Choose flooring that compliments cabinet color
Choosing flooring that compliments your kitchen cabinets is key to achieving an appealing design, and the nearly endless color combinations make the decision time consuming. Below are some tips on choosing flooring colors that will compliment your cabinet paint or stain color choice, with kitchen photo examples for inspiration:
1. Contrast or Compliment – don’t match. Generally, flooring in a contrasting but complimentary color to cabinets is more appealing than a large visual area where cabinets and floors are made up of the same color. If cabinets and flooring blend together, the effect can be visually flat, without depth or interest. Notice the kitchen photos above have woodgrain cabinets and woodgrain floors, but the floor color is in contrast to the cabinets which are darker or lighter tones. Darker flooring grounds the space and is visually appealing when paired with lighter cabinets, and the darker parts of the woodgrain flooring pick up the color from the darkest parts of the cabinetry. In a small room or a room without much natural light, lighter flooring can open up the space and make it feel larger, as in the photo below.
2. Choose a cool or warm color family and stick with it throughout the room. Same color family undertones tie the room together.
The crisp white and blue-gray base kitchen cabinets below have woodgrain flooring with cool base tones that complement the cool, neutral cabinet color.
The warm woodgrain bathroom cabinets shown below compliment the warm brown wood tones in the woodgrain tile floor.
3. When matching flooring to the cabinets makes sense. There are exceptions to every rule and while typically you wouldn’t want to exactly match flooring to cabinets because it can make the room feel flat, in some instances matching the color values makes sense. The kitchen below has different cabinet and flooring material but the color matches. The white upper cabinets, backsplash and countertops break up the sea of color and create needed contrast so the room doesn’t feel boring. The lighter uppers also open up the room and make it feel larger. While the flooring and base cabinet color is the same, there is contrast in grain pattern, with straight, rift white oak grain pattern cabinets and cathedrals and knots, along with straight grain in the flooring.
4. Take it easy on the pattern combinations. While we see people pair patterns like plaids or stripes and florals in clothing for a fun, eclectic look, clothing is inexpensive and easy to change out. Kitchen materials, cannot be inexpensively or easily changed, so before you commit to combining checkerboard or herringbone pattern floors with mosaic tile back splash and highly figured wood cabinets, look at samples together to be sure you want to live with the busy look for an extended period of time. For many interior designs, it works best to pick just one detailed element so the eye isn’t overwhelmed.
If you want more texture on the cabinets and in the floors without looking too busy, a great combination is wood cabinets in a stain that evens out some of the heavy grain pattern, paired with wood flooring that has a lot of color variation such as natural red or white oak, or hickory. Most stained wood has texture and subtle color differences due to the wood grain and natural character, but it is monochromatic enough to pair with a busy floor.
Home buyers who want to try out bold combinations often find a powder room a good place to play with wallpaper pattern, colorful floor and wall tile, sink and cabinet color, and textured materials for a fun, hidden-suprise, jewel box effect.
5. Look at product samples next to each other. Look at a sample of your flooring, cabinet material/color, counter top and wall color next to each other in similar lighting to what you will have in your kitchen, and make sure you like how the colors and textures work together. Lay the flooring flat with the cabinet material at a 90 degree angle to the flooring as it will be in the finished room, and stand back to look at it. Try a few cabinet and flooring color options next to each other to see which colors and patterns work best together.
6. Find online or magazine photos of kitchens or bathrooms using a similar color, material or pattern combination to give you an idea of the overall final look without making your home and your budget the Guinea pig. Burrows Cabinets website and Houzz pages have dozens of recent kitchen, bath, study and other room cabinet photos and are a great place to start.
Texas home builders, contact Burrows Cabinets today to find out about our turn-key, builder-direct cabinets in the materials and colors homeowners want for their new homes.
