Can’t pick between painted or wood cabinets, or if they need to be light or dark? Pick both for a memorable kitchen. Mixing and matching cabinet finishes and colours is one of my favorite things to suggest for a kitchen. It is a bold move and most people aren’t quite ready to make this leap. But the ideal combination can result in a contemporary kitchen your guests will probably be telling their friends around.
Bruce Wright
Contrasting cabinet finishes work really well once you make the choice to install mismatched cabinets. Dark wood reduced cabinets and frosted glass top cabinets play dark/light and opaque/transparent opposites.
PC, chelsea Atelier Architect
Here we view frosted glass top cabinets again with lighter gray-colored wood and a natural finish wood floor. This mix has less contrast and an ethereal feel with the white countertop. It’d look fine in a contemporary beach home.
In this bright mid-century contemporary kitchen, blonde wood cabinets unite effortlessly with painted teal cabinets for an equivalent mix of natural and colorful cabinet finishes.
Carla Aston | Interior Designer
In case you’ve got a traditional kitchen and dread the mix-and-match style will probably be too modern and out of place, fear not. Beautiful grey and white painted Shaker style cabinets seem just right together, particularly with the deep farmhouse sink.
Carolina Kitchens
Mixing woods can let 1 element of the kitchen to be noticed. The dark wood finish of the island grabs the visitors attention while the perimeter cabinets evaporate with the walls. The action from the kitchen will naturally gravitate towards the island.
Don Harris, Architect
Play with colours and stripes or stripes. In this elegant modern kitchen, hot matte wood reduced cabinets play against glossy white lauquer upper cabinets — a joy for the hand that rolls both from the process of cooking.
Divine Design+Build
The unspoken rule seems to be the lower cabinets are dim while the uppers are delegated lighter materials. What if you not just mixed cabinet finishes, but placed the milder finishes on the floor and the darker on top? Or is that too mad?
There aren’t any hard and fast rules. The porportions don’t have to equal half and half. Here, just about a third of the cabinets are white and the rest is wood. Even with the small proportion of white cabinets, the kitchen seems very light due to the white painted walls and accessories. The designer struck a balance of white-to-wood by thinking about the whole room makeup: wall color, light color, flooring furniture and color. Don’t forget to take a step back and do exactly the same.
Thomas Wold
Another principle breaker: There are not many blue cabinets or trimming in this mainly white area. Only a touch of vibrant blue is sufficient for your eye.
Watch more of this Thomas Wold kitchen
Thomas Wold
Do you feel like being a little different along with your kitchen cabinets after seeing that ideabook, but are not ready to paint the cabinet faces only yet? Baby steps: experiment with painting only the inside a delightful shade of your favorite color. It will be your little secret that makes you smile each single time you open the cabinet door.
More: The Unmatched Kitchen
Mixing Wood and Painted Finishes from the Kitchen