to update what they already have and make it more comfortable, more livable and more beautiful. I am noticing that happening more instead of people looking to plunge into the unknown mortgage market. That’s why I tell people that the best way to raise the value of their home is to invest in kitchen improvements. They also see that the benefit is that they get to use the kitchen even if they don’t want to sell the home right away.

I also see a shift in customers spending more time cooking together instead of going out to dinner. It creates more of a family [unit], with everyone wanting to contribute to the cooking. I think that will affect how we, as designers, approach consumers.

From a professional perspective, I also find that when I go out to a job site, I’m doing much more work than I normally would have done in the past.”

Katherine L. Lynn, designer
Kitchens by Jeanne
Santa Fe, NM

“What I am seeing is that folks have deferred projects and many are adopting a wait-and-see approach.

A year ago, we didn’t know where the bottom was. Yet I’ve seen a lot of folks in the past few years who have targeted kitchen remodels for their home. Overall, I see fewer people interested in ‘moving up’ – instead they are saying they are happy with [their] neighborhood.