With all the talk about warmer colors for kitchens, don’t be afraid that white kitchen cabinets are going out of style. White kitchen cabinets are classic and are found in all eras of kitchen history. I am NOT anti-wood stain, believe it or not! However, too much wood in a single space can be just too much. If you’ve ever had a wood paneled room, you know that wood can make a room appear smaller.
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If you read my post last week about the makeover of my client’s great room with vaulted ceilings, you already know that we also made over the adjoining kitchen. This kitchen was packed full of quality kitchen cabinetry. You can see it was a sea of orange oak – cabinets and floors.
before
The goals for this kitchen:
create a brighter, more welcoming space
make the island more functional and attractive
eliminate the “dead zone” between the kitchen and great room
tie together the kitchen and great room for improved entertaining
First up: the discussion about white kitchen cabinets. Were they ready to take the plunge and paint the entirety of the cabinetry white? Yes, they were! Over the years, all that wood came to feel dark and oppressive when artificial lighting wasn’t on. The spacious kitchen didn’t feel all that spacious, but I knew that painting the cabinets white would make the space look not only lighter, but also LARGER.
Below is the result of this kitchen makeover:
design by Kristie Barnett, The Decorologist
So what do you think? My client wanted a double oven, so this was the time to add that in and reconfigure some of the cook space.
before
The cooktop was moved into the island, which is now topped with graceful iron lantern fixtures.
Here’s a tip for you: opt for lanterns WITHOUT glass for above a kitchen island.
Grease and smoke from cooking can mean lots of glass maintenance on fixtures, plus fixtures without glass are less expensive!
The Decorologist
Designing a new, longer island with seating was next on the list and eliminated the need for the breakfast room table or any other furniture to bridge the “dead zone” between the kitchen and the great room.
before
Obviously, we haven’t chosen the island stools/chairs yet, but I just couldn’t wait to show you this kitchen!
The Decorologist
We chose quartz countertops that gave us the look of honed concrete on the perimeter counters. The oversized light fixture in the great room has a similar gray finish.
We used the same Caesarstone quartz in the adjoining great room beneath the floating wood bookshelves:
To set it apart a bit, we chose this beautiful Caesarstone quartz that gave us the look of marble for the island. The coffee table in great room has a very similar marble top.
The Decorologist
The dark gray island cabinets tie in with perimeter quartz, as well as the ceiling beams and gray stone fireplace in the adjoining great room.
Now you can see the great room from the vantage point of the kitchen:
design by The Decorologist
Let’s turn around and look at the “before” from the great room into the kitchen:
before
It hardly seems as though it’s the same house in the “after” photo:
design by Kristie Barnett, The Decorologist
I’m betting my clients will enjoy their “new” kitchen and great room for many years to come! White kitchen cabinets may not actually make your kitchen larger, but they certainly make it feel larger! If you missed the great room makeover, you can catch up here.
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After 11 years of saving, we finally completed a kitchen renovation and replaced our dark, dated knotty pine cabinets for new white cabinets. FIRST comment when people walk in? “It looks so much bigger!”
Yes! It’s amazing what a difference white cabinets can make – especially if you’ve lived with a dark wood kitchen for a long time. I’m glad you are enjoying your new kitchen 🙂
Absolutely beautiful! Very well done-I love it!
Thank you so much, Louanne!
That kitchen is gorgeous! I want white cabinets so badly, but I worry about chipping and how it will look in a few years. Do you think that painting cabinets can by done by a homeowner, or is that something best left to a professional?
Joy,
If the proper prep, priming, and painting is done, painted cabinets can last for many years – my own were painted well over 20 years ago. Actually, they could use painting again, but they’ve held up pretty well! BUT, I would definitely suggest leaving them to a professional. Be sure that you use a painter that has lots of experience painting wood cabinetry – it’s not the same as painting drywall! Proper dry and cure time is very important, too. If latex paint is used, I wouldn’t close the drawers or doors for at least 3 weeks – it can take up to a month for latex to fully cure, even though it’s dry to the touch in a couple hours. After that, you should be good and they will hold up without chipping for many years.
This is stunning work, Kristie. Congratulations!
Thank you, Beth!
Stunning makeover!
I love how much larger that kitchen looks!
Thank you, Elizabeth!
This is quite a transformation. Can you please tell me what color the walls are painted?
Lara, the walls in both rooms are Benjamin Moore Stonington Gray.
Hi Kristie,
Love this change! I’m re-inspired to do something about our dark kitchen. I have been (slowly) repainting rooms in our 1950 Cape Cod-style house, and I LOVE my Palladian Blue dining room (it was forest green–lol!). I am wondering if Stonington Gray would flow well from the Palladian Blue or how to figure out a good color flow in a house. I need to take your color class!
I am loving this makeover. Can you share the name of the quartz pattern you used. I clicked the link and it didn’t give any specific color of Ceasarstone. Hoping to do something similar in my home.
Beautiful transformation!! I can attest to white cabinets making your kitchen look bigger. We are in the throes of painting our cabinets white, with only the cabinet boxes painted right now and all of the doors off, and it’s amazing how much bigger our kitchen looks, even while in process!
Wonderful, Kim! I hope you’ll be posting your kitchen makeover soon – I’d love to see it!
I lived with oak cabinets for ten years and yes, the kitchen lights were almost always on. When we moved we bought old wood cabinets and stripped them and painted them Steamed Milk. Oil base. That was 6 years ago and they still look like new. Easy to clean. I do have a contractor husband but I did much of the work. They have made our smallish kitchen look airy and bright. Their new kitchen is gorgeous. I like wood but I will never have wood stained cabinets again. Beautiful work.
Thank you, Carol – and thanks for sharing your experience with painted cabinets and how they held up over time. I think so many people would like to paint their cabinets, but are so afraid that the paint won’t hold up or the upkeep will be a hassle!
WOW! This is probably one of my favorite transformations you’ve done. Just beautiful!! Love how the rooms flow.
I’m so glad you liked it, Jackie!
Beautiful Kristie!
Thank you, Niki!
Love it Kristie!!! Amazing work as always!!!!
Thanks so much, Sylvia! 🙂
I’m curious where did the microwave get hidden?
(I put mine below the counter where there was already an extra outlet in cabinet space and I love it there.)
Lovey, but I wonder how dirty that light fixture over the range will get.
Hi Kathy,
In the post, that’s why I gave the designer tip about purchasing a light fixture without glass for that area. If those lanterns had glass inserts, they would get very dirty. Much easier to occasionally wipe down these metal frames 🙂
Stunning transformation. I have the same problem, where my wood kitchen cabinets plus wood floors are an overpowering orange. I can’t wait to have my cabinets painted white one day. I am most amazed by how you can choose just the right white – not too stark, not too yellow. There are so many whites out there and I’d be afraid to chose the wrong one!
Yes, Gretchen – there are sooo many whites out there! Here’s a tip for you: be sure to use the same white on your cabinets that you use on your trim. That will give you a cleaner look every time!
What a beautiful transformation! Seeing the before and after photos truky shows how white can make a space feel more spacious. Your clients must be thrilled!
Thank you so much, Sheri! My clients really love it – they were so great to work with. 🙂
Our kitchen reno started with trying to replace a broken builtin gas oven. Oak cabinets that I tolerated for over 30 years. We completely reconfigured with white Shaker cabinets and quartz countertops. Still love it after more than six years.
That’s great to hear, Marie! And I trust your paint is still holding up well? That’s everyone’s number one concern about painted cabinets.
What paint colors were used on cabinets and island KB? Gorgeous with the counter tops!
Ceil,
The perimeter cabinets are painted PPG/Porter White Umber. Let me check on the island color to be sure.
Love the light fixtures and your tip about leaving the glass off of the fixtures!
Thank you, Fancy!
Beautiful transformation, Kristie!
Kristie: What an amazing transformation! It IS hard to tell it’s the same 2 rooms. You did such a great job in listening to what your clients told you they wanted and then giving them something that so beautifully delivered on it.
And I love your tip about using light fixtures over the island without glass. Not only is that easier for cleaning, but it’s so much easier to change the light bulbs that way, too.
Great, great work: congratulations on this transformation!
Thank you so much for your kind words, Leslie! For this couple, it was about finding a balance so that both of them got a result they were hoping for. The Mrs. wanted light and sophisticated and the Mr. had ideas that were more masculine-leaning. The white cabinetry, marble-like quartz, and cozy seating area suited her aesthetic, while the stone fireplace, concrete-like quartz, and wood mantel and shelves suited his. And I think the elements married well! 😉
Kristie,
I love your kitchen reno! Are the pretty little olive trees in the green pots on each side of the cooktop real or faux? If faux, can you tell me where they are from? Thank you!
Hi Bonnie! Funny you should ask about that – I actually picked those up at a garage sale the week before I came over to do the final styling for photos! I don’t know where they are from originally, so sorry.
What stain color did you use on the floating shelves in living room?
You consistently have great ideas or spaces and see things in a way I wouldn’t have thought of. I like the extended island to replace the breakfast table. To make it function as a casual eating space though, do you suggest stools that slide all the way under the island?
Thank you so much, Abbey! To make this functional as a breakfast/lunch table, I think the stools/chairs need to have at a back – even a short one would be sufficient. So, yes, the seat would slide under the island – but the back doesn’t have to. A bit of a back won’t impede traffic flow. Thank you so much for reading and sharing your thoughts and questions. I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving!
I have the same furniture as 40 years ago. I have always been very progressive and at that time I already put white chon a red band. I recently changed the countertop that was white to a bright red one. On top of the tall furniture I placed some Ikea wooden toy store and stuck some adhesive mirrors. I would like to put a vinyl floor over the white gre that is very dirty. And to finish painting the front.
I’m backing what everyone has said in these comments. I recently had a company come out to paint my kitchen cabinets and it literally blew me away walking back into the space for the first time. I always hesitated to jump on the all-white bandwagon with little kids but it was the best decision I’ve ever made.