Colour advice for kitchen please…

[Deleted User]

Hi. Kitchen renovations are well underway. Wall knocked down and had made a huge difference to the dynamics of the kitchen. We have had a kitchen design (below) but have decided it’s too grey and being a North-ish facing kitchen we have decided to go for cream colour cabinets to keep the area light but desperately need some advice on flooring and wall colours…

OH isn’t much help as he’s colourblind!! 

Worktop - I was looking at a light oak

Walls: Apple white painted walls, white ceiling with down lights - we are not tiling the walls but having matching up stands instead.

Flooring - no idea, I really want to get this right as we’re tiling, would you go for a dark grey tile with cream cabinets and oak laminate worktop? 

We have an oak internal door to the kitchen which we’re not planning on changing.

Any suggestions would
be much appreciated, if you’ve had something similar (colour wise) please post on here. I just would like to get this right first time. It’s taken 15 years to finally get a new kitchen and you’d think I knew what I wanted! But no!! I don’t want to fluff it up!! 

Ms_Chocaholic

I was always told the worktop and floor should be a very similar colour.

FreeBear

I went for a black worktop, middling dark wood doors/drawers, and a distressed copper floor tile (more silver with bits of copper). A light yellow wall finished it off. Getting rid of wall units was the single biggest improvement - The space feels so much more open and no shaded spots on the worktops. OK, slight loss of storage space, but I can live with that.

ka7e

Cream and N-facing so avoid grey, blues and cool colours. If the rendering in the picture is showing a black sink and hob, you might consider a dark worktop as your "statement"!  It gives a seamless look to the work surfaces and a semi-gloss or sparkle effect will still reflect light Keep walls and floor light and neutral. Or go for light oak worktop and similar flooring and give the walls a bold, warm colour.

Doozergirl

Get yourself over to Pinterest and type in 'cream shaker kitchen' or just 'shaker kitchen'. 

You could also do the same on Instagram. 

If I were buying a shaker kitchen, I'd actually put 'Plain English Kitchen' into Pinterest for high-end inspiration.  They often colour match the walls exactly to the units.  

There's no better inspiration than a
picture, so that's definitely where I'd work from.  I would avoid silver greys as it has been gone from any home magazines etc for a long time.  The world has moved on.

 

The fact that the units don't line up with the sink in your design would absolutely mess with my Chi.  It doesn't matter than that sink lines up with the window, it doesn't look right and needs improving.   

 

Do they do any different shaped wall units?  I'd not choose a colour  because it 'keeps things light'.  I'd choose something because I loved it.   

I'd also choose a flat cornice over the wall units instead of that semi- decorative stuff, if any. And would either remove the two floating units plonked on the wall and have some open shelving, or use a bridging unit over the cooker to tie the two together.  I like to use a unit that is wider than the hob so you don't get lifting on the end panels from the heat. And maybe buy handles elsewhere where there's a bit more variety.  

 

[Deleted User]

Thanks @Doozergirl for your comments. It’s been very difficult to try and incorporate everything we need for my growing family. I had a tiny, tiny kitchen that barely had anything functional until we knocked down an internal corridor wall in order to gain what we have potentially now. I look at a kitchen for practicality and like how we’ve managed to fit everything in. I get how the cupboard should be aligned with the sink etc but we are restricted on where the washing machine and dishwasher can go, it needs to be along that wall under the window.

I will have a look at Pinterest. Need to make. Decision on flooring soon as due to complete the project in the next 5/6 weeks.

boxofpaws

Don’t get dark flooring - it will show up all the dirt, you’ll be constantly cleaning. I made that mistake and had to replace within a year. I’d go large light gloss tiles, easy to clean and look lovely. 

Doozergirl

[Deleted User] said:

Thanks @Doozergirl for your comments. It’s been very difficult to try and incorporate everything we need for my growing family. I had a tiny, tiny kitchen that barely had anything functional until we knocked down an internal corridor wall in order to gain what we have potentially now. I look at a kitchen for practicality and like how we’ve managed to fit everything in. I get how the cupboard should be aligned with the sink etc but we are restricted on where the washing machine and dishwasher can go, it needs to be along that wall under the window.

I will have a look at Pinterest. Need to make. Decision on flooring soon as due to complete the project in the next 5/6 weeks.

I look at a kitchen for both practicality and the way it looks.   Sometimes there needs to be a bit of compromise but I don't believe that the only option is the one I'm looking at. If you're not a designer then it's perfectly reasonable to think that there's no flexibility, but I could not present that as an option to any client of mine.  

I don't have your downstairs floorplan to be able to make suggestions.  If you want to post it up, I'll try to have a look but it probably won't be today.  Others may have some ideas though. 

twopenny

For north facing do paint yourself some large samples about a foot square.
Creams can turn grey in that light.
Voice of experience. Repainting is not fun.

phoebe1989seb

I'm afraid I couldn't live with the non-aligning cabinets beneath the sink either 🙄 but DH and I also have design backgrounds and tend to go for aesthetics (whilst trying to retain practicality where possible!), so I'd be trying to find another way....

Our kitchen is south-facing, but - despite three windows (to south, west and east elevations) - because we have 2' thick stone walls, it would be considered fairly dark by some. However, we chose colours we love (our base cabinets are F&B 'Oval Room Blue', our range cooker is bright red and the few wall cabinets we have - plus the 'bespoke' cooker hood - are painted the same colour as the walls, Plain English style, in Craig and Rose 'Pale Oak').

Our whole kitchen scheme was based around a wallpaper we had (cream, turquoise, red art nouveau design) that we've used as a splash back under tempered glass behind hob and sink 😉

We just added two amazing Japanese inspired ceiling pendants in a red pattern too. The room is one of my favourite spaces in the house and makes me smile every time I'm in there 😀

I wouldn't want something I didn't love in my home.....

Rosa_Damascena

Go for a wood-effect floor? I bought porcelain planks, but it does look very realistic, doesn't look like it needs cleaning all the time and is easy to maintain.

Personally I would steer away from grey, to me it is so totally drab!