While I do agree that working a wall color that enhances and shows off your new cabinets is going to be of importance, you should keep in mind that wall color is subject to change through the years based on current preferences, perhaps the purchase of art or a favorite accessory. The floor will probably remain through these repaintings. So try to find a fairly neutral floor color that will also work beautifully with your cabinets. The wall color shouldn't be too hard to choose once flooring is in place. In my own (mini) kitchen redo, I chose my floor color AFTER I had my kitchen walls painted, but with future wall colors still well in mind. My main priority was ensuring that my tile would complement the cabinets, the new granite, and the 'style' of my kitchen. Since I had the red walls before I embarked on the renovation (and loved the color enough to keep it) the flooring did need to work with the red. But since the red was already complementary to the Tropical Brown granite and the darkened oak cabinets, it still worked out to do it in this order. If you click on my link, you can go back a couple of photos to see the granite and more of the cabinets. I like the red, but I can absolutely see myself doing an olivey green in there someday, or even a golden brown. Since I chose flooring to work with the permanent features, either of these shades should complement the whole thing. (I hope!) Red Here is a link that might be useful: A look at my kitchen

I think this application can be good...particularly in an historic, vintage or more rustic home. Our house is an 1880's farmhouse and much of the woodwork was painted by the PO in Baby Turtle ( a BIT coincidental since I'd used it years before in my Denver LR!) The foyer walls are a rich gold and look great with the BT. That said? The BT doors opening into the various color bedrooms upstairs was NOT a "good look". It was also quite dark in the hallways so those areas I re-painted off white. I've been contemplating painting the foyer of late...the white/green combo of the wood casing on the doorways and the white of the windows/ screens against the BT kinda drives me batty. They can't be painted since they're the "tilt in" Anderson windows and it would prevent that operation. In my Denver TV room I painted all the wainscotting, trim and bookcases in a deep swamp green and the walls were a pale gold...rest of house was off white trim. In our ranch in CO which was again an old farmhouse, I had a mixture of a deep rusty red trim with stained cedar planking in some rooms and a rich gold trim on doors leading to the upstairs. Kitchen was a warm white. I think it's easier to pull off in older homes where it's not so "open". It also gives more of a vintage/historic vibe. Here's a pix of our foyer now...pardon some of the junk strewn about...I've been in a decluttering mode of late. :)

Hi jmcgowan, Can't wait to see your F&B Pointing painted cabinets. Pointing was one of our top choices -- such a beautiful color! Our kitchen isn't that big by kitchen standards these days (it is 274 square feet). So the calm continuity of the same color on cabinets and trim works well in our ''smaller'' space. In general, however, I do like the play of different shades of white layered together in a room. So I certainly don't think there is anything wrong with picking a different white for the trim. In some cases it might add the depth or slight contrast that the room needs. My sense from your drawing is that your kitchen is quite a bit larger; perhaps that is why your architect thinks that in your space having different trim and cabinet colors will work well. I'd encourage him to tell you a bit more about his thinking on this. Again, he may well be right. In any case, once your cabinets are installed, if you decide you want to match (or not match) you can make that decision at that time. As for the counters, we had some rough ideas about what our counter top colors/material might be before we ordered the paint color for our cabinets; but we didn't know for sure. That was a bit of a gamble.

Thanks, kitch! You’ve been a big help! I think I like that look best as well. I have just been admiring that big light blue pottery barn vase for a long time now and was excited to try it out. Maybe down the road I could try it on the floor in front of the mantle (at this point my toddler would have a field day with it!). Debating if I should keep it or return it and possibly rebuy later. Got it for about $100 during the friends and family sale. Hmm... What do you think about these looks for my mantle refresh? I appreciate your input! :) Option 1: current look + new throw basket (I’ll probablt put a burnt orange throw in the basket) Option 2: new vase with eucalyptus leaves + new plants on each side Option 3: swapped out the leaves for berry stems Option 4: removes small plants from left Option 5: Swapped out small plant for a slightly different plant Option 6: swapped out plant for one in a tin vase Option 7: swapped out the small plant for a small white vase Option 8: basically same setup i have now, with the addition of the vase! I really wanted to try to incorporate the mercury glass candles since I have mercury glass in other areas of the house. Any of these groupings can use the eucalyptus leaves instead of the berry stems; I just didn’t feel like taking two photos of each look! :)