Joanna Gaines Ditches The White Kitchen Trend For Something More Chic

The all-white kitchen has been a decades-long design trend that has reigned in popularity among newer home designs and remodels, offering a crisp and blank canvas for a number of styles encompassing everything from rustic farmhouse decor to chic and modern contemporary spaces. While many people still find themselves looking for the lightness and brightness that a white kitchen provides, many designers are swinging completely in the opposite direction for their kitchens and associated spaces, including HGTV and the Magnolia Network's design guru Joanna Gaines. On Instagram, Gaines has been showing off her own stylish back kitchen and butler pantry, where the walls are a bold and beautiful inky black. While many often ask if a black kitchen is aesthetic or bad luck, Gaines is not alone in her appreciation for the dark side, with many designers bringing in black for their kitchen cabinets, walls, and accents. 

If you're thinking of bringing this look into your own kitchen, there are some definite tips to make your color choice as stylish as what Gaines accomplishes in her stunning butler's pantry. These chic black-lined spaces are particularly suited toward the rustic, industrial, or vintage look, where this bolder neutral sets the backdrop for texture, high contrast accents, and other choices in paint shade and lighting to make it work.

Like white, black can be an excellent neutral shade that disappears and allows you to shape the aesthetic of your room with choices like counters, tile, and accents. Black shines particularly when combined with higher contrast accents such as striking marble or quartz, with white being one of the best color countertops to use with black cabinets. Or you can try beautiful tilework that draws the eye. These objects stand out amidst the dark background, which can prevent the room from looking too busy or cramped whatever its size. Adding various textures keeps the space from looking too sterile or boring, so elements like woven baskets and pottery make great pieces for an all-black kitchen. Black is perfect for rustic-style kitchens since it also pairs so well with wood in almost every tone. 

The shade of black you choose and how you light your kitchen also play a role in how the room comes together. While Joanna Gaines does not identify the shade she uses, Better Homes & Gardens suggests similar shades like Farrow and Ball's Railings or Magnolia Home's Blackboard to get the look, both of which are a blue-based black that still has some warmth to it and a stylish matte finish. You can also use an almost black or a deep charcoal gray for similar results. While Gaines' butler's pantry is filled with natural light from the large windows, how you light your own space will depend on harnessing natural light and providing task lights via track lights, sconces, globes, or pendants to provide sufficient artificial light in a room that will feel darker than a white one, but enormously cozier and dramatic.