Love your kitchen!!! I know you're glad to have it working for you! :) The first colors that pop into mind are
1. Silver soft sagey color
2. Bluish greyish color
3. Or if you want POW punch...a terracotta color similar to your rooster head...

With the first two colors I would go very light and pale, I think it would give it a classy calming look and if you want bold then go with a terracotta color...Jalapeno by SW would be along the lines of what I'm thinking...

Looks great!!
Tara

Those cabinets are really great, I love the 2-tones together! It sounds like you don't like the buttermilk color, but I think that's what makes them so unique. I've never seen any like that.
I vote for the terra cotta color, but any of the above suggestions would be fine.

Good morning,

lmhall2000, I do love soft greens, and I have the color in my laundry room, bathroom and my bedroom. My bathroom is a silver sage. Know for the Terracotta, that is a definitely a POW. I'm a plane Jane muted colors kind of gal. I would go nuts in that kitchen. I do like the idea of Bluish grayish color later tonight I will do a search and look for a color.

kim2007, Thanks for you compliment, I do love my cabinets but you are so right I really don't like the buttermilk. The buttermilk turned out to be more yellow and beige. So, I need to pull a color that will dim the yellow down a bit and definitely not enrich it anymore. I don't like bold colors at all, and the buttermilk was a bold move I regret.

The sink wall is going to be the main area that will have the paint because the two other walls in the kitchen will have only a foot or so of paint. I can't believe paint is such an issue. Specially when it is only about 48 sq ft of wall area. Oh my gosh. I have issues!

Any votes on a toile or a damask for window covering? Also,I have a very large circular black clock that is going in hung in one of the kitchen walls.

Thanks for all of your advise. Elsa

Would you consider a black and off-white toile?

I think a few colors would look really sumptuous.

a pale egg-nog cream with a hint of caramel to it

a softer version of that peachy brick color out the kitchen window - I noticed the floor caught a cast of that warm light in one of the pictures

Both of these colors would lend a warm, cozy patisserie feeling to the room.

I also noticed that the roses (?) outside are yellow and look to have a peach cast to them.

The sage-y green or warmest possible, palest beach glass color would make a nice contrast with the warm colors in the view and the yellow in the cabinets.

I love duck egg blue in a kitchen. My husband vetoed it for my own and truthfully it wouldn't have looked good with the art work. My sister, however, did Farrow and Ball's duck egg blue (don't know what it's called) and it looks stunning. She has similar cabinetry to yours and a peachy color/black Victorian quarry tile floor.

A warmer neutral woolen gray would also be very nice and make the kitchen feel calm and would allow you a lot of room to move with the accessories. I love the combination of gray and yellow as well. Avoid purple in your gray or anything too taupe-y. It would also make a nice compliment to your stainless steel hood.

Those are just my knee-jerk thoughts upon seeing the kitchen.

I love toile and think that would be gorgeous in there.

Laurie

What about a jacobean with soft muted colors against an ivory ground.

If that were my kitchen I would so pop those walls with a crisp cherry red. That would make those white/buttermilk cabinets and trim really zing :) Love the rooster collection too!!! Great remodeling job grdnchik.

I love your buttermilk cabinets. I've saved the picture to my favorites.

I'm sorry I haven't posted earlier, but I have been sick with a horrible UTI and this time it was extremely severe that I had to go into the E.R. I'm doing well know, so back to my kitchen dilema.

I painted the kitchen Benjamin Moore Alpaca, and I truly dislike it. Here are a few pictures, but the truest color is the one with the rooster.

The pictures are not exactly true, they are so washed out. The color is more peachy than brown. I'm seriously thinking of painting the kitchen Dove White. I really don't like the peachy color. What do you guys think?

Hope you are feeling better:) Sorry the paint didn't work out for you. I love your kitchen. I originally was thinking a very, very light green, almost too light to see that it is green and not white. Something like BM limesicke 2145-50. And the toile would be very nice. Red toile would be nice, but for you not liking so much color I can see more of a neutral or black/cream being stunning. Would you please share your hardware. Thank you!

Grdnchk I'm really sorry you were sick. I've had to go to the E.R. with a UTI too. NO fun!

Blues and greens, which you mentioned earlier, are cool tones although I even hear decorators on tv talking about them being warm; they're really not.

The kitchen I loved the best had a muted terracotta on the backsplash, so there wasn't a ton of it but it made me happy to be in there. My kitchen right now is a pale green but I'm thinking I might want to go back to a warmer color to make it a place folks like to be. Seeing a color in a picture and living with it can be two very different things -- and that can work both ways. You might love living with a color you thought you wouldn't like. Kitchens are supposed to be warm, aren't they, as the hub/heart of the home?

A few days ago I was reading a thread where a gal said she had a lot of color in her kitchen, greens and golds and orange as I recall, and she loved that kitchen and cooked up a storm. Everyone congregated there. Then she moved and her new kitchen lacked color, and she lost her desire to cook!

I agree with you that I don't care for the color on your cabs... I think all white would be better, and I'd pick a white that goes really well with your sink I think.

The window is bothering me a bit. It's a pretty shape but that wall looks a bit stark. If it were mine, I'd do a Gallery Glass stained glass window on the top part of it to get some color and texture on that wall, and it would make me happy every time I saw it. I might toy with putting some colorful plates up there somehow too.

That said, it is a beautiful kitchen! I just think you need to tweak it until you're really happy with it.

Since you don't like a lot of color I would do a pale buttermilk color, similar to the center of the cabs if not the same color. It will tone down the contrast between the white and buttermilk color If you do all white on the walls the buttermilk will stand out even more.

I think BW toile would look good, or even a BW check. It happens to look really good with creamy yellow walls. The touch of black will tie in with your hardware.

I know that you said that you prefer the pale colors, and also that you want to 'hide' the buttermilk on the cabinets.

Of course it is your space, and you should do what you want to do. But I think Sosh has the right idea of owning the buttermilk and working with it. Trying to make it less visible may end up making it feel like there is a mistake in the cabinet paint finish, rather than it being acknowledged as a choice. And part of the reason the buttermilk may have felt off because there was no other color in the space, and now feels wrong because it is fighting the wall color that you chose.

Because you have so little wall space, I would seriously think about doing a red and then using this fabric for the window treatments. I like that it has your roosters in it, but also that the medallions echo the curves in the window and the curvy lines of the pulls.

barnyard strawberry

If you can't do red, then do as sosh suggests and do the walls in the same color as the buttermilk, or even a bit deeper. Black and white toile will work well with that. This toile might also work with the buttermilk walls:

datong midnight

I could also see a warm green (yes, greens are warm when they have a yellow undertone), something in the more olive family rather than the cool sage family.

I think Les and Sosh are right about white walls making the buttermilk insets even more obvious. You need to think about picking a color that is different enough that the two colors on the cabs begin to look "the same" in comparison. A stronger color will also draw the eye away from the insets. Because you have so little wall space, it could be a good place to experiment a little with more color. You might find you like it.

I agree that the Alpaca does not work. At all. But don't go with Dove White!!

Greens and blues can be warm. Think of Olive green for example. That is most definitely a warm green. It is harder to understand "warm" blues. Look at Ben Moore Stratton, Wythe and Palladian Blues (Hist Coll) and you can begin to see the warmth. Especially when you hold them up next to the adjacent strip on the fandeck which shows Jamestown, Buxton and Yarmouth Blues respectively.

Are you still thinking about Monroe Bisque? That was my initial thought when you said you wanted to downplay the buttermilk color -- to go with a deeper version of the yellowish color in order to make the buttermilk look more like a shade of white. But, I am leaning away from that idea, feeling like it will be too much gold. You need some balance in there. And something to draw the eye...

So, why don't you like the buttermilk insets? (I like the look, but that hardly matters!)

Your kitchen is beautiful, but it sounds like you are not happy. I agree with you about the buttermilk insets. I think they are a little bit distracting to you. I think that you should have the insets painted white to match the rest of the cabinets.
BM Carrington beige would be a lovely color for the walls.

I'm so sorry that your were sick.

I adore your kitchen! If you can find a December copy of House Beautiful look at the Kitchen of the Month on page 122.

It is so simple and it would be a reverse of your colors as they have white walls and color on the cabinets. They have milk paint cabinets. French Gray insets with touches of buttermilk yellow rim the panels in cabinets of Soldier Blue whitened with Snow White.

The Milk Paint in French Blue would be so great on your walls. It is subtle with the same intensity as your beautiful buttermilk. You may be able to get a color chart and match it with latex paint.

Take care,
Cameron

Here is a link that might be useful: French Gray at Real Milk Paint Co