How to Pick the Best Kitchen Colors for Your Home
The colors that you choose to decorate your home sets the mood for how you feel when you and your family and guests spend time here. Colors that are too bland can feel dreary and lifeless, yet bold colors may be difficult to coordinate and reduce the resale value of your home down the road.
This article will provide some advice about how to pick the best kitchen colors based on kitchen size, light sources, and your existing kitchen features and plumbing fixtures.
Popular Kitchen Paint Combinations
Some of the most popular kitchen paint ideas involve white, gray, red, blue, yellow, and green. All of these colors can create a welcoming space and really pop in a kitchen. Warm colors, like yellows and reds, are believed to be appetite stimulants and make people think of delicious food. All-white kitchens exude a sense of brightness and cleanliness that is also great for kitchen spaces. Gray is a neutral color that works well with many other colors, just as long as it isn’t too cold of a shade.
Blue hues are popular in pretty much every room of the home, including the kitchen. Light blue shades can create a crisp and clean look, and dark blue colors can work too as long as they are balanced with lighter colors and don’t feel overpowering. Meanwhile, green is commonly paired with white, browns, and earth tones to bring a natural look into the kitchen.
Colors and Kitchen Size
There is definitely some truth to the belief that dark colors make small rooms look smaller. Therefore, homeowners with very small kitchens may want to stick with neutral and light colors to avoid feeling boxed-in while cooking and preparing food. A combination of white, beige, mint, and gray works well in small kitchens, as well as a combination of white, cream, blue, and charcoal. People with larger kitchens have a little more room to experiment with bold and dark colors, but neutrals work well in these spaces too.
Colors and Lighting
The lighting in your kitchen will also impact how colors look in the room. As you are narrowing down your kitchen paint ideas, look at color options at different times of day to see them in different levels of light. Or if possible, paint a very small portion of your kitchen wall and take notice of how the color changes throughout the day.
Consider All Parts of the Kitchen
While many people focus on the kitchen wall colors when choosing a color scheme, it’s also important to look at the big picture and think about the cabinet paint colors, countertop colors, floor colors, appliance colors, and existing plumbing fixtures. One good strategy is to begin your color redesign with the cabinets. Since cabinets are a prominent focal point in kitchens, choose cabinet paint colors, and then consider your walls after that. One thing to keep in mind is that white cabinets tend to get dirty over time, so darker colors may keep them looking clean for longer.
Play It Safe with Neutral Bases
If you’re uncertain about making a bold statement with your kitchen colors, then simply play it safe with neutral bases and creative accents. Countertops typically look the best in neutral shades, but you can spice things up with a colorful backsplash. Neutrals are very versatile and timeless, which means that you’re less likely to have to repaint your kitchen if you decide to sell your home someday.
With neutral bases, you can also get into the festive mood of the seasons and incorporate pastels in the spring, jewel tones in the summer, oranges and browns in the falls, and reds and greens for Christmas. Fun seasonal touches can be added as curtains, dish towels, rugs, dinnerware, vases, or even fresh flowers. But if you absolutely love kitchen wall colors or cabinet paint colors, feel free to express your personality to fully enjoy every moment spent in your kitchen.