12 Key Considerations for Choosing Kitchen Cabinet Paint Colors
When selecting a paint color for your kitchen cabinets, there are many factors to weigh before taking out the brushes. The shade you choose can dramatically transform the look and feel of your space or clash with elements already in place. Approach the decision deliberately, and you'll end up with a personalized, harmonious kitchen design that stands the test of time.
Keep these key points in mind, and you'll nail gorgeous, functional kitchen cabinets tailored to your needs.
White Kitchen Cabinets
It's no surprise white ranks among the most popular kitchen cabinet colors. Crisp white paint brings loads of versatility and pairs effortlessly with various hardware finishes and countertop materials.
White cabinetry also visually enlarges smaller kitchens, allowing the space to feel airy and bright. However, all-white kitchens show messes and require diligent cleaning to keep up appearances. Consider how often you deep clean before committing to flawless white cabinets.
Suitable White Cabinet Paint Colors
For a classic bright white, reach for Pure White by Sherwin-Williams. Benjamin Moore's White Dove and Simply White offer warmer undertones for a soft, inviting look. If your kitchen gets plenty of natural light, Decorator's White by Benjamin Moore adds clean modern flair.
The Allure of Gray Kitchen Cabinets
Today's popular gray kitchen cabinets win fans for good reason. Gray tones exude both contemporary and traditional vibes, suiting any style kitchen gracefully. From light silvery grays to deep charcoal hues, the versatility of gray allows unique customization.
Plus, gray cabinets hide grime better than crisp white, making upkeep less demanding. With such forgiving tones, your dream kitchen stays looking freshly painted for years to come.
Best Grays for Kitchen Cabinets by Lighting
The perfect gray kitchen cabinet color depends largely on the room's natural lighting. North-facing rooms may better suit light grays like Gray Owl by Benjamin Moore. South-facing spaces can handle deeper shades like Peppercorn by Sherwin-Williams without appearing too dark.
Blue Kitchen Cabinets Make a Statement
Seeking to make your new kitchen cabinets a focal point? Turn to the blue section of the paint chip rack. Navy blue cabinets lend classic appeal to both modern and farmhouse spaces, while brighter shades energize small rooms.
Vibrant jewel tones like deep sapphire or emerald green inject colorful character into any kitchen. Remember to coordinate appliances and hardware against bold blue hues.
What Other Colors Complement Blue Cabinets
Paint upper cabinets white to keep small kitchens feeling spacious despite dramatic blue lowers. Or, opt for dark brown bases to ground vibrant blue uppers for an eclectic look. Crisp white, beige, and light wood tones prevent competing with stunning blue cabinets.
Why Two-Toned Kitchen Cabinets Are Trending
Two-toned kitchen cabinets open up tons of customization opportunities. Select one color for upper cabinets to maintain airiness up top and ground the space with a darker or complementary tone down below. The contrast showcases your design aesthetic beautifully.
Inspiring Two-Tone Color Schemes
Pair crisp white upper cabinets with navy blue lowers for a preppy coastal kitchen. Or, try sage green up top and rich walnut-stained bases for an earthy look. Gray uppers also pop against darker colors like black, brown, or navy on lower cabinets.
Factor #1: Existing Kitchen Style Elements
Before finalizing a kitchen cabinet color, assess how it fits with other permanent kitchen features. Do your current granite countertops feature heavy brown and black veining? Leaning into those earth tones in your new cabinets creates a cohesive feel.
Will cool-toned slate backsplash tiles clash with the warm white cabinet shade you adore? Understanding how your preferred color works alongside other locks-in-place elements prevents design disconnects.
Current Cabinet Door Style and Finish
Factor in your kitchen's current cabinet door style too. Painted Shaker cabinet fronts suit traditional kitchens better than ultra-modern glossy slab fronts. Ensure your color selection syncs with the existing aesthetic you wish to enhance.
Factor #2: Available Lighting in the Kitchen
The lighting in your kitchen dramatically impacts how paint colors appear once applied to cabinets. North-facing rooms with limited sunlight should avoid darker moody hues, which may read as too somber.
Southern exposures can pull off deeper tones without casting shadows. When possible, test sample paint cards in your kitchen at all times of day. Ensure your color choice looks great under typical lighting conditions.
Cool Undertones Suit Northern Light
If your kitchen mainly gets indirect northern light, stick with paint colors featuring cool blue and gray undertones. Warmer cabinet colors can appear dingy or drab without enough sunlight.
Factor #3: Wall Color and Kitchen Size
For small, narrow kitchen layouts with limited floor space, painting cabinets the same color as the walls minimizes visual boundaries to make the room feel larger. Just ensure lighter wall and cabinet colors keep things airy.
Conversely, picking a deeper cabinet color contrasting light walls smartly defines the kitchen's footprint in an open floor plan. Darker cabinets ground the space without closing things off.
Lighter Cabinet Colors for Smaller Kitchens
To keep compact kitchens looking spacious, stick with lighter neutrals for walls and cabinetry. Soft grays, warm whites, and subtle blue greens widen tight footprints.
Factor #4: Kitchen Appliance Finishes
Stainless steel appliances dominate most modern and contemporary kitchens. Crisp white cabinetry allows stainless steel to shine as the focal metal finish. Avoid selecting cabinets in the same silvery-gray family, which competes with appliance finishes.
For a seamless built-in look, choose cabinet colors matching matte black or vintage white appliances. This streamlines things visually, forgoing messy contrasting finishes.
Cabinet Colors to Match White Appliances
White appliances keep small spaces looking cleanly uniform. Opt for crisp, bright white cabinets to complement the appliance suite visually. Softer antique white cabinet paint colors also coordinate elegantly if you wish to downplay the matching white elements.
Factor #5: Ease of Maintenance
Durability and wear should help guide kitchen cabinet color selection for busy families. Though beautifully stained wood exudes warmth, the finish requires vigilant upkeep to stay pristine through years of cooking splatters and active daily use.
High-quality cabinet paint resists yellowing and stands up to cleaning chemicals better. Opting to paint versus stain means fewer visible signs of wear and tear over time.
Touching Up Nicks and Scratches
Painted cabinets better hide nicks and scratches accrued through regular use. Keep paint cans stored to facilitate quick touch-ups. Though beautiful, stained wood necessitates refinishing to fix unsightly marks.
Factor #6: Personal Preference and Style
While assessing practical factors influencing cabinet color selection, don't overlook personal inclination. Neutral kitchens assuredly appeal to most future homebuyers. But for your daily life, the space should uplift and inspire you.
Infuse your unique personality into the kitchen through an energizing blue or cheery yellow paint color you adore. Love comfy cottage vibes? Distressed sage green cabinets deliver in spades!
What Feels Uplifting to You
Consider when you feel your best, most motivated and in tune with yourself. Seek kitchen colors aligning with that optimal state. Maybe red invigorates your mood and concentration. Or perhaps serene blue-grays relax and recharge you.
Factor #7: Resale Value
While personal preference matters for enjoying your kitchen daily, resale value depends on wider mass appeal. If planning to sell soon, trendy or polarizing finishes could limit prospective buyer pools and affect home pricing.
On the other hand, today's real estate market sees quick turnover in hot neighborhoods. For shorter-term owners, statement colors like an ombre green-to-teal ombre or neon retro finishes make exciting sense!
Balance Trendiness with Timelessness
Kitchen updates following shorter-term color trends feel fresher but may turn off some buyers soon. To balance innovative and hip colors with future resale potential, use bolder paints only on lower cabinets. Keep uppers classic white for flexibility.
Factor #8: Light Reflectance Values
A paint color's light reflectance value (LRV) significantly impacts coverage and opacity. The higher the LRV, the more light it reflects. So while dark cabinet colors like navy blue minimize visible grime, lighter LRVs need extra prep and paint coats to hide wood grain and discoloration.
If your existing cabinet boxes have significant flaws to cover, factor for additional primer, sanding between coats and three or more finish coats of lighter color paints. Darker cabinet colors with lower LRVs achieve coverage faster with fewer topcoats.
Lighter LRVs Need More Coats
Bright white kitchen cabinet paint colors typically have LRVs around 80 to 90 percent, meaning they reflect the majority of light striking their surface. To prevent visible wood grain and knots, expect to apply at least three to five paint coats before enjoying flawlessly opaque white cabinets.
Factor #9: Eco-Friendly Materials
Today's homeowners increasingly prioritize environmental footprint along with aesthetics when planning kitchen upgrades. Whether renovating through DIY projects or working with green remodelers, sustainable cabinet materials and responsible manufacturing processes make sense.
Seeking USDA-certified wood harvested through ethical forest management? Or low-VOC paints limiting off-gassing of harsh chemicals? Discuss eco-friendly commitments upfront when sourcing cabinets and materials.
Low/No VOC Paints
Standard exterior and interior paints emit VOCs, or volatile organic compounds, which lower indoor air quality. When possible, work with no- or low-VOC cabinet paint options, such as Mythic Paint's VOC-free line. VOCs get released through evaporation, so painting outdoors further limits exposure.
Factor #10: Set a Decorating Budget
Refreshing your kitchen with a new painted or stained cabinet system represents a significant investment. Quality materials, pro installation, potential layout changes or new finishes add up fast. Determine your decorating budget beforehand to identify what's feasible.
Remember, painting existing cabinet boxes costs significantly less than a full cabinet replacement. Refinishing can extend their lifespan dramatically at a fraction of replacement cost if boxes are structurally sound.
Pricing by Cabinet Paint Color
Custom mixed paint sold by the gallon comes as the biggest upcharge for painted cabinets. Opt for off-the-shelf multi-surface paints in stock neutral colors instead of designer specialty tones. Pure white multi-surface paint offers the most budget-friendly option for refreshed kitchen cabinets.
Factor #11: Hire a Professional or DIY?
While a total kitchen remodel generally requires bringing in pros, painting cabinets ranks as one of the more DIY-friendly updates for hands-on homeowners. As long as existing cabinet boxes and doors hang squarely and operate smoothly, focus prep work on thorough cleaning and sanding.
For flawless full-coverage results, pro painters have the equipment needed for expert spray application. But with proper products, roller techniques also produce gorgeous painted cabinets without the learning curve or buy-in cost of paint sprayers.
DIY Brush/Roller Techniques
When painting cabinets, angle your brush with the wood grain for the smoothest finish without visible streaks. Apply paint in narrow sections to prevent drips on vertical door and drawer fronts. Switch to small foam rollers for quicker application on broad horizontal surfaces like cabinet tops and bottoms.
Factor #12: Test Sample Paint Patches
Seeing digitally rendered kitchen designs pictured online inevitably differ from real-life results. Before committing to painting all cabinets your preferred color, mock up test sections across key kitchen zones at varied times of day.
Evaluate how lighting transforms the tone throughout the day. Do surrounding surfaces like granite counters or tiles subtly pick up accent colors from the painted patch?
Confirm Color Coordinates
View your leading paint candidate on a side cabinet or inside pantry door. Seeing a sizable swatch in situ ensures everything flows beautifully once the entire kitchen gets bathed in that color. Strike the perfect balance before procuring gallons of paint!
Choosing a kitchen cabinet color that enhances your space largely comes down to fully evaluating practical factors like lighting, kitchen size, cabinet style and current materials making up the full room design.
Then balance those structural considerations with your unique personality and style preferences for daily enjoyment.ertie, description and updates related concepts and descriptions based on above.