Expert Panel: Kitchen Color
Bright kitchen or sedate? Colorful or muted? Get expert insight from pro designers on choosing the right color look for your cooking space
Lawrence Karol
April 19, 2012
Houzz Contributor. After graduating from UC Berkeley, I found myself utterly unprepared for the real world and at a loss as to what I should do next. Luckily, one day I stumbled through the doors of Architectural Digest and was taken under the wing of legendary editor Paige Rense. She had the vision to look past my uninspiring sociology degree and my general lack of experience—an unlikely journalism career was born. After AD, with my magazine karma still intact, I was hired by yet another publishing legend, the food critic and writer Ruth Reichl. I currently ply my trade as a freelance writer and editor and live in stylish Mid-Century-Modern comfort with my dog, Mike.
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Houzz Contributor. After graduating from UC Berkeley, I found myself utterly unprepared... More
When you walk into your kitchen in the morning, do you want to be greeted by a big, bold splash of color? Or maybe you'd prefer to start your day in a more muted black and white world and then slowly have it transform itself into Technicolor glory? Either way, I'm sure that somewhere over this kitchen rainbow, there's a color that's just right for you.
Mellow yellow. If you’re looking for a take on a French Normandy country home, yellow might be your color. “This room was designed to emulate what a kitchen might look like in the countryside of France,” says Jo Ann Alston, principal at J. Stephens Interiors. “The mustard yellow is very indicative of a French color palette, and the hand-done plaster technique on the walls, with the overglaze of a faux-finish technique, makes the walls look aged.”
“Using just one color in the room allows for other features to shine such as the wonderful wrought iron light fixtures, the copper hood, and the slate floor,” she says. “The oak board and Chinese slate floor is a take off on the beautiful herringbone wood floors that you sometimes see in French homes.”
“Using just one color in the room allows for other features to shine such as the wonderful wrought iron light fixtures, the copper hood, and the slate floor,” she says. “The oak board and Chinese slate floor is a take off on the beautiful herringbone wood floors that you sometimes see in French homes.”
Dutch blue. Occasionally, one element drives the color scheme. “The owner chose the color to match the delft tiles,” says James Crisp of Crisp Architects. “It’s actually a faux finish with an overcoat of a black texture.”
White on white. This kitchen is in sync with the overall design of the house. “It’s part of a new French-inspired home on South River in Annapolis, Maryland,” says Brad Creer of Bradford Design. “The wife wanted an all-white house both inside and outside, including the furniture. The only other colors are the limited use in some of the accents. And the only nonwhite space in the home is the husband’s large barroom, which has a dark wood finish.”
The warmth of orange. It’s a pretty bold choice for a kitchen, but when you hear architect Mark English talk about this room’s color palette, it makes perfect sense: “The home is sited on a hill with a 270-degree, long-distance view toward the east and northeast. The color of the light coming into the house tends toward gray and bluish tones, so the orange was used to counteract the coolness of those tones. The island and upper cabinets are ‘pieces’ that can be seen from adjacent rooms, and I wanted to highlight them. The regular base cabinets and full-height cabinets are meant to be background elements.”
Brown is not boring. Kitchen and bath specialist Robin Rigby Fisher explains that “this kitchen sits between an original 1918 Craftsman formal dining room and a contemporary family room. The only constant was the dark woodwork throughout both spaces. We also had the challenge of designing around a ceiling height that has a 9-inch difference from one side of the beam to the other, so we chose to incorporate the dark wood accent as a crown molding. The intention was to draw your eye around the room, with the goal of minimizing the height discrepancy.
The midtone cherry cabinets match the furnishings in the two rooms. The tile backsplash is custom-cut slate in two different colors that match the original brick in the dining room fireplace. The end result is a kitchen that feels contemporary when someone is looking into the family room and traditional when looking into the dining area.
The midtone cherry cabinets match the furnishings in the two rooms. The tile backsplash is custom-cut slate in two different colors that match the original brick in the dining room fireplace. The end result is a kitchen that feels contemporary when someone is looking into the family room and traditional when looking into the dining area.
Purple passion. This project was for a cooking school in Denver, but there’s no reason you can’t import purple into your home kitchen. “Katy Hume, the chef and owner of Stir Cooking School, has a contagious personality, and we wanted her vivacity to be portrayed within the design,” says Momoko Morton of Naka Designs. “The interior therefore needed to be vibrant and rich in color.”
“Our primary goal was to make the space unique, inviting, playful and inspiring,” she explains. “Eggplant purple evokes the color of royalty, and it connotes luxury, wealth and sophistication. The dark richness of its tone also tends to imbibe the qualities of femininity and romance.”
“Our primary goal was to make the space unique, inviting, playful and inspiring,” she explains. “Eggplant purple evokes the color of royalty, and it connotes luxury, wealth and sophistication. The dark richness of its tone also tends to imbibe the qualities of femininity and romance.”
Serene gray. This kitchen is part of an urban loft. “We attempted to create a sophisticated room that is well organized and complementary within a much larger space,” says Ayhan Ozan of Chelsea Atelier Architect. “The color gray has a subtle authority to it, without entirely surrendering the serenity of the open loft to the kitchen.”
A natural green. “This farmhouse kitchen was envisioned to be a highly efficient working-living space featuring natural materials that express their own beauty," says Douglas Dick of LDa Architecture & Interiors. "The monochromatic green color palette of the walls and island cabinetry was selected to be visually calming and to enhance the theme of expressing the beauty of the room’s natural materials.”
These include wall and base cabinets constructed of a natural-finish clear maple; the rear countertop, which is a honed light-cream granite; and an island with a maple butcher block countertop that came from a mature tree on the property that was felled during a previous construction project.
These include wall and base cabinets constructed of a natural-finish clear maple; the rear countertop, which is a honed light-cream granite; and an island with a maple butcher block countertop that came from a mature tree on the property that was felled during a previous construction project.
Not your basic black. For some people, black might seem to be as bold a choice as orange. But in a home with a limited color palette — black, white, blue, and gray — it fits right in.
"The counters are honed black slate, and the cabinets are zebra wood that's been stained indigo blue to essentially make them striped blue and black," says Joel Kelly of Joel Kelly Design.
"The kitchen and dining room in this house are one large room, about 50 feet long," he adds. "The primary cabinet wall turns into a paneled wall in the dining room, creating a seamless wall of wood along the length of the house. The kitchen becomes a backdrop for the activity in the house."
"The counters are honed black slate, and the cabinets are zebra wood that's been stained indigo blue to essentially make them striped blue and black," says Joel Kelly of Joel Kelly Design.
"The kitchen and dining room in this house are one large room, about 50 feet long," he adds. "The primary cabinet wall turns into a paneled wall in the dining room, creating a seamless wall of wood along the length of the house. The kitchen becomes a backdrop for the activity in the house."
Barn red. Blackburn Architects notes that this kitchen is a "project that salvages a historic German-style bank barn that fell into serious decay and readapts it into a private family entertainment space."
Tell us: What color is your kitchen? Please post a photo and tell us about it in the Comments section below.
More:
Stress Less With Distressed Cabinets
Sample Bright Color in the Kitchen
Tell us: What color is your kitchen? Please post a photo and tell us about it in the Comments section below.
More:
Stress Less With Distressed Cabinets
Sample Bright Color in the Kitchen
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Anyone out there with yellow kitchen cabinets? Do you still love it?