Kitchen Color Schemes - Cabinets, Counters, Flooring, Backsplashes and More - Seacoast Stone

During a full kitchen remodel, many distinct parts and systems are brought together to be united into one beautiful space. Countertops, floors, cabinets, and backsplashes are all made from different materials and thus come in different colors. How do you match them to create a lovely kitchen color scheme? What can you do to unite this important space in your home?

Learn the Lingo

Before you get started choosing a color scheme for your kitchen, familiarize yourself with some of the terms that professionals use when discussing colors and design. You will encounter these words as you are researching color palettes.

Complimentary colors are colors found opposite on the color wheel, like red and green. These colors stand out sharply against one another.
Neutrals are a color category that encompasses a wide range of non-colors, like brown, white, cream, gray, and black. Neutrals are extremely popular kitchen colors.
Monochromatic is a color scheme that involves shades of only one color. Usually people use this term loosely, either to refer to black, white, and gray color schemes, or to refer to a color scheme that involves mostly one color.
Accent colors are colors chosen to stand out against the overall color scheme. Often, accent colors are complimentary colors.
Warm colors are shades of red, yellow, and orange, while cool colors include shades of blue, purple, and green.

Know Your Resources

Become familiar with the resources available. Color palette apps help consumers choose the right color combinations for their homes, inside and out. Apps are especially helpful if you consider yourself to be less than savvy with color combinations, and you want to achieve a professional interior design without hiring a professional. Below are a few useful apps that are available to consumers, but there are many others you can try.

The Behr Paint Color Visualizer, available for desktop computers, enables you to browse colors and add your favorites to a project. The visualizer then suggests coordinating or complementary colors to complete your palette.

Benjamin Moore Personal Color Viewer is available for mobile phones. Upload a picture and change surfaces to test potential colors. You can change the color of up to 5 surfaces, including the walls, floors, and so on.

ProVia is an app available for tablets. It is similar to the color visualizers listed above, but it’s designed to enable homeowners choose different materials, including stone.

These apps and more are available to homeowners like you during your kitchen remodel. If you are feeling you are in over your head, reach out to a professional. There are many interior design professionals and even color specialists who help homeowners create a fully realized, beautiful kitchen remodel.

Start with Kitchen Countertops

Countertops come in a range of colors and can be made from many materials ranging from quartz to granite, marble, and other natural and man-made materials. Stone countertops are a natural centerpiece in most kitchens, so homeowners often choose counters first, and build the rest of their kitchen around the stone they select.

Work with your contractor to choose a countertop material that looks and performs the way you want. Appearance is important, but not every stone is the same. Granite is hard and durable, while marble is relatively soft and requires maintenance. Quartz is as hard as granite but also non-porous, which makes it more water repellant than any natural stone material. Select a material that matches your lifestyle, then choose the color and pattern you like. Most stone come in a range of colors. Even marble, which is most commonly available in white and gray, may come in a range of hues, including blue, red, green, black, brown, and more.

Pro tip: Take home samples of the stone that you like the best. You will feel differently about each slab as you view them in different qualities of light and in varying environments.

Coordinate or Contrast Kitchen Flooring with Countertops

Once you have selected a countertop, move on to the flooring. The flooring you choose should either support your countertops by coordinating colors or should contrast with the countertops to make a bold statement. Let us explore an example:

Imagine you installed a warm, light brown quartz countertop that resembled a speckled granite, with flecks of gray and cream. Coordinate your warm countertops with a dark brown, nearly black wood to set off your counters and make them pop. Worried about making your kitchen too dark? What about a medium-toned honey-colored oak flooring to support the light brown quartz countertops? Both flooring types result in a rich, elegant kitchen space, but the results are dramatically different.

Pro tip: Get flooring samples to hold up to your countertop samples, to ensure that the colors you choose truly match.

Unite the Space with Cabinets and Kitchen Backsplash

Cabinets and backsplashes become accent pieces after the flooring countertops have been selected. When choosing colors for both surfaces, look for shades that appears briefly in your counters to draw attention to the counters without being redundant.

Remember the light brown quartz countertops with flecks of gray and cream? Install kitchen cabinets that respond to these little flecks. Milk-colored cabinets with soft wooden handles add more warmth to your kitchen while also lightening the space. For the backsplash, a neutral stone, the color of sand, adds sophistication and elegance to your kitchen walls.