Need Help! 2 toned kitchen cabinets or wood everywhere??
Katie Tran
2 years ago
One panel covering the fridge is white and on the opposite side I have a white oak . My house is open concept so you see this view from the front door. Will it look weird to have one panel white and the other one wood? I’m trying to finalize and I can’t decide!!
Maybe I should do it all in that white oak but husband thinks it’ll be too heavy and is leaning towards white uppers.
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everdebz
2 years agolast modified: 2 years ago
cawaps
2 years agoRelated Discussions
2 toned kitchen cabinets and wall color.
Comments (2)I think we need to know the backsplash and see pix of the adjacent living room before making informed suggestions....See MoreTrying to narrow materials and tones for possible 2 toned kitchen
Comments (36)I was just googling around for rooms with little natural light, and I ended up looking at a lot of finished basement or basement apartment interiors and also high-end hotel rooms. The ones that were the most pleasant and inviting (where the lack of natural light was not a noticeable deficit) had kind of a lot going on. Not in an overwhelming way, but those rooms had curtains and wall treatments and knickknacks and area rugs and artwork -- millions of little decor pieces and several layers of decor interest in most areas of the room. In particular, there were a lot of different textures in most of the rooms. It makes sense now that I think about it -- basements and hotel rooms are very bland rooms -- usually no architectural interest of any kind, including lots of big windows and natural light and moldings and all that. Which means the room isn't really pretty on its own. To make it pleasant and charming anyway, you need to bring in a lot of things that are pretty by themselves. And you need enough of them that you don't really notice anymore that the room's bones are bad. So your home, being a house, is likely a lot better than the average basement, but it still suffers from the same lack of natural light. This leads me to the conclusion that, while I also generally prefer a clean, modern type of design in kitchens, I don't think it will suit your house. It will just be so quiet and minimal that your eye will have plenty of opportunity to notice how dark the room is. Like a plain person forgoing makeup and accessories and wearing a simple beige shift. That kind of simplicity works well for the great beauties of this world, but the rest of us look better wearing cute earrings and mascara. However, on the upside, with all the professionally-designed basement spaces I just looked at, it didn't seem to matter at all if the actual elements in the the design were dark. Usually, there was a mix of dark and light. The bigger thing seemed to be that ALL of those rooms had a lot of lighting EVERYWHERE. Pin lights all over the ceiling, lighting on top of cabinets/soffits that diffused on the ceiling, pendant lights, etc. So: 1) I'd mentally set aside a big part of your budget to add lots of lighting. Have under cabinet lights, above cabinet lights, cans, pendants, a chandelier, in-cabinet lights -- whatever. Go nuts. 2) I think you are on the right track with a walnut floor. Walnut has a really interesting grain. It is thoroughly beautiful in its own right and will layer beautifully with anything else you add. Natural materials in particular are great for adding interest without seeming overwhelming or busy. 3) I would not repeat the walnut on the cabinets because, again, I think the super-layered design approach works better in low-light rooms. Cabinets just another opportunity to add interest, and you should take it. Make them a different color or painted or whatever. Also, think about something other than slab. Your floor will be flat walnut. If the cabinets are also flat walnut, then then that is EXACTLY the same thing. Here is an example of a kitchen with a lot of interest (cool tile floor, two cabinet colors -- one that is interesting and bold, glass cabinets with unusual glass, open shelves, unusual cabinet pulls, feet) that still has clean lines and isn't crazy fussy/busy: That is the kind of thing that will hold its own and still look pretty and charming even in the dark months. Also, it would look great with walnut. :D...See MoreKitchen cabinet color trend back to wood tone?
Comments (46)Thank you for all great comments! Love the pictures everyone posted. I have decided to contact an interior designer (not just a kitchen designer). Here are a few pictures of what I have in hand. Another issue is there are plantation shutters on the only window in the kitchen which, due to shutter design, reduce the size of the actual window light and the adjacent breakfast room has french doors out to a covered porch. It basically has no light coming in those doors. We are planning to remove the kitchen window shutters. They won't be able to open with a new faucet. Silly design! The samples are from our custom cabinet maker, Mullet Cabinet here in Ohio. They are an "Amish" cabinet company but $$ so I want to make the right desicion. They are a company that use baked, conversion varnish process on painted cabinets. Some of the local custom guys don't. Small sample above oven. It was done on brown maple so the color variation is off. Not a true sample. Here is a sample door they made for the island. We were considering going with an off white perimeter with wood stain island. I think this stained door looks yellow in my house. It is a standard stain they offer but mixed to 50%. The perimeter cabinets are beaded inset 45" (9 foot ceiling) with a rail (2 seperate panels) to mimic a stacked cabinet look. Both the perimeter and island cabinets have the same profile. Just island has the raised panel added. We are considering adding a simple leaded glass to the upper section of the perimeter cabinets. Granted this is the intent if we go with white since I think flat panel white looks too big and plain. If not sure what to do if we go with stained - raised panel, flat panel, glass?? Are stacked cabinets with upper glass going out of trend? The kitchen is open concept to family room where the columns and built-ins are all raised panel off-white. Which is why I was trying to pull in raised panel in island. You can get a glimspe of what the family room columns look like in the first photo. Those are the columns in our living room/dining room....See MoreHelp! Q re: 2 tone kitchen colors + hardware
Comments (39)Circling back to thank everyone for their input! And share some pictures of our kitchen now that it's 98% done (we still need to install the pulls on the smaller under cabinet drawers). We kept the cabinets around the fridge blue and went with polished nickel hardware everywhere. We're so happy with it! Thank you again and happy holidays! wilson853, boxerpal, artemis_ma, chocolatesnap, dandan_xiao, daisychain01, rantontoo, Therese R, ninigret, luckyblueeye, cpartist, sprtphntc7a, mainenell, Kate Zink, cat_ky, Kristin S...See More
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2 years agochiefy
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2 years agoKatie Tran
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last yearThe sink in the corner which I couldn’t move!! We kept it but enlarged the windows
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Katie TranOriginal Author