No, it’s not the Pantone Color of the Year. It’s not the Paint Color of the Year, nor is it the Fashion Color of the Year. It’s been seeping into your psyche, increasingly crossing your field of vision over a year or two. Which means the time has come for it to gain mainstream appeal to wider audiences!
DARK GREEN, I hereby dub thee the 2019 Kitchen Color of the Year! I’m going to show you some beautiful examples, as well as the best dark green paint colors for kitchen cabinets:
The paint color names are at the end of this post
First, let’s check out some gorgeous green kitchen cabinets. In this dramatic DeVol kitchen you may have seen drifting across the internet, dark green covers both the cabinets and walls of this kitchen. Gold, marble, and wood look amazing with the dark green paint colors.
For this look, you can do one of two things. You can either paint both the cabinets and walls in a satin finish or, for more contrast, paint the cabinets in a semigloss and walls in an eggshell finish.
Below is another DeVol kitchen in dark green, but this time, it’s a dusty dark gray-green. This would look perfectly at home in a turn of the century chateau!
Green glazed tile is a classic complement to dark green kitchen cabinets:
If you like dark green kitchen cabinets, but are fearful of SO MUCH green, maybe the next few ideas will seem more do-able. My online designer friend, Abby Manchesky, remodeled her kitchen for the One Room Challenge. She painted her lower cabinets dark green, but replaced the upper cabinets with open shelving. The paint color is Benjamin Moore Steamed Spinach, which I have used here and here.
Because everything is light and bright up top, Abby was able to do black countertops here.
Of course, if you want to keep your upper shelving, you can still do white uppers with green lowers. Marble tile floors look amazing with dark green, too!
Bob Williams’ kitchen featured in Traditional Home
Or, you can actually do a combination of closed and open upper shelving to keep the space light, like in this kitchen renovation I completed last year:
Kristie Barnett, The Decorologist
We rehung one of the original upper cabinets and painted it white like the trim and open shelving. The base cabinets and peninsula are painted in one of my favorite dark green colors for kitchen cabinets, Benjamin Moore Garden Cucumber.
Kristie Barnett, The Decorologist
If you love your bright white cabinets, you could always add a heavy dose of dark green in your kitchen. In House Beautiful’s Kitchen of the Year, designer Martyn Bullard painted an island dark green and installed wall tile in green, black, and white.
This is a party kitchen if I’ve ever seen one! Why would anyone want to go sit in the dining room?
If you are considering dark green cabinets, here is a tip for you: go darker and duller than you think you should. Trust me, dark colors go lighter and brighter than you expect, especially when you are using a higher sheen than flat/matte.
Also, don’t get your paint colors from magazines. I’ve mentioned many times before how inaccurate color can read in photography, particularly in design magazines. Case in point: scroll back up a few photos to Bob Williams kitchen with dark green lower cabinets. I checked the sources in Traditional Home magazine, and they claim the paint color is Benjamin Moore Charlotte Slate. I’m here to tell you, it is CERTAINLY NOT! This is what Charlotte Slate looks like on kitchen cabinets I had painted a couple years ago. It’s a dark grayed blue.
I don’t want you to be deceived, so I’m sharing the best dark green colors for kitchen cabinets:
one: BM Steamed Spinach 643, two: BM Chrome Green HC-189, three: SW Billiard 0016, four: Garden Cucumber 644, five: SW Pewter Green 6208, six: BM Caldwell Green HC124, seven: BM Jack Pine 692, eight: SW Hunt Club 6468
Designers, stagers, and the paint color obsessed:
Find out how you can earn your Psychological Color Expert certification online!
Kristie,
I love these cabinets! I’ve also seen alot of Chelsea Gray lately on Instagram (especially on base cabinets), which is not technically a green, but it has some green undertones. What do you think about a green gray? Also, would you keep the greens to the lower cabinets always vs. the upper ones also? I saw that Emily Enderson had a blue-green kitchen for her Portland project, but painted both tops and bottoms. BTW, I love your blog and have been lurking forever. Finally thought I’d step forward!
Michelle
Michelle,
Chelsea Gray is a great gray for cabinets! I’ve used it as the color for lower kitchen cabinets paired with white upper ones. And as an island color with white cabinets. In answer to your question: yes, of course, dark green can go on both uppers and lowers – but it can really darken a room, much like black cabinets can do. Just make sure you have lots of good light – either natural or artificial (maybe both). Thank you for reading and commenting, Michelle!
Ummmm. No. I lived the 80’s with “forest green”. Hated it then, hate it now.
Yep, it’s not for everyone. I saw a lot of forest green in the 80s, too, but not on kitchen cabinets. I didn’t like dark green back then, but I love it now. Maybe you are a blue person – blue is great for kitchen cabinets, too. 🙂
I love greens, and these are beautiful kitchens, but it just seems too dark for me. I’m a white kitchen gal. Magazine colors are very deceptive, as are many internet colors. Photos are shot with professional lighting, then edited, possibly filtered with the camera or with editing software, etc. and comes out on the other end looking completely different. The camera lens doesn’t capture the same colors as the human eye, either. It almost always looks different in person.
Susie,
All dark green would definitely be dark. That’s why I showed some with white open shelving on top. Distorted colors in magazine and blog photography drives me crazy! The photos of the kitchen I designed with dark lowers is very true to life – I never let my photographers use artificial lighting, and I make sure they understand how important it is to me to get accurate colors in the final photos. You are so right about the difference in viewing a photo vs. viewing in real life. It can look so different without the periphery context of the entire space!
Not only that, but different screens show colors differently, too. Remember that dress; was it gold and white, or teal and grey, or whatever? Also, our eyes distinguish color differently as well. My left eye sees colors more warmly than my right.
Ambiance lighting when looking in a magazine can change the color as well. Light and color are very interesting!
Yes, color is so fascinating!
I’m a blue fan myself, but there are some really pretty greens!
No problem, since blue cabinets are still so popular! 😉
Oh be still my heart. There’s nothing I love more (color wise) than dark green and white trim. Gorgeous Kitchens!
I love dark green cabinets! I’d do my own lower cabinets and leave the top ones white, except I have a white dishwasher and black statement stove. Maybe if I could paint that dishwasher, haha!
Kristie,
A friend of mine (who is In Love With That DeVol Kitchen) graciously allowed me to suggest Ben Moore Knoxville Gray for her kitchen cabinets and they look fantastic. Tres DeVol. Mostly I prefer Sherwin Williams colors, but it is extremely hard to beat the durability & ease of use of the BM Advance alkyd paint if you are going to DIY kitchen cabinets, so I have to have a few BM suggestions on hand. We used SW on the ceiling (it’s a blush ceiling!) and walls. So far so good. Now what we need is to choose lighting that enhances the colors. Like, we need to chose the actual bulbs, because the wrong light makes green read gray or blue at night. I’ve read through your lighting posts with great success but would like to request an update of your opinions on interior types of bulbs. 😊
Sunny, I definitely have an opinion about light bulbs! LED bulbs in SOFT WHITE, not daylight. Definitely the most pleasing bulbs to use for an interior. As for Knoxville Gray reading green or blue at night: it has both blue and green undertones. It’s a fantastic color, but it will always change depending on the lighting throughout the day – which is what makes it fantastic, actually! Anyway, gray colors will read there most “neutral” in natural daylight, but may look more green or blue at night with artificial lighting. Soft White LED all the way!
Such great selection of greens for cabinets. Love # 6!
Yes, #6 is a good one!
Hi Kristie ~
What a wonderful post..full of great tips and images that helped me see all the different variations of how green can look in a kitchen.
The green kitchen you completed for your own clients is lovely, and I especially liked that rectangular brass hardware and the lighting pendants.
Thanks for educating us all about how great green can look in a kitchen setting..it’s a refreshing shift and I think it speaks to the wellness themes we are seeing in design now, too.
Thank you, Leslie. Yes, wellness is definitely a trending theme – and using all shades of green is a way of bringing nature inside and creating a lush interior environment!
Love the dark greens with wood tomes and white – such a pretty combination!
Dark greens look great with wood tones, don’t they?
the photo with the red light fixtures, what color is that paint. this post is a little hard to follow as you don’t say which is which.
Green cabinets NO! Green walls YES! If my cabinets don’t look like actual wood, I prefer them to white as they are a costly investment & the prep work required to change out the color on cabinets is more of a chore than I’d like to commit to.
It’s your home, so you definitely should do what makes you happy, Jazmine! That’s what it’s all about. 🙂
Do you know of a brand name that makes the cabinets in a dark green. I want white kitchen cabinets but a dark green island and so far, I can only find custom.
Ikea now has a hunter green line.
I am painting in two days and just discovered your site. I am in love with the second kitchen color that you describe as a dusty gray green but you don’t say what color it is!!! Please tell me!!!
Hello, I love the cabinets but I’m interested in the floor. Can you provide any information concerning it? This is concerning the floor in pic #5.
Thank You, Stephanie
I love this, what is the tile name and where can I get it?
Love the dark green cabinets
I want to see dark green cabinets with natural wood doors and drawer fronts.
Mmm, yes, that would be lovely!
What color green would you recommend for kitchen cabinets with black soapstone counters, pine walls/floor/ceiling and stainless steel appliances?
Kathleen,
Any number of these dark greens would work with the finishes you are describing! I’d suggest choosing a few and testing them in your space.
Since you can’t get Devol paint in the US, do you know what BM color would be like their Bakehouse Green?