It means that Calm has less Chroma (colourfulness) than your cabinets. The walls are now more neutral and so the cabinets appear more colourful.

Your cabinets must have more Chroma than either of these. Do you remember their colour name if they were painted?

OC-11 Clay Beige has a Chroma of 1.51. So it is much more colourful than either Calm or Barren Plain.

Your cabinets must sit somewhere between a Chroma of 0.50 and 1.3,

for them to appear more neutral next to Clay Beige, yet colourful next to the others.

If you try a selection of paint chips for colours with a Chroma between 0.70 and 1.3 it may help narrow the selection. (We don’t know the cabinet Chroma) You want a wall colour which is more colourful than the cabinets and less colourful than Clay Beige.

See the Colorographies at the Land of Color, paying particular attention to Chroma quantities of colours you like.

A lot of Info on wall paint (s), but cabinet paint color is the constant.

What white?

You say lighting has not changed, and I am assuming you mean overhead.

But what about natural light?

A good portion of your kitchen time is during daylight hours. So, north, south, east, west can influence any color.

Another idea: paint your kitchen ceiling. It’s called the fifth wall, but for a reason. It can change the entire feel of the space. For yours, I suggest:

B.M. Silver Cloud.

Here’s a range + their Chroma,

Grandma’s China. 0.73

Gossamer Veil. 0.76

Agreeable Gray. 0.74

White Duck. 0.87

Olympic Mountains. 0.81

Wind’s Breath. 0.9

We didn’t paint them. They came “white” from the cabinet company. I didn’t think of the shade of white when I started painting the kitchen as it looked very white to me...i didn’t realize there were different shades🤦🏻‍♀️

The top picture shows part of the cabinet beside “calm”. As you can see it looks very yellow.

The second picture is taken with a portion of wall painted “barren plain”. It still has a yellowish tinge in the second picture.
Thank you for your input Marylee. Do you think there’s anything I can do to fix or improve the problem? I am not keen on going back to yellowish paint or anything too dark...
Thank you again

Thank you very much. I missed the last few comments. Thank you Marylee and JulieG.
I’m reluctant to repaint for now as I just finished but thank you for the suggestions. I will check out the colours.
Do you think changing the overhead light could make a difference? The light is currently in the cool side (4500 lumens). I wonder if it would make a difference if I went with warmer bulbs? During the day, we get a lot of light all year round.
I chose such a neutral colour because I didn’t want yellow. Now I have yellow anyway🤦🏻‍♀️. Also, I didn’t realize that with all the light both calm but especially barren plain go somewhat pink. Oh well. I guess it’s a learning curve.
Thank you for your suggestions.

I suppose the only option is to repaint...

Hi - don’t despair! Just give yourself a little time.

Warmer bulbs won’t help here as they are likely to enhance any yellow/orange warm tones in the space.

The point about Barren Plain and Calm looking a little pink is important.

See on the colour wheels above, how close they sit to the Yellow-Red Hue Family? Their proximity to that neighbourhood is where the pinky/peach warmth comes from. It depends upon the quality of available light, just how pronounced those overtones will be.

To help mitigate that, choose a colour from further clockwise, away from this region.

So that info will help too.

If you do decide to repaint, try large swatches or painted boards in your space before finalising. That way you can move them around in both sunlight & shadow to see how they will behave.

From what you have said I think Grandma’s China & Gossamer Veil may possibly still read too pink for you.

If we knew the nearest Benjamin Moore or Sherwin Williams match to your cabinets that would be easier, as then we would know how ‘colourful’ a white they were.

We are looking for a minimum difference of 0.2 in Chroma between whites + off-whites so that one doesn’t look dirty next to the other.

The balance is, the walls need more Chroma to make the cabinets appear more neutral, but you still don’t want them to read positively yellow!

Agreeable Gray might possibly be an option if you were thinking of going darker?

This article maybe worth considering,,

https://thelandofcolor.com/forums/color-paint-design/how-to-choose-white-paint-colors-secret-to-getting-white-right/

Thank you for the suggestion. Before painting, I did paint a part of the wall and a larger canvas to put it next to the cabinets and didn’t notice the yellow (likely because the wall surrounding the swatch was still yellow?).
I will check the colour of my cabinets with paint swatches and will try to figure out the colour wheel. The challenge will be to find something that pairs well with calm as that colour is still on other walls. Thanks again for your advice!

Good Luck, let us know how you get on? 🌈

Thank you!