Is Stainless Steel Overrated? (laminate, stoves, colors, cleaner)

[piperspal]

My kitchen is three years old and outfitted with black appliances. We looked at stainless & just ended up liking the black better - personal choice.
I was just in a really large appliance store with my friend this week - now it's her turn to be the overwhelmed one!

Saw a new - new to me anyway - appliance finish called 'bronze'. Sort of like stainless in the metallic sense but with a softer brownish/coppery hue.
I thought it was very pretty and warm for a metallic finish; but I also think it will be out of favor in 15 years. Life is short - get what you like.

[BigDGeek]

I do not think stainless steel-look appliances are a fad per se but in 15 years they are probably going to look outdated. You cannot go wrong with white, it is classic and goes with everything, black less so, but in my kitchen all of the existing appliances except for the oven were black so when I bought the house I bought a black refrigerator to match the existing appliances. I will eventually replace the almond oven with a black one. Stainless steel would look silly in my kitchen but your mileage may vary.

It's your house, get what you want.

[Snafu]

I'm also in the "it's your house" club. If you are not doing the renovations with an eye towards selling soon, you want to go with the material that is going to look best TO YOU in your kitchen. It is totally up to you which "look" will appeal if/when you make any other changes in your kitchen.. the flooring, cabinets, walls, etc. There also are no "kitchen police" (that I know of) that will arrest you, if you need to buy the appliances piecemeal and they won't match for a couple years. As long as you know they'll have the appliances you want in the style (and size!!!) you want for the time it'll take you to purchase them all, then pick what you like and let your budget dictate when you replace each item.

I've budgeted to renovate my kitchen in 2016, so thanks for opening this thread... it's been interesting to read about the materials. Bronze, hmmmm? I might have to at least take a look at that... although it may be gone by the time I get started....

Let us know what you decide... and how it comes out... don't forget those before and after pictures!!!

[Cosmic]

Originally Posted by Irishtom29

Anyway stainless is very useful in industrial applications but in some trophy wife's kitchen it's an affectation and a sign of a shallow and hypocritical mind.

What they keep calling stainless is really not a pure metal as one normally thinks. All this crap is really a type of painting, in most cases a powdered metal technology. In effect the total coating are probably only microns thick over probably aluminum. You can have any coating desired, nickel, bronze all sorts of space age stuff.

This is a huge industry, with coatings for just about every purpose. The chuckle is the spin given to sell it by pretending it is maybe far more expensive. Expect the fads to continue, there are coatings in never ending streams used in industry

The real driver is fashion and shallow minds. Some of those trophy wife's would run naked backwards down main street if they thought they could create envy. The only thing that counts is the apperance they wish to protray. There really should be kitchen police and some sort of truth in advertising. Get what you want but understand what it really is.

Just because you got a different sprayed coating does not make one super smart, a better consumer or the fashion block queen. In effect most got snookered into believing they were buying something far more expensive, doing in the process what was designed in, paying a far bigger profit to the manufacturer, for essentially the same box that somebody else paid in basic black.

I did look up the grades of stainless used in that type technology. It is all over the lot. 430 seemed to be a favorite but lots of switching because of various problems that pop up in either the manufacturering process or in later use. Some of the coatings tend to yellow.

So getting so called stainless, titanium, bronze or whatever probably doesn't mean a girl is buying the base metals in some type of sheet goods. You just are getting a different paint job. Some of them less wearable than the basic black coatings. The real goal is to be able to coat plastics to look and act like real metals.

I can not wait until somebody starts to scream they are getting a million dollar kitchen all finished out in Crapalloy. The never ending search for the altimate fashion statement. Who will really know it is actually tungsten over cow hide. Maybe slightly rotted China cow hide.

[country pride]

I think its a 'trend' thing. More and more people are buying stainless steel and black. Or they are getting the 'textured' finish. . Im one where a smooth, white surface has worked for decades and wouldnt change it to match what everyone else is getting. But...to each their own, eh?

[motormaker]

LW, will you come down the hill and clean my white appliances?

[DKVA]

Originally Posted by motormaker

LW, will you come down the hill and clean my white appliances?

So true! I've had white-black and so called stainless steel.

I would never have white again-I was always wiping it! I loved the black but I also loved my stainless steel. For me-I don't have little ones the upkeep is minimal.

[kcam213]

Black shows dust and even towel lint.

Very beautiful when clean and polished... but come on.... Do you have to DUST the stove????

[Apples&Oranges]

I have a stainless steel kitchen sink, and I HATE it. It never looks clean, even ten minutes after I spend an hour polishing it up. I can't wait to replace it with something else.

[Maineah]

We put in all stainless steel appliances 12 years ago when we remodeled the kitchen. We went with a Viking Range, Bosch Dishwasher and an Amana Refrigerator with a bottom freezer. We replaced the refrigerator with a more efficient model last year staying with the stainless steel. Stainless Steel Magic is a spray that makes it very easy to keep stainless looking good.