Symmons Blog

Mix It Up! Bath and Kitchen Design with Mixed Metals

As builders, you’ve got to stay on trend to keep the new clients coming! Everyone from homeowners to project managers working on large-scale public facilities wants the latest and greatest in colors, designs, and finishes. Fortunately, we keep our nose to the ground around here, sniffing out the new trends that sweep up the plumbing world.
One of the biggest trends right now? Mixing metals in plumbing and other fixtures. This is a trend that has been happening for a while—though over the past year or two, it has evolved to take on entirely new forms. Let’s examine the ins and outs!

Where Mixed Metals Started

This trend really got under way a couple of years ago when the design world decided that they wanted something other than stainless steel for a change. In bathrooms, one might install gold doorknobs and drawer pulls alongside black faucets and shower fixtures, for example. This also coincides with the rise of gold and matte black as popular shades for fixtures, and for a while, trends went between monochrome golds or a mixture of finishes in bathrooms and kitchens.

Mixed Metal Fixtures

As this trend continued to evolve, we started seeing more and more unique ideas come to market. Nowadays, the sky is virtually the limit—and metals are being mixed within the same fixture. For example, some manufacturers are producing matte black shower valves featuring bronze handles. Others are producing fixtures that mix chrome and bronze, or even mixing different finishes like polished finishes with brushed accents.

The market for mixed metal fixtures has grown large enough that where it once started as mainly custom fixtures sold for high-end prices, today, manufacturers are selling them at the mid-range level, too. Chrome and satin nickel finishes are still the most traditional—and the most popular—but there is definitely an upswing in more unusual fixtures for bathrooms and kitchens.

How to Pull Off the Trend

The fun part about mixing metals is that it’s relatively easy to create a fabulous looking bathroom or kitchen. You’ll want to base the design on the primary fixtures—in other words, the ones that aren’t easily swapped out, like faucets and shower systems. Choose a pair of metal finishes to start with for these fixtures, and then throughout the rest of the space, add hardware that matches one shade, the other, or both.

For example, in a bathroom that is using a black and gold faucet and shower handle, choose black towel rings and gold drawer pulls to really pull the whole theme together.
Ready to try this trend on for size? Let us show you the perfect mixed metal fixtures for your next job!

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