WHITE
A compact kitchen with little natural light – or perhaps dark-painted walls you love – really benefits from white cabinetry. ‘If you want to steer away from whites and creams, a great compromise is a smoky grey scheme, using a smoked oak wood paired with a matte grey paint,’ says Tom Howley, design director of the eponymous kitchen design company. ‘Pair these tones with very light-colored countertops, and your kitchen will look spacious and airy.’
NATURAL WOOD OR WOOD STAIN
When choosing gray for a kitchen, or any space for that matter, it is important to think about accent colors for grey. Pure grey is made from black and white. However, most greys will have a hue and this provides a good signal as to where to go next, says Betsy Smith of Graphenstone Paints.
YELLOW
Conjure up a classic kitchen look by painting cabinets and woodwork in a barely-there buttery yellow. This easy-on-the-eye shade is a masterclass in how to create a timeless Shaker kitchen. Yellow is a welcoming, joyful, vibrant choice, agrees Dominic Myland of Mylands. It works well as an accent color or as the main color within the room. Rich, golden yellows pair well with a range of accent colors.
RED AND NAVY
Gray and navy are two key kitchen colors that show no signs of abating in popularity. Teaming both of these with crimson can work wonderfully – as you can see in the pale gray kitchen above by Painted Furniture Company.
PURPLE
If you are looking for painted kitchen ideas, plums and currants are good natural red shades to consider, so why not use both in your gray kitchen?
GREEN
We all want our kitchens to feel more relaxing, but being the hub of the home that often wears a lot of different hats it can be tricky. Color can have such an impact on the tone of a room however, picking a color that encourages calm and serenity is the easiest way to try and create those zen-like vibes in your kitchen. Green is proven to be one such color, and pale greens even more so, as they are colors we see so often in nature our eyes really easily adjust to the shade. It can even lift a 'sad' color like gray. However, avoid going too dark either with green or gray, or you might feel you’re entering an oppressive pine forest.
BLACK
Wondering how much it costs to have kitchen cabinets painted? Stop right there and consider not painting them at all, and going for a more natural look.
‘Instead of painting the cabinets, we had them stained a neutral black, which preserved the naturalness of the wood grain and texture,’ says interior designer Richard Felix Ashman