Help me pick out a paint color for my kitchen!

I’ve posted over on GardenWeb too, but I figure there are some people with a good eye for design here who might help out.

Here is a little thing I put together that shows all the materials we’re using in the new kitchen–quarter-sawn oak cabinets, slate flooring (with shades of gray and amber, lots of natural variation), quartz countertops and a hickory butcher block top on the island, a slate and glass mosaic backsplash, and some Craftsman-style lighting. The lighting has shades of amber, rust, gold, cream, and some blue-gray veining in the glass.

Most of the area will be painted a creamy antique white, but there is one wall toward the front of the kitchen that would be perfect for an accent wall…I just can’t decide what color to make it. I’m worried that anything I do will clash with either the slate or the cabinets or the lighting or all three. We have a designer who will help, but I’d like to at least narrow it down to a color family and go looking for some chips before I meet with her next week.

If it would help, let me know and I’ll post a rendering of what the layout will look like when it’s done–unfortunately it’s in all the wrong colors and won’t show the accent wall, so I didn’t bother posting it here.

Thanks for any help you can give. I’m useless at this stuff.

Wow, that’ll be beautiful. If it were me, I’d try to pick up that blue. Maybe something like this?

Picking paint colors is part of what I do for a living. :slight_smile:

Is the kitchen a discrete room, or open to other rooms? Wondering if there’s some color from an adjacent space you could pull in. A complementary color, like muted terracotta, pale orange, maybe? Or if you want to stay with the main palette, a deep greeny-grey or slate/blue grey. So one thing, if you can visualize it, is do you want the accent to be fun/dramatic/punchy, or to flow with the main colors around it? If there’s a window with some sort of view on that wall, or you’re planning to put a particular piece of art work on it, that can help make up your mind. For instance, if the window shows a view of a swimming pool, you don’t want to pick a color that will clash with the pool view.

Why off-white for the main paint color? That seems so meh. Usually there’s not a whole lot of wall in a kitchen so you can get away with a warmer color. Sherwin Williams has a perfect neutral tan I use a lot: Kilim Beige. It goes with almost every color and is great for unifying a room where there’s a lot of different colors and textures going on.

Most paint companies sell small testers (a quart or less) so you can do a test right on the wall. Absolutely do this when you get it narrowed down!

Based on the colors you’ve got there, I’d say something in the greens. Like this or if you’re willing to go brighter, maybe something like this. I feel like those colors, opposed to say a blue (which I’d initially think looking at the colors in your set up) because it will bring out the warmth of everything. The light fixtures also lend themselves to a warmer type of set up.

I agree with something like terracotta, or more toward a gold, like this.

It’s open to other rooms. Two rooms have a sort of light khaki color, and then it will open to my basement, which is kind of yellow ochre-ish. I figured antique white (and a really creamy version) in the areas where those are visible would be the least likely to clash. The accent wall is sort of far away from those other colors, though. I’ve considered doing the same color as the basement on the accent wall, but I kind of hate it–it’s a leftover from the previous owner that we don’t have the energy to fix, because we’d have to replace the ochre-colored carpet too.

The wall itself looks out into our front yard–nothing special. There will be a TV on it, and it has two large windows. This is it, actually. I’d be painting that whole wall (except for where the cabinets go up against it on the left-hand side) and the bit above the sealed-up entryway on the right.

I agree with Diosa. I especially like the darker army green in her first link. I kind of think you want to go away from the blue spectrum to something more contrasting - sticking with a blue tone will overdo it, I think, what with the floor and backsplash and dark counter. Instead, the green will pop and set off both the blues and the ambers in the lights. And it’ll go well with the other earth tones you’ve got going on.

Well if you don’t like the basement color, don’t do it! Seriously, go with your gut on that.

DiosaBellissima’s first link might work - maybe a darker, more pewtery version of that? Especially if it’s going to have a TV mounted on it. That way the TV fades into the background when it’s off, and better-framed when it’s on.

I’d still consider a very neutral tan or beige for the other walls - Kilim Beigelooks insipid on my monitor but maybe better on yours.

All your colors are quite rich, so doing off-white as a background will make the different elements float, if that makes sense. You want it all integrated IMO. I love your plans so far!

I like yellows for kitchens, but don’t like them too bright, so my first impulse would be to suggest a pale gold.

I also think the “Kilim Beige” would be a warm neutral for the accent wall, and it should work with everything you already have going.

Yep. Kitchens should always be a bright, sunny, buttercup yellow. Always. And anyone who disagrees will never have breakfast in my kitchen.

I agree, all kitchens should be a lovely, sunny yellow!

I am in love with your cabinets.

I went out and got fabric samples for our banquette cushions last night, to see if I could try to narrow something down. I found this, which has a lot of colors found elsewhere in the house (the ochre matches the basement, the rust and ivory match the lighting and some of the glass in the backsplash). What do you guys think about going with Diosa’s idea and painting the accent wall in the green found on this fabric?

Like!

Yeah, I think that’ll be beautiful.

Here are my thoughts:

My idea was the same as Diosa’s: you’ve got some lovely warm golds and browns and some cooler blacks and slate blues, and the right shade of green would strike a nice balance. But different shades will have very different effects.

I was originally picturing something like this, which (in my eyes) kind of completes the palette. I feel like it’s the puzzle piece that fits between the golds in the lamps, and the blues in the tiles. But because it “fits”, it doesn’t really “accent” so much as blend in. To make it stand out a little more, while still getting the integrating effect, I’d go for a slightly darker, warmer, more yellow color like this.

The green in your cushions (something like this) doesn’t work for me as well. It goes very nicely with the other colors, but it’s a little too yellow to achieve the blending effect of the previous greens, and too light to stand out on its own. It’s kind of like adding a note an octave above one you’re already playing - it’s not dissonant, but it doesn’t create any additional harmony. Not bad at all, but not my personal favorite. However, if you make it darker, almost as dark as the brown stripes in the fabric, it both stands out and creates a nice harmony between the deep, dark blacks and browns of the metal and granite, and the lighter, brighter blues and reds of the tile and wood. And it works really nicely with the fabric as well - it has the depth of the brown and red stripes, but the tone of the green. If I look back and forth between them, it looks like it’s actually a color in the fabric, but it’s not. I really like that one.

But then I saw the recommendations of yellow, and that could work, too. If you go that direction, I’d shoot for something that echoes the colors in the lamps. I think a really pale shade is going to work best - to almost give the impression that the walls are white, but being lent a golden glow by the light. I like this, but I could see you going a little warmer, like this.

In any case, I think it’s going to look absolutely beautiful. I can’t wait to see the finished product.

I would do a grey-green. (Of course, I have similar colours in my kitchen and it is grey-green so I may be biased).

The biggest thing I recommend is that once you decide on the basic colour scheme, go get several paint chips in the colours similar to what you want. Tape them to the wall in the room you are painting. Some that looked great in the store will look terrible now. Do this in the morning, afternoon and at night so you see all the light variations in the room.

I have followed this advice in every room of my house and it has made a world of difference.

I ended up going with something along these lines. The kitchen is a deep sage green with a hint of gray, and the rest of the house is somewhere between off-white and pale yellow. I took a picture last night, but the lighting makes it look a bit yellower than it is. Kitchen and foyer.

♪♫ Awesoooooome! ♪♫

Beautiful! I was going to suggest grass green - I saw it on a home reno show, where they had a dark brown/wood/stone/etc. kitchen with a bright green accent wall, and it was surprisingly gorgeous! Your more muted green is lovely, too - greens and dark woods work really nicely together, I think.