Color has the power to set tone and mood, change your spatial perception, and tell a story about who you are and where you’re going. When it comes to your small space, kitchen cabinet color is the most important design feature to focus on, and the quickest and most cost-efficient to manage. Check out these ways to change everything about your small kitchen with the swipe of a paintbrush.

Turn up the white

The quickest and most dramatic way to change the look and feel of your kitchen is to refinish your cabinets in white. White goes with every style, age, and format of kitchen cabinetry. It also reflects back light, making even the smallest spaces seem open and airy.  

Leverage your adjacent spaces

If choosing kitchen cabinet colors is more difficult for you than herding cats, look to nearby spaces in your home. If your adjacent living or dining room is decorate in earthy, muted tones, applying the same color scheme to the cabinets in your small kitchen can help the rooms blend together, changing your spatial perception, and creating the illusion of depth and length between the spaces. This trick works even if you don’t have an open floor plan because your mind will create the flow for you.

Limit your palette and keep it smooth

Small kitchens can take on a cluttered look fast, and it doesn’t just come from too many appliances and décor on the counters. Kitchen cabinet colors also play a role in creating a clean, organized and open look for your space. Limit the color palette for your cabinets to one or two colors. White and dark blue, white and gray, dark grey and light grey, sand and grey, and other complementary and accent palettes create clean lines. Pairing white with a darker color or earthen and muted tones helps to break up the monotony of “just white” without creating visual clutter.

Accept the things you cannot change and complement them

If funds for a kitchen makeover are unlimited, more power to you. If you’re on a budget, however, there are some things you just won’t be able to change: countertops, floors, and appliances among them. Don’t despair. Dark countertops and floors can be beautifully accented by white, sand, gray or earthen tones. Wood floors or stone floors also will not limit you. See beyond what’s already in your kitchen and allow your mind to expand so you space can expand, too.

Accent with intent

Small kitchens are not limited to white, grey, and earthen tones. In fact, small kitchen designers favor the many shades of yellow when it comes to using kitchen cabinet colors to open up and refresh a small space. Turquoise, robin’s egg blue, and even mint and celery green are showing up in small kitchens everywhere.

With the right kitchen cabinet colors, a small kitchen can become the “biggest” room in your house, inviting you in to write the stories it will tell over time. Go ahead, pick up a palette and get to work dreaming your kitchen’s makeover.