11 Kitchen Cabinet Ideas | Paint Colors & Inspiration

Everyone gathers in the kitchen. From cooking to socializing, keeping your kitchen cabinets looking beautiful is a design essential for discerning homeowners.

Extending the life of your existing kitchen cabinets is a lot easier than replacing them. Painting kitchen cabinets with Benjamin Moore’s ADVANCE^® in any one of 3,500+ colors gives your kitchen bold new character and a smooth, furniture-like finish. It’s time to bring the high impact of color to the heart of your kitchen.

Rich brown kitchen cabinets, brown marble backsplash and an ornate mirror create a sumptuous culinary setting.

Enrich Cabinets with Color

When considering new color for your cabinets, look to materials like the countertop, backsplash, fixtures, and flooring. Let these color cues inspire new color for your cabinets.

Consider bringing some drama to your cabinetry with a deep color, like Char Brown 2137-20, seen here in Satin finish. A more saturated color on your cabinets in any level of glossy sheen can maximize shine and create an elegant look.

You can select just a portion of your cabinetry to highlight with a deeper color, while balancing the combination with more classic kitchen hues like off-white or putty.

Monochromatic blue cabinets and blue walls are highlighted by a white marble countertop set with wine glasses.

Sheen: A Key Ingredient

Be sure to consider sheen when selecting color for each surface you are painting in your kitchen.

You can create a subtle–yet striking–effect with color by choosing one hue, but using that color in different sheen levels on each surface.

For example, use a low sheen such as matte or eggshell on the walls, then opt for a semi-gloss or high-gloss sheen on the cabinets. The way light reflects off each surface will create understated contrast, even though you are only painting with one color.

See the design impact of color in one busy family's kitchen.

A Family Adds a Dose of Color

We love seeing real life home design success stories.

This family of four reinvigorated their small kitchen by incorporating a soft blue onto lower cabinetry, enhancing a formerly all-white kitchen. Their sleek, newly-painted cabinets are even able to withstand two busy little ones (with messy hands!), thanks to their easy-to-clean finish.

A before and after of the same kitchen features an all-white makeover using ADVANCE® Interior Paint.

A Simple Kitchen Makeover

White-painted kitchen cabinets make any kitchen feel more spacious and bright—highly valued traits in kitchens of all sizes.

The all-white makeover seen in this maple kitchen lends an airy, contemporary new look to a corner kitchen.

This family worked with a painting contractor to refinish the cabinets. The contractor used two coats of ADVANCE in Cloud Cover OC-25 satin finish. The busy kitchen, that serves a family of five, was back in action after five days.

The result was a glowing update to a slightly dated space. Even with existing countertops and cabinet hardware remaining the same, the results are striking.

Get tips for refinishing your cabinets-from prepping to painting-in this video.

Ready to Refinish Your Cabinets?

Whether you hire a professional to refinish your cabinets or do it yourself, this step-by-step video tutorial includes expert tips for the ultimate kitchen cabinet makeover. You can also download our how-to guide on repainting cabinets with ADVANCE.

A before and after of a built-in wine rack, glass-paneled cabinet and kitchen drawers showcase an all-white makeover using ADVANCE® Interior Paint.

Critical Components

When looking to refinish your cabinets, look for the following features in a specialty cabinet paint:

Exceptional application and feel
Outstanding coverage and hide
A hard, furniture-quality finish
Low-VOC, even after tinting
Availability in thousands of colors

Look for surface flexibility—the best kitchen cabinet paints are suitable for oak, cherry, mahogany, maple, and fabricated woods, Formica^® laminate and other High-pressure surface materials.

As a waterborne interior alkyd–unlike traditional oil-based paints–ADVANCE is super easy to apply and can be cleaned up with soap and water. These features and more make it truly unique.