Ways to Add a Splash of Color to Your Kitchen

The easiest way to add color to a kitchen is to start with what you can undo. The ten ideas below run from an afternoon’s work to choices made during a renovation, so you can stop at the level of commitment that suits you, your lease or your board.

An afternoon: color you can carry out again

• Counter and bar stools. They stand in the middle of the room, which makes them the simplest place for a strong color.
• Glass. Translucent or frosted glass objects catch the light and carry color without weight.
• What is on the shelves. Open shelving makes your pots, dishes and tools part of the room. A few shelves of things you chose for their color do more than a painted wall.
• A window shade. A shade set inside the window frame can bring a color or a pattern into a plain kitchen, modern or traditional. Choose a fabric that wipes clean.

A weekend: paint, paper and light

• Wall paint. One wall in a bold color is the classic move. On a wall with cabinets, the cabinets break the color into smaller areas, so you can go stronger than you would on a bare wall.
• Wallpaper. It brings pattern where tile or paint would be plain, as an accent or all over. Use a paper made for wet rooms and keep it clear of the splash behind the sink and the range.
• Pendant lights. Small glass pendants are bright enough now, thanks to LED lamps, to be both the light and the color. Swapping a fixture for a pendant is simple. A pendant where there was no light is new wiring.
• Color-changing LEDs. A strip under the cabinets or along a shelf adds color with none of the permanence of paint, and you can change it for an evening.

Two notes for New York. Painting is on the Department of Buildings’ list of work that needs no permit (NYC Buildings), but new wiring is done under an electrical permit by a licensed electrical contractor (NYC Buildings). And in a home built before 1978, sanding or scraping old paint can raise lead dust, which is why any firm paid to disturb painted surfaces there must be certified in lead-safe work (EPA). If you rent, ask the landlord before you paint or paper.

During a renovation: color that is built in

• Accent doors. Two colors of cabinet let you put a strong one where it counts: a row of wall cabinets or the island, with the rest kept quiet. Doors can be repainted or replaced later without touching the boxes behind them.
• Warm metals. Brass and gold tones on handles, the faucet and the lights add warmth to a kitchen that has little color, and they sit well beside stainless steel and other cool metals.

These two are decided when the cabinets and fixtures are ordered. Our custom cabinets page explains how door colors and finishes are chosen, and seeing them in person at the showroom is worth the visit.

How much color is enough

• Pick one strong color and one metal, and let everything else be neutral.
• Repeat the color in three places around the room, so it reads as a decision and not an accident.
• Test with the largest sample you can get, in your own kitchen, by day and under the lights you cook by.
• Start with the things you can undo. If you still like the color after a season of living with the stools, paint the wall.

Our kitchen gallery shows how color sits in finished rooms. For which choices last and which date, read kitchen renovation trends, sorted by how hard they are to undo. When the color you want means new cabinets or counters, the place to begin is our page on kitchen renovation in NYC.

Questions people ask