We asked over 100 people from across Aberdeen to complete a survey to uncover interesting insights around their kitchens and bathrooms - from how they rate their current spaces to their most desired features.
Here are three of our key findings…
Current kitchens and bathrooms are dated
Renovating your kitchen or bathroom is a huge undertaking and a big investment, so it isn’t an upgrade that we make very often. In fact, 35% of our survey respondents said they last updated their kitchen over 10 years ago, with 32% of respondents giving the same response for their bathroom.
Unsurprisingly, since many respondents haven’t had a kitchen or bathroom update in over a decade, the survey findings showed that the majority of respondents feel fairly indifferent or perhaps unsatisfied towards their current kitchen and bathroom. When respondents were asked to rate these rooms in their home, the average score came out as 6.1 out of 10 for kitchens, and 5.9 out of 10 for bathrooms.
These ratings may seem fairly modest as they are above halfway in the scale, however, almost three quarters of the survey’s respondents said they would want to improve their kitchen (74%) and their bathroom (72%). This suggests that many people’s current kitchens and bathrooms are in need of an update, as they perhaps don’t suit their taste or lifestyle anymore.
Practical design features
Nowadays there are so many modern design elements to choose from to give your home the upgrade it needs, such as a boiling water tap in the kitchen, or lit mirrors and cabinets in the bathroom. However, the majority of our survey respondents chose the more practical features as their must-haves for each of these rooms.
The top three features respondents chose for their dream kitchen:
An island (38%)
Social area (38%)
Clever storage options (36%)
The top three features respondents chose for their dream bathroom:
Power shower (55%)
Underfloor heating (55%)
walk-in shower (53%).
The choice of an island and a social area in the kitchen demonstrates the demand for the open plan interior trend, while the top three features chosen for bathrooms highlights people’s need for practicality and ease. These results show that people would prioritise the more functional features in their new kitchen or bathroom.
Do people really care about tech?
With many of our survey respondents opting for the more practical design features in their top three choices, technology was at the opposite end of the scale.
Almost half of our survey’s respondents were below the age of 40, yet technology and gadgets were only mentioned in 18% of respondents’ top 3 considerations for getting a new bathroom, and 23% for kitchens. Additionally, tech features such as wifi appliances, clever power solutions and a digital shower were among the least popular features that people would include in their dream bathroom.
These results suggest that although contemporary kitchens and bathrooms often boast clever gadgets using the latest technology, these are perhaps seen as excessive options that aren’t essential must-haves, even for a dream kitchen.
This could be due to the added expense of high-tech gadgets, as the top consideration for both kitchens and bathrooms, with 88 of the respondents including it in their top three, was the cost of the renovation. Clearly, modern technologies that you could live without are low on the list of priorities when you have to be conscious of cost.
The second most commonly chosen consideration for getting a new kitchen or bathroom was colour and style, with 81% of respondents including this factor in their top 3 for getting a new kitchen, and 79% for getting a new bathroom. This also highlights that people are perhaps more focused on the overall look and feel of a kitchen, rather that the added extras.