Since nothing brings grey to life faster than colour, the best kitchen cabinet colour for your grey floors are… you guessed it, COLOUR. And since Sherwin-Williams just announced their Colour of the Year, it inspired me to share some cabinet colour inspiration with you.
(Image credit: @ohara_interiors)
I have written a post or two about how to warm up grey flooring but a while ago I started thinking about kitchens with grey flooring and I came up with this conclusion.
Read more: Two Best Ways to Decorate a Room With Grey Floors
While white kitchens will always be timeless, if you have grey floors, you’re missing out on the balancing warmth of a wood floor.
So, if you have grey floors, it’s worth considering painting your kitchen cabinets a colour to breathe some life into your kitchen.
Now, the kitchens I’m showing as inspiration in this post mostly don’t have grey floors, but I’m telling you right now, that if you do have grey floors, colours like the examples I’m sharing below are the best answer to updating your kitchen cabinets.
That is if you’ve inherited a kitchen with grey floors or perhaps installed them yourself and then realized later they weren’t the most timeless choice.
Do not despair, this is where colour can save the day!
Grey loves colour
Because a great kitchen is all about balance. And desaturated greys are best balanced by vibrant colour.
After all, grey began trending as the go-to neutral because the colours we were decorating with in the 2010s were fresh and clean. Too clean to look balanced with the beiges and browns of the previous trend.
But as it happens with all the trend cycles, we began to play it safe choosing grey for everything, and we forgot to add the colour!
So now that we are well beyond the grey trend, and everyone is getting tired of the austerity of black and white, colour is making it’s reappearance everywhere!
So if you want to update your grey, black and white spaces for now and the decade to come, simply add colour.
And since many of us have open concept spaces with some kind of white or pale neutral on the walls, one of the best ways to add colour is on the cabinetry.
My favourite colour, yellow, looks amazing with grey in this modern kitchen (above).
Softened blues are also perfect choices that I think will look beautiful and current for a long time.
Sherwin-Williams COTY for 2024
In fact, when my team and I found out that Sherwin-Williams’ COTY for 2024 is Upward, we noted how many times we have already specified it in the eDesign department for walls, cabinets and islands.
SW Upward via Martha Stewart
SW Upward is a nicely balanced cool blue that will likely sell lots of cans for Sherwin-Williams. This colour is a pretty safe bet from a marketing perspective. But hey, it’s not a neutral!
Always have a design plan
Let’s be clear. If you’ve been following me, you’ll know that the best colour for your space is the one that relates perfectly to YOUR decor.
So be sure to create a good decorating plan BEFORE you paint!
This is especially true if you want to commit to a colour for your cabinets. It’s best to choose some decor first so you can narrow down the precise can of paint you want to match the sofa, rug, pillows, etc. that you’ve found for your room.
As an aside, I really love how the grey countertops, marble backsplash and the grey floors in this kitchen above help balance the warm wood cabinets. Wood tones also balance cool greys and vice versa.
If all of this was black, it would start to feel a little like halloween without enough white. Charcoal is absolutely perfect in this kitchen.
Paint your kitchen cabinets a bold colour!
Grey can handle some pretty vibrant colours, like this sky blue cabinet below. With white cabinets, this orange stained butcher block would have looked too random.
Image via Elizabeth Roberts
Greens and teals are also perfect choices to warm up a kitchen with grey floors.
Coral, pink and salmon colours also pair pefectly with grey.
Colour is the perfect update for kitchen cabinets
The new look for kitchens is COZY, COLOURFUL and COLLECTED.
So if your kitchen is feeling cool, grey and blank, then the solution is to add colour. Paint your cabinets and don’t forget the STYLING!
This combination of colour and styling are your best tools to create a kitchen you love. It’s not always about a full renovation! Colour and styling will add a look and a feel much faster than most more expensive updates anyway.
I hope you feel inspired!
If you’re wondering how best to update your kitchen, send some photos to my eDesign department and we’ll let you know which package you need.
BTW, here’s the best trend round up I’ve read in years! So I had to share it with you all:
41 Major Home Decor Trends of 2023 (Plus 5 that are on their way out)
Let me know what you think of SW Colour of the Year!
Related Posts:
Ask Maria: What if I Don’t Like the Grey Flooring That’s Everywhere?
Thank you Maria!
Seriously SW! More GRAY-blue?
Hello, Maria,
I love the calming, almost serene feeling of this color!
Iâm thinking the new SW color would be an excellent choice for my bedroom. We have been married for 22 years and our first newlywed purchase was a bedroom furniture set: sleigh bed, armoire, dresser, and nightstands, all in heavy cherrywood. We do not have the budget for a new bedroom set, but I thought new paint on the wals would lighten, brighten, and balance the heavy wood furniture. Our 1915 home has original oak flooring upon which we have a complex cream/yellow beige large area rug. (Needs replacing but with 3 teenage/college girls this is at the bottom of our budget list right now.)
Thank you,
Heather
It certainly would, just go shopping for the duvet first because the blue you end up with might have to be tweaked to match! Maria
The only kitchen picture above that I like is the wood cabinets. The others are rather personal choices, even the green and especially the yellow and the salmon pink. I would never in a million years recommend someone paint kitchen cabinets any shade of rose or pink or peach. Even the light blues are not well-suited for a kitchen because in the winter with the gray skies that room will feel bitterly cold. For bathrooms, I give a lot more latitude because repainting a bathroom vanity is not that horrible of a task, and a fun pop of color is appropriate for a bathroom. But a full kitchen is a huge job, so choose carefully with color. I’d stay on the conservative side with dark blues.
So if a house has grey floors, and especially if they are super bleak, to be clear, there is a lot of range in light to dark, cool (leaning towards blue vs. warm, leaning towards green or even taupe) with grey floors.
So already, that was the wrong decision. They never should have been invented, they don’t belong ANYWHERE so that’s the first thing.
They are NOT timeless.
In this case, and especially if your floors are particularly dark or bleak in terms of colour way, a fun pop of colour is not only necessary, it will make those floors look a lot more correct than they do right now. So paint your kitchen a ‘dark blue’ if you have light grey floors but if your floors are particularly bad, COLOUR and only COLOUR will save your kitchen, the end.
Just my opinion, doesn’t mean it’s right. Thanks for your comment, Maria
What if your floors are century old wide planks that have turned an orange colour? Would you paint the actual floor boards or just add a complimentary colour on the walls?
Yes yes yes to color with gray! I inherited mottled grey, brown, purple, blue tiles in my kitchen, laundry room, and breakfast room (all connected). My kitchen counters are a, again, inherited, grey with purple undertones. When I first moved in, the breakfast room and kitchen got painted with a greige, SW Ghost Pines. It was fine, but so bland. The laundry room was Repose Grey lightened 50%. Yawn. This year I painted the breakfast room F&B Pink Ground, the laundry room got dark blue cabinets and paneling (SW Bunglehouse Blue – and I need to finish up the walls above the trim, which will be wallpaper), and this weekend I painted the kitchen SW Softened Green. It’s SO much cozier and welcoming! My cabinets were already painted a bright white and I have a white 4×4 backsplash. Not my dream kitchen by any means, but the paint will hold us over until we remodel the entire area.
Hey Maria, I also like the wood cabinets with the charcoal floor and countertops. But if you recommend steering clear of the gray floors, what would you install instead?
YES! đ Love the use of color to brighten dreary grey kitchens. It makes the grey look like a deliberate selection and the contrast it creates elevates the whole space. I love this shade of blue! I always start with blues when introducing color because even my most chickenshit clients are comfortable with it- and then I can layer in other colors and patterns from there. Itâs my âGateway Color!â haha
I love the yellow cabinets in the first picture!!! Do you have any idea what color yellow that is?
I have been a follower for quite sometime and have been SLOWLY building our Barndominium with 100% intention of doing white/off white cabinets since you have stressed how timeless they are. Island will be painted or some sort of wood. Our floors are concrete and will be staying that way for budget purposes. Now I feel like your post are leaning more towards not paining cabinets white?! I’m so confused and not to mention stressed since this is the complete opposite of what you have said before?? HELP
So I purchase a house with the grey floors already installed and unfortunately WHITE cabinets. Iâm looking to replace to doors and strip the cabinets but trying to find a stain that looks good with the grey has been a challenge for a small kitchen. Any idea on the wood/ stain for the natural wood cabinet photo?