Inspiration > Color Trends

Color Blocking the Kitchen

Posted by:

Color Blocking the Kitchen - Feature

One of the things my husband, David, and I love about our condo is the open floor plan—the kitchen leads to the dining room, which leads to the family room, which leads up the stairs, down the hall and into the loft.

One thing we don’t like, however, is the color of all those walls. They’re an ugly off-white (with a little bit of a pink undertone) that looks more dirty than beige. And the open floor plan means we can’t paint just one room—it’s all or nothing. The fact that the family room has ceilings that are probably 16 feet tall makes this an especially daunting task.

But it recently occurred to me that there were other solutions besides putting up with the ugly paint or painting all those walls. A new paint trend is color blocking, which means painting different walls in a room complementary colors. Color blocking can tie rooms together or make a space flow better. With that in mind, we decided we could paint the kitchen a darker, but complementary color.

Because we knew nothing about the original color, the best we could do was try to match it. Fortunately, thanks to technology, most paint manufacturers can match just about any color out there, whether it be a competitor’s paint color or a color from a rug or pillow in that room.

The paint was actually chipping off the walls in a few places (yep, it was in pretty bad shape), so we were able to scrape a bit of it off and take it to the store to be matched. Once this was done, we got a paint swatch, which had six different colors on it. The lightest matched the current wall color. We chose to go two shades darker with the kitchen.

Here’s a “before” shot of our kitchen (obviously, we’d already started preparing it for painting):

Color Blocking the Kitchen - Image 1

 

We cleared off the counters and covered them with drop cloths, then taped off all the edges. I was in charge of painting around the trim (also called “cutting in”) and David was in charge of the roller. It took two coats of paint (with plenty of dry time between coats) to get our kitchen looking this color:

Color Blocking the Kitchen - Image 2

After it dried, we moved everything back in to place. We think it makes a huge difference! The only thing I don’t like is that the beige has a little more pink in it than I’d like, but I was expecting that, as it would have to coordinate with the current color, which has some pink undertones. I’m OK with that, though; it’s still a huge improvement!

I was a little concerned about the corner where the two colors met, but I actually think it looks great (that’s the old color on the left and the new color on the right):

Color Blocking the Kitchen - Image 3

The painting was pretty easy, even with having a small space to work in and plenty of nooks and crannies to work around. We have a neighbor who’s a handyman, and he said we could borrow his extra-tall ladder, so now we’re thinking we might just go for it and paint the rest of the walls (which, yes, means we color-matched for no reason, but considering all the shades of beige out there to choose from, it certainly did make it easy to pick a color).

At first, we figured we’d paint the rest of the walls the same color, but we like the color blocking so much that we might choose to go a shade lighter instead (which is still a shade darker than the current off-white).

We’re not sure yet. It will be a little while before we do any more painting. Right now, we’re just admiring the new color in our kitchen:

Color Blocking the Kitchen - Image 4

Oh, and making plans to paint our cabinets. They look even worse now with the new paint color than they did before, so that’s our next project!

Send to Kindle

Liz Lichtenberger
More about Liz Lichtenberger

Liz Lichtenberger is an assistant editor at NRHA. When she’s not writing about what’s going on in the hardware industry, she enjoys doing DIY projects around the condo where she and her husband live, trying to decide what paint color to try next, swimming, and cheering on her two favorite college teams: the Kentucky Wildcats and the Xavier Musketeers.

Read more posts by Liz Lichtenberger


Read more from: Inspiration > Color Trends

Back to top

2 responses to “Color Blocking the Kitchen”

  1. majece majece says:

    Do you want to know more about harvard format? On https://pro-academic-writers.com/blog/harvard-format you can get some info about it

  2. legobe says:

    Revitalize your health journey with Valhalla Vitality’s wisdom on the transformative impact of vitamin B12 with MIC injections https://valhallavitality.com/blog/the-transformative-impact-of-vitamin-b12-with-mic-injections-on-health-and-wellness . Positioned strategically in the middle of the text, the link invites readers to explore the potential benefits of this powerful health enhancer. Valhalla Vitality’s dedication to providing transformative health information makes them a go-to destination for those aiming to revitalize their well-being.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Current month ye@r day *