What does "white kitchen" or "yellow kitchen" actually mean - do you think they are referring to wall color?

And yet the yellows that people seem to pick locally often look terrible in real estate photos in my opinion. I would say it is a very popular kitchen wall color in this area.

My guess is that they mean the dominant color in the kitchen. Either the walls or the cabinets, or both.

I can't think of any yellow kitchens I've seen in this area. Not a single one.

Here's a link to the release about white and yellow kitchens. It seems they're referring to wall color. It's about the strangest and most limited study on color I've come across.

I kinda have to call BS. According to the "study", homes in Dallas with dining rooms painted mauve, eggplant, or lavender sold on average for $1,122 more than than other homes - presumably with dining rooms not painted mauve, eggplant, or lavender. Baloney Sandwich!

Pale yellows aren't uncommon in my area (Portland, OR). Muted green tones are popular too.

Here's a mid-price listing, now pending. Very much a run-of-the-mill house in that part of the city.

House with yellow kitchen - $525K

"I kinda have to call BS. According to the "study", homes in Dallas with
dining rooms painted mauve, eggplant, or lavender sold on average for
$1,122 more than than other homes - presumably with dining rooms not painted mauve, eggplant, or lavender. Baloney Sandwich!"

I agree. But working with "on average" means that one house with a mauve, eggplant or lavender dining room that sold for 5 million dollars will outweigh a dozen $300K houses with dining rooms painted other colors. So, the statistic can be totally true and at the same time totally misleading.

Don't let's all paint our dining rooms purple to increase resale :)

I think that you are more likely to see unusual colors at either end of the spectrum. If you look at expensive, highly decorated, highly coordinated houses here, you are much more likely to see an all pink dining room or all lavender study (all meaning predominant scheme) than in middle of the market where you will find yellow after yellow, beige after beige. Yellow is a very popular flip or staging color here.

Likewise at the low end of the market, you will find incredibly garish colors.

At all segments of the market I associate garish poorly painted rooms with bank owned and short sale properties, high or low price houses. '

In my area, suburb of NYC, I would be hard pressed to find a home (1.5 million and up) without a white kitchen . Majority are new builds. Marble and the grays are still going strong here

I haven't seen yellow shown in years.

imo, both dollar figures are not worth loosing sleep over. Agree Zillow is wrong all too often. Most in RE fields ignore Zillow completely. Going to click on LisaD82's link now.

That's what I figured they were describing. The kitchen lana roma linked is more of a golden tan than yellow. I haven't seen a yellow kitchen since the 70s.

And I would LOVE to paint my dining room a deep rich luscious purple :)

Zillow is usually very inaccurate in most things. When we listed our house for sale, had to fight with them because they had a completely different house in the photo.

Zillow has the year my house was built listed incorrectly, as well as the acreage and size of the house.

We had a yellow kitchen growing up (walls, not cabinets) but I don't see too much yellow painted walls today. I don't care for it myself, unless its a very pale shade. Having said that, if you look at the yellow cabinets littlefishy(?) posted some time ago, you will fall in love with yellow cabinets.

Well now I'm at a loss! We are getting our house ready to list. Every agent we talked to told us to paint our kitchen cabinets white( they need to be painted regardless). The cabinets are currently yellow! I have loved my cheery yellow kitchen and all of our friends can't believe we are painting over the yellow! We were also told to paint the exterior white but we painted it a warm light grey instead. Every house around here that is on the market seems to be white.

I chose a white paint for a new house 2 years ago and it seemed rebellious at the time.

We are looking for a home for a relative. So going through the process again. We are not seeing white kitchens as much. But honestly I haven't seen a yellow kitchen in ages.

Our house that we sold last year had yellow wall color in the kitchen. Very slow market and not the best neighborhood or schools but we had offers from 50% of the buyers that toured our home. No idea if the yellow kitchen helped but it certainly did not hurt us get our house sold. Miss my happy yellow kitchen.

I have to say that if I were buying rather than building - a total white kitchen with total SS would be a total turn off. Yes, I can repaint, but the place would not do much to stick in my memory, every thing else in consideration.

I certainly agree that Zillow has a lot of inaccuracies. It does appear that Zillow Digs put $1M+ houses in a separate bracket in its study.

What I find interesting in the WSJ article is that it points out contradictions in people's perceptions.

“For the kitchen, people want something warm and inviting,” says Kerrie
Kelly, a Zillow Digs design expert familiar with the study. “Often you
don’t even really know why you like a home, and sometimes it’s just the
color.”

At the same time:

White is "ideal for staging because it isn’t overly taste-specific, and
creates a calm, clean, elegant feeling, which resonates with a broad
buyer demographic,” Ms. Eisen says."

I wonder how differently people might perceive the house through the listing pictures and then during the showing. White might look better in the photos, but it also can feel too bland and cold in reality.

Listing photos draw people in. Once in the house, a buyer's emotional perception might change, and the color scheme could as well be a big factor.

Recently I looked through lots of real estate listings as we pondered whether to stay in our house or downsize. There seemed to be more kitchens with cabinets painted in a color in my area than 5 or so years ago. Mostly blues, greens or pale yellows, although there still were many white kitchens. Sage green and pale lavender seemed to be getting popular as wall colors.

At the same time, all flipper houses and new builds were done in the most boring grey-white-beige color scheme.

Here is the reveal post for 2littlefishes yellow kitchen. It has white uppers and yellow lower cabs. http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2459739/2littlefishies-yellow-kitchen-reveal-long?n=157

It's delicious!

You never know. Today I looked at a cottage that had pink living and dining rooms, green kitchen, yellow family room and second bedroom, aqua bath and master bedroom, and it was really utterly charming, if overpriced:

http://www.estately.com/listings/info/226-n-o-street

I'm concerned about construction going on next door, but I'm sure they'll be under contract with someone else in a week or two.

Those are such charming homes, My3dogs and Writersblock!

I think it's the overall ambiance that counts. A pleasant and cohesive color scheme, perhaps with a touch of individuality to prevent it from looking too generic and bland.

A few months ago we consulted with a realtor re: selling our house. A very experienced and highly competent professional. Although she suggested a fresh coat of paint, she said nothing about "neutralizing" the house. Instead, she said that it was best to pick colors that would work well in the overall scheme. We had 2-tone green kitchen cabinets. The dark rooms downstairs had been recently painted a pale buttery-peach tone to enliven them. She was fine with those colors. Her only advice was to avoid strong, saturated colors and to strive for an impression of a bright and airy home.

2littlefishes' kitchen was one of my favorites I've ever seen on GW.

writersblock, I love that cottage!

All rules can be broken under certain circumstances. I had a black windowless stairwell and hall and the Realtor said to leave it. There was one negative comment out of many positives from agents and potential buyers and it was kept by the next owner.

I think it's not the color but the fact that white, considered highly popular/desirable lately, started being installed everywhere by the builders, flippers, and just folks who prepare their homes for sale. Often with no regard to the rest of the house stylistically, or with the old fixed materials that surround that white..which of course brings attention to the gap between "old" and "new", mostly unwanted. Since it's number one builder's choice around here-it often looks rather generic than fresh. You look at the kitchen-and you already see you're overpaying))

White by itself can not bring the price down; but any color, chosen in a hurry, without regard for the bigger scheme, and for the wrong reasons, can.

In my neck of the woods of Florida white walls was a little later coming as far as decorating trends go. The one thing I have seen lately that bugs me is the use of white painted walls with the realestate boom days (and before) leftover beige tile. Most often the right white wasn't chosen properly and it only serves to make the floor look dirty.

I have also been paying a lot of attention to Airbnb photos , vacancies, and so on as my son has an Airbnb. Although nothing fancy almost every previous guest comments on how comfortable his place is. Also, he has stayed busy even in the off season. When I look at other comparable bnb's they are all painted white inside. I sometimes wonder if his painted walls have something to do with the high comfort rating. I know there are plenty out there who do not like gray but his has a bluish/purple undertone. Perhapes that apeals to a larger audience when picking a Florida rental? Perhapes it looks less sterile and more relaxing for a holiday...don't know.

I have to say though that now that I'm older and do not want so much "stuff" and clutter in my living spaces I am looking at white in a whole new way. I couldn't pull it off in this house but I do like the orderliness of it when it is done right.

All the flippers in my neighborhood seem to be using grey everywhere.

I hate white on textured drywall (knockdown and orange peel). I guess the shadows make it look dirty or the texture makes it look chalky or something. Love it on woodwork, and it's fine on smooth ceilings. Maybe most people have smooth walls now?

But I'm talking about pure white, not ivory or light silver. Some of the photos show pastel neutral walls as white.

I think white is a good choice because it is neutral and light, you can't predict what color a buyer will like, some love color, others may not. White is like a blank slate, which is not a bad thing when trying to appeal to an unknown buyer. Light greys, griege and beige are neutral too, which generally appeals to more people than a color that you may personally like, but someone else not so much.

Aprilneverends:

"...it's not the color but the fact that white, considered highly
popular/desirable lately, started being installed everywhere by the
builders, flippers, and just folks who prepare their homes for sale.
Often with no regard to the rest of the house stylistically..."

Spot on! Imagine a 1920's Tudor Revival painted all white/gray...

Our daughter is building a Southern Living Cottage (Cottage of the year 2006..I think). It's comprised of 3 "cottages". It's her dream farmhouse. The entire house is white. The ceiling, walls and trim are all the same white :o She has two children (8 and 10). I hope it's washable paint! My precious grandbabies are farm kids and the only time they're clean is on Sunday morning before church ;)

I love it that your "precious grandbabies" get dirty! It means that they are out in nature learning about their world as it should be.

powermuffin lol, they remind me of the Pigpen character in Charlie Brown. My 10 yo grandson is a cross between Bear Grylls and "Pigman"...I only know of these people because hunting, fishing and survival shows are his passion. Sweet Sawyer is her own little free spirit that likes to chase butterflies, fireflies and pick flowers, but, follows her brother thru the woods like a loyal puppy. When Thatcher was younger I used to tease him that I'd have to pick him up by his ears and plop his nekkid self in the tub (too dirty to walk thur the house!)

I can't truly appreciate her decorating style because it's so totally opposite from mine, but as long as she's thrilled with the outcome, that's all I care about. Here are a few pictures I took the other day. They're doing most of the inside work themselves (except for sheetrock and kit. cabs). She's going for an old OLD farmhouse using as much old OLD stuff she can find and/or build from old OLD stuff.

She made most of the light fixtures. I hear she's making bathroom faucets but I haven't seen any yet

The sloppy mortar job was left on purpose

Someone forgot to spray the shower ceiling

Step down into the vestibule that connects the main cottage to the master cottage. Floors are plywood cut in 10" width planks.

Standing on the porch of the master cottage looking towards the porch of the main living area. LOTS of outdoor living space...master cottage porch, main porch, guest cottage porch and covered patio (with fireplace) between main house and guest house. The babies have 20 acres to run on :)

I'm very impressed with these pictures, monicakm. Please post more photos when you have them. I love homes that are so special. This one is promising to be one wonderful, wonderful place. I'd love to grow up in a house like that...sounds like a paradise to me

Monicakm,

This is such an interesting home design! Thanks for sharing the pictures.

Whitewashed walls used to be the norm in many simple peasants' or workers' homes in the past. Cheap and easy to apply. A great way to brighten up an otherwise cramped and dark house/cabin/hut, especially before electricity became available.

In this respect, your daughter's choice of white for her farmhouse definitely makes sense. Of course, with the wide selection of paints and finishes available nowadays, it might be not the most practical choice anymore.

I've never had white walls and I can't imagine ever choosing to paint a wall white but if white is what she wants, then that's what she should have. I'm just hoping she bought a good washable paint and finish. She was talking about all the touch up she had to do. Wait till those babies start flying down the stairs while dragging their hands along the wall :o She's young tho so I'm sure she can handle all the touchup work ;)

Front and side few from the outside. The small cottage to the right of the front view is the master cottage. The cottage in the back on the side side view is the guest cottage. She's a professional baker so the guest cottage is her professional kitchen and the upstairs loft is the man cave. The patio will be screened in.

We lived in a very dark apt for a long time - gorgeous '30's architecture but despite white walls/ceilings throughout, that kitchen was like a Black Hole, lol.

We painted our home's interior rooms a warm white with cool white trim. Because we have a lot of books, the neutral wall/ceiling color (and lots of windows in the remodel) helps our small rooms not be completely overwhelmed by hundreds of book spines in different colors and sizes. And much as we love our Oriental rugs, patterned carpets really do make a room visually smaller.

Interestingly, the first time I sat down and was reading for several hours in the LR, I realized that the vaulted ceiling made the paint look constantly different colors as the sun traveled east/west. This despite using a cheapo flat paint on both walls/ceiling.

The moderate texturing actually helps the effect....but it does make dusting a challenge!

My MIL once made a disparaging comment about an open house we all visited together. "All those plain white walls - so ugly!" she complained.

DH and I looked at her in amazement. She had been living with us for six months, and we had already owned the house for 20 yrs. She never realized every one of our walls are almost the same off-white color!

I like white and very pale colors for walls. Dark painted walls just make me feel too closed in. I prefer a light, bright home, not that I haven't seen beautiful photos on GW of homes done in deep, saturated colors. Maybe because my house is small, I think the whites and lighter shades make it feel bigger somehow. I think your home should reflect your own personal taste and style, however, if you are looking to sell, keep it light, bright and neutral.