You’ve designed your floor plan, decided on your appliances, maybe even picked out your dining set, but that leaves you with the daunting task of choosing colors for the kitchen.
Whether you’re an old pro or a first-time homeowner, use these tips to help you choose the perfect colors for the kitchen.
Cabinet Callings
The finish and style of your cabinets will help you select the perfect colors for the kitchen. Once you know whether you’ll be using natural finishes or painting the cabinets, you can begin looking at paint colors that complement the finish, create a stark contrast to it or even accent the whole grand design.
Lighting Leads
Whenever you paint a room, one of the most important factors you should consider is the natural lighting – it will affect everything from perceived color to fading. Northern light is cool and best countered with warm colors. You should also think about how the light moves and whether it will reflect off smooth or shiny surfaces with a magnified, blinding effect.
Kitchen Trends
If you’re completely stumped as to how to select colors for the kitchen, pick up a design magazine, watch a home improvement show or do a quick Google search for kitchen trends. Even if you don’t like the design flavor of the week, it will give you a starting point and help you determine what you do and don’t want to see in your home.
Start with Fixed Elements
You should begin the process of selecting colors for the kitchen by examining the fixed elements of your space. Do you have an island? A large fridge? Specially-designed wine or china cabinet? These large, immoveable elements play a central role in your design and will be big areas of color. Plan your colors around these large design features, as it’s much easier to change the color of a wall than it is to change the color of an appliance.
Keep Backsplashes in Mind
If you find a color you love but think using it to paint your whole space will be too overpowering, remember backsplashes. Fire engine red, lemon yellow and candy apple green might be overwhelming in large amounts, but in small doses as accent colors or tiles of a backsplash they can add really nice pops of color to your space.
Now you have five handy tips for selecting colors for the kitchen. Keep them in mind throughout the process and you’ll be on your way to creating the kitchen you’ve always wanted and the heart of the home.
