Colorful Painted Cabinets: Trendy Or A Designer's Worst Nightmare?

Do you have a favorite color that you love flaunting throughout your house? While it can't hurt to use various decorations in playful pink, royal blue, or other lively hues to embellish your home, try to resist painting your cabinets in such eye-catching shades. Bright paint options can be trendy, yes, earning compliments from guests — but ultimately, those kitchen cabinet choices will make it harder to keep your home timeless, and they aren't practical for the long term. 

Colorful kitchen cabinets are typically designers' worst nightmares, in fact, as those daring colors often clash with the rest of the space and take away from the investments that make up the overall aesthetic. For instance, designers advise against using vivid red or seemingly inviting yellow paint on kitchen cabinets, as those hues tend to be too bold for the kitchen, which should be a more calming area of your home. Meanwhile, forest greens and quirky oranges might initially look sophisticated or intriguing in your kitchen, but experts note that those bold hues will do more harm than good for your home's desirability. Here's what you need to know.

Despite designers warning homeowners against colorful cabinets, many are inspired to creatively use bold cabinet colors in their kitchens. After all, some homeowners perceive cabinet paint colors as relatively affordable ways to add life to their kitchens, as a fresh coat of exciting paint can transform their kitchen without requiring them to spend on new furniture, hardware, or appliances. 

Additionally, many people tend to find unpainted wood cabinets boring, leading homeowners to think they must paint over the wood in a brighter, bolder color. Painting over wood cabinets usually isn't too much of a challenge — in addition to being a relatively affordable kitchen update — and the process's convenience and accessibility may lead to impulsive homeowners thinking it would be fun to paint their cabinets a loud color without considering the downsides of opting for such intense hues. Now, we're not going to advise you not to paint your cabinets: it can be a good move. Instead of going with bold color, though, consider a more timeless shade.

Do you want your kitchen to look elegant forever? Paint your dull or outdated cabinets a crisp shade of white, as white kitchen designs will never go out of style. Whether you opt for a bright-as-snow white or a more subtle off-white paint, that foolproof neutral will be the opposite of overbearing, helping your kitchen stay consistently classy unlike colors from the rainbow that constantly go in and out of style. Anyone who thinks white cabinets are too stark for their taste should consider beige for a gentler, more inviting look. On the other hand, black cabinets are a more sophisticated and timeless way to add eye-catching flair to your kitchen than colorful paint, providing intensity in a more versatile way. 

Either way, if you want to paint your kitchen cabinets, remember to carefully think about which shade will look best with the rest of the room's aesthetic, even when choosing a neutral, as it's never a good idea to rush into a paint color. You might also want to consider mixing neutrals, such as creating a high-contrast black-and-white look by painting some cabinets black and others white. No matter what, keeping the cabinets clean and neutral is always a more practical choice than vivid hues.