Kitchen Remodel | Dreaming of a White Kitchen?

White is the most popular dominant color incorporated into many kitchen remodels, including cabinetry, countertops, and, sometimes, flooring. Modern, country farmhouse, and even future-centric kitchen designs are just a few that highlight the dominant use of this color of all colors.

For kitchens of any style, white as a color scheme design approach is an ideal option when square footage is limited. Installing white cabinets, for example, for a small kitchen, can portray the illusion of a larger space.
The reflective properties of white fixtures in the absence of natural light, such as kitchens with little or no windows or subject to frequent intervals of shade from neighboring buildings or trees, can multiply the brightness level of whatever light is present.

For homeowners looking to sell their homes, using white as the dominant color for their country farm kitchen remodel can appeal to a broader audience. In a sense, the robust neutrality of the color white can play a role of a blank canvas which invites a potential buyer’s imagination to envision themselves and their belongings filling the kitchen space.

For homeowners not intending to sell their homes, the dominance of white in the kitchen may serve as an ideal minimalist backdrop for an assortment of displays, such as collectibles, decorative plates, and even stockpiles of Campbell Soup (for Andy Warhol fans). In the presence of open shelving, often seen in country farm-style kitchen remodels, the white color contributes to the dimension of space gained from the storage/display areas.

Additionally, when white is married to ornately carved wood kitchen cabinet doors, handcrafted hardware or in balanced contrast to countertops and backsplash tiles, the otherwise neutral color can transform into a vibrant center stage conveyance of sophistication.

Additionally, when white is married to ornately carved wood kitchen cabinet doors, handcrafted hardware or in balanced contrast to countertops and backsplash tiles, the otherwise neutral color can transform into a vibrant center stage conveyance of sophistication.

Consider that the dominant use of white for a kitchen design does not guarantee desirable outcomes like those described above. As the saying goes, and as infamously stated by Faye Dunaway in her portrayal of Joan Crawford in the biopic movie Mommie Dearest, “The sword cuts both ways.”

When paired, for example, with sub-par materials or a lacking balance of contrast, the color (or lack of it) powerfully exposes any absence of quality.
Also, an overstated use of white on kitchen fixtures with understated ornamental dressings and hardware can unintentionally elevate a kitchen’s design status from bland to cheap.

As transformative as the dominant use of white can be for a kitchen, its use is often most potent as a contrasting accent color.

Remember Gabrielle Chanel, better known as Coco Chanel, seated in a black garment with necklace strings of pearly white beads eloquently resting around and below the back and side of her neck?

Perhaps Meryl Streep’s portrayal of the Devil Wear’s Prada character, Miranda Priestly, is more widely known, with her undeniably authoritative punctuating colored white hair, that cleverly undertones a tempting symbolic interpretation for horns, as she wears a thick fur style cherry red/black coat in a short scene of the movie.

White, in these examples, accents beautifully against the strength of its contrasting counterpart colors.
Likewise, when accenting white trim or ornaments are added to colorfully painted kitchen cabinets, walls, and doors, it exchanges its dominance as a backdrop color for an intensified stylish demand of the eyes’ attention.

Its commanding expression of sophisticated grandeur is also striking as a sole base color for a natural stone kitchen countertop, creating a prominent distinction of territory from its verticle, vibrantly colored, or dark wood cabinet neighbors.

Last, at least for this article post, white is sometimes the dominant color for a kitchen floor.

In a country farmhouse kitchen remodel design, for example, a hardwood floor resurfacing that finishes with a few coats of matte or glossy white paint can add a modern flair to your rustic theme.

Similar to solid wood cabinetry painted in white, a floor in this color will reflect available lighting, which will contribute to brightening the kitchen. Also, similar to white cabinetry, the light-colored flooring will increase a kitchen’s appearance of spaciousness.
More than any other, white portrays an illusion that I coin as “infinite space,” which it does equally well as both a dominant or accent color of a kitchen’s  remodel design.

As a dominant color, it does this through a paradoxical diffusion of its presence in combination with its light-reflecting properties, which quietly blends cabinetry fixtures or flooring to walls of a similar hue. Expanding this continuity of color, it cleverly frames the 3-dimensional depth of adjacent rooms, further contributing to an illusion of an infinite-like expansion of square footage.
When chosen as the core base color in natural stone material, white can be brilliant for transforming the feeling of a cramped kitchen into a warm, open space.

Imagine, for example, a kitchen countertop using the light-colored stone material juxtaposed with upper and lower cabinetry fixtures made of dark solid wood, as the strikingly distinctive straight edge line commands acknowledgment for the existing partition of the two kitchen cabinetry sections. Add to the imagined space flooring using any variety of hardwood and shades of color.
As you stand in this imagined kitchen, looking straight ahead into the presented scenario, focus on the stark contrasting white-colored natural stone countertop. Then, in a slow continuous downward motion, allow your eyes to extend as far as you can without shifting the head of your imagined state of being.

For readers who participated in the exercise, you may have observed during the experience the illusion of “infinite space”, whereby the absence of an encumbering border between the countertop and downward extension in the exercised imaginary line of vision supports this effect, thus favoring the perception of additional space, when in fact, the scenario doesn’t present any additions to square footage.

Participants who imagined a light-colored or even white-colored floor in favor of a dark hardwood may find it more astonishing to discover that the resulting impact of the effect is the same, even with the bordering contrast of color at the base where the fixtures meet the floor.

Finally, respective to a concluding transition for this article post, it is hopeful that this powerful, prominent color presents such that it enlightens readers to the astonishingly broad versatility and dimensional depth exclusive of this dreamy master of colors.