Nothing can breathe fresh life into a room quite as powerfully as a new fresh coat of paint. Working a fresh color scheme into your kitchen also gives you an excuse to renovate the whole area - cabinets, walls, appliances. Your new hue awaits you.
But you might not know just what to choose. Here’s how to put a finger on what color will work best with your kitchen.
Keep it Classic
When you work with neutral tones in your kitchen, you’re never going to go wrong. White kitchens have reigned supreme for decades, and that’s not changing any time soon. When you want your kitchen to look fresh and clean, pick white as your color choice.
You can go with a beige if you want a more muted option that’s still going to stand the test of time.
Don’t Choose Color First
When you’re unsure which color to choose, stop focusing on the color itself. We know that may seem counter-intuitive, but focusing on other parts of your kitchen can lead to color inspiration later down the road. There are literally billions of color palettes to choose from, and you can get overwhelmed easily.
Instead, let the other favorite pieces lead. Finding inspiration in other elements of your kitchen design that you’re positive you love can guide you into your color scheme. A rug that you’ve cherished forever could have accent colors you want to draw from.
Still unsure what piece to look at? Let your cabinets tell you what to do. Cabinets are often a focal point of the kitchen, so you might want to make your color scheme contrast them, so they pop even more. You can also consider your flooring, backsplashes, and other appliances. All these options play into the entire color palette of the area.
Look at Lighting
Nothing is worse than deciding which color you love, then bringing it home where you will be using it and realizing it looks completely different in the light. The natural light of a room will greatly affect the perceived color of the surface of the walls.
Northern light will make a room look cooler and darker. That means that using a warm color will make the room glow. The sun shifting and artificial lighting will all play into how your color looks on your walls. It’s worth the small fee to try out a paint sample.
What Mood Do You Want to Set?
Color has a powerful effect on the mood of a room. With tools like the Adobe Color Wheel, you can see which colors are complementary to one another and play off each other well.
You can also take it one step further and think about color psychology when trying to choose which paint color you’d like. Yellow, for instance, makes us feel warm and optimistic. Green gives off a peaceful and healthy vibe for whatever room it’s in. You can study the way each color makes people feel when you’ve got a particular color in mind.
Is It Up to Code?
It might be the step you want to skip, but priming the space you’re going to paint is extra important to ensure that you won’t have to do the job twice. That means you’re going to have to empty the room out of the furniture already inside and take everything off the walls.
But it doesn’t stop there - you’ve got to wipe the walls down to clear them of buildup that may have occurred over the years. This includes dust, dirt, and oil from your hands touching them. When you make certain that you clean the walls before painting, it ensures that the paint will adhere more easily to the walls.
Especially if you’re painting a kitchen or a bathroom, you’re going to want to pay attention to the condition of your walls. Fill in nail holes or cracks in the walls with spackle, and if it’s a bathroom, be certain that there’s no structural damage due to water leaks. A little sandpaper goes a long way when it comes to small imperfections, but some bathrooms might need a full renovation before you put all the work in of painting.
Do You Have the Right Equipment?
The next thing you’re going to need is the actual paint. When it comes to painting bathrooms, kitchens, and anything that’s more high-traffic, you’ll want the paint you choose to have a hard-wearing finish. With other areas, you should be fine with matte.
Besides the paint, though, you’ll need a roller and a brush. Rollers are great for painting the broad areas you need to go over, but a brush helps to get into smaller spaces like the corners.
Painting tape is also necessary unless you’re a superhuman that can paint in a straight line against the edges of your walls. You’ll also need tarps to put on the floors so you don’t make a drippy mess on the carpet, a paint tray, and a ladder if you have larger walls.
Don’t Be Afraid
When thinking of adding some color to your walls, the idea of change can seem scary. What if you put all that color on and work really hard, and end up hating the work you’ve done? Most paint carriers let you get a sample size, so you can try out the color you’ve chosen on your walls before completely committing to it.
The mistake that most people make when selecting a color is that they actually don’t get bold enough. Renovating your room doesn’t mean just painting a slightly brighter shade of white. Your kitchen’s been that color for years. Get bolder with it, and you won’t regret it. If you do, you can just paint over it. But trust us, you won’t.
If you can’t decide on one color, you don’t have to. Feature a wall in your room to help out with that one-color dilemma. Perhaps it’s where the light hits the most - that could be your feature wall. Not all four walls have to be the same.
Ready to get your renovation underway? Now that you’ve got your paint color scheme down pat, get all the other details in motion as well. Call Reico Kitchen & Bath, and we can consult with you on what you need to get done now that you’ve landed on the color that you want for your kitchen.
