Decorating with Color - Part Two - KITCHEN COLORS

If all of the home decorating magazines I have seen are any indication, the new KITCHEN colors for 2008 are going to be brighter, bolder, citrus colors. These are lively colors that bring a feeling of playfulness and life into a room. They are great colors for your kitchens. They will brighten even the dullest, darkest room. The new greens range from Lime Greens to more mellow greens. The yellows range from mellow yellows to bright Yellow Limes. The deeper yellows are warmer colors and not in the family of colors I am discussing here. The greens and yellows go very well with white painted furniture, while the Oranges, which span from a deep orange to a light tangerine, work well with both unpainted and white wood finishes. The Oranges are the warm colors in this spectrum, while the Greens and Yellows are cooler colors. So the note here is, when painting in a room with wood surfaces, white is cool, bare wood is warm. When thinking about your color, look at the windows in the room. Are they large or small? Do you have a lot of windows or a just one? The thing I want you to focus on, is what do you see out of the windows? To bring a lovely view into the room find a focal point outside and bring that one color into the room. Your window is like a picture frame. By putting that color on the wall, you will accent the view in the window. If you want to draw attention from the window, head in the opposite direction on the color wheel.

When my husband first suggested a lime green in my white kitchen I thought he was nuts. I was wrong though. We painted out kitchen using Martha Stewart's Pea Shoot which is a beautiful, soft lime green. Before we painted, our kitchen was all white. The floors are made of Hackberry wood, which is a very light wood with dark highlights. Our cabinets are all white, as are the counter tops and appliances. The kitchen was very nice all white, but it became very boring, very quickly, and was actually high maintenance because it was so "white". The kitchen of our home is now a bright meeting place for all who visit. The white cabinets became the focal point in the room, rather than the wood floor, and no longer disappeared into the wall.

If you are more into the traditional colors and love to cook, Martha Stewart suggests that All of your prepared foods will look much more appetizing when they are displayed in a room that is painted in warm colors. What are warm colors? Warm colors are Warm yellows, like Benjamin Moore's Inner Glow, a warm light mustard yellow, or Martha Stewart's New grass Warm colors are fine to use bith in the winter and in the summer.

If yellow isn't your thing, but you still want to stay in the warm color family, reds like Benjamin Moore's Rhubarb and Martha's Bougainvillea will warm a kitchen properly. These colors go very nice with warm wood finishes such as Oak and Cherry. Oak has a lot of brown pigment, as opposed to more yellow pigment in Pine. Cherry, of course has red pigments. Don't forget to use the pigments in the woods to help in choosing your colors.

If Blues are your colors, there are a lot of nice choices. If you are looking for a bright, cool room, head for the lighter end of the blue spectrum and choose a color like Benjamin Moore's Splash or Lyndhurst Celestial Blue by Valspar. As you mix red pigment into the blue, you are changing your blue to a warm color. An example of a warm blues is Dazzle, by Valspar.

Next in this series is Part Three - Decorating With Color - Living Room. In this section, were we will discuss paint choices for creating an inviting environment on your living room.

Clicking here will take you to Part Three of the Decorating With Color Series.