Key elements to consider before painting your kitchen white

White has always been one of the most popular colours for a kitchen, and it’s one typically associated with cleanliness and contemporary style. However, as with many design elements, there’s a certain art to using it! Painting your kitchen entirely white from floor to ceiling wouldn’t look terribly inviting or impressive – chances are that it would simply be a bit drab and boring.

That’s why lots of the white kitchens you’ll see amongst our own customer kitchens here at Kitchen Design Centre make use of their own unique features and colours, to give their own memorable twist on the idea of a white kitchen. In fact, that’s what we’re all about here at Kitchen Design Centre – our mission is to help you realise every inch of your vision for your own unique dream kitchen, so with that in mind we’ve got a couple of things to consider if you’re thinking about using white!

How does the colour of our kitchen affect us?

Basically, colour has a subtle but noticeable effect on human emotion, and that’s one of the factors that makes it so important in kitchen design. We’ve talked a bit about colour in kitchen design in a previous post, but some of the most major associations are common knowledge – for example, blue makes us feel calm and reassured, red and oranges are more vibrant and energetic, and green makes us think of growth and success. Other shades, such as purple, we tend to associate with luxury (again, one of the reasons why it’s been such a popular choice with many of our customers here before at Kitchen Design Centre!).

The concept of cold and warmth also has a big impact on how we tend to perceive colour. As you might expect, white is the coldest colour because it reminds us of ice or snow – whether consciously or unconsciously. The visual purity of white means people often also associate it with cleanliness and hygiene too, which is always a positive idea when it comes to your dream kitchen! However, as we touched on above, it’s possible to tip this too far, as an environment that’s too white can end up making people think of hyper-hygienic environments like doctors’ offices or dentists’ surgeries. This can make it seem quite cold and uninviting, so it’s all about using white in moderation!

How to use shades of white in your kitchen

At first glance, white might seem like a very straightforward colour choice – that’s where we get the phrase “very black and white”, after all. But there’s a surprising amount of variation in it! Just as there are cooler and warmer shades of colours like blue, yellow and green, there are cooler and warmer shades of white, too. Cool white shades tend to incorporate blue, grey or green tones, while warmer counterparts incorporate elements of red, orange or yellow.

It’s worth carefully considering which type of white is best suited to your kitchen and why, so you can achieve the kind of effect that you want for your dream kitchen. Below, we’ve detailed some of the major considerations.

Natural light

Before you commit to a certain shade of white, one of the best things to do is identify the orientation of your kitchen relative to the sun, so you can work out how much natural light it gets, and at what quality or intensity.

For example, if you get a lot of warm evening sunlight from a south-facing kitchen, you might want to choose cooler tones of white to balance out the natural yellows, oranges and reds of its rays. On the other hand, if your kitchen gets greater amounts of harsher, colder morning sunlight, you can soften it warmer-toned white instead.

If you’re not sure which one to go for, it might not be a bad idea to default to warmer tones of white, as this can simulate the heat of the sunshine whatever the weather or time of day. Better to err on the side of being too warm than too cold and clinical!

The size of your kitchen

White is often chosen for kitchens that don’t get a lot of natural light to begin with, as it diminishes shadows and edges to make a space seem bigger and more expansive. If you’ve got a larger space to play with, it’s a good idea to think about whether there are any particular areas of your kitchen that could do with being opened up with white, or made to feel cosier and more inviting with a slightly warmer pastel tone, such as candy pink or pale yellow.

Style and materials

It might go without saying for some of you, but the overall style of your home is really important to the sort of white you’ll want to choose. In certain environments it can be paired with silver or gold touches to give an impression of contemporary opulence, but paired with wood, brass or copper, it can give a far more formal and traditional style.

For that reason alone, it’s worth considering well in advance what the style of your home is, and whether you want your kitchen to fit in neatly to that style, or even blend two competing styles to create something completely unique!

Whatever the case, texture should always be one of your foremost priorities, as it’s really important to avoid that cold and clinical look that so many people try to avoid for their own kitchens.

And if you need any help deciding on yours, that’s exactly what our designers are here for! Feel free to pop into any one of our stunning showrooms across the North West on the Crescent at Housing Units or at Barrowford or Blackburn, where one of our designers will be only too happy to sit down with you and discuss your ideas for your dream kitchen. Our passion is to make your vision a reality!