Despite the trend toward neutral colors in the home, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a kitchen that’s predominantly shades of blue. Indeed, blue is the second most popular kitchen color after white. For many people, bright, light blues are cheerful and remind them of spring and robin’s eggs. Darker tones may make them thoughtful but are still welcoming and turn the kitchen into a calm place to eat and socialize with friends and family. Here are some tips for a blue kitchen:
Walls, Cabinets, Countertops
Cabinets and walls will be the focal point of the kitchen if they’re painted blue, for no other reason than they take up more space than anything else in the room. Floor and wall cabinets can be a striking Prussian blue with hardware made out of a silvery metal such as brushed nickel. The silver color can be echoed in the steel of the refrigerator, oven or stove.
If blue-washing all walls in the kitchen is a bit much, blue might be just the thing for one accent wall. A robin’s egg blue backsplash contrasts with the deeper blue of the wall and floor cabinets and marks the boundary between them. A pair of glass-fronted wall cabinets keep the upper cabinets from being a solid wall of blue.
Another kitchen may have slate blue floor cabinets and matching wall cabinets against a white or light blue wall with a backsplash made out of white subway tile. The countertops on the blue floor cabinets are made of contrasting white engineered stone or solid surface material.
Countertops can also be blue, especially if they’re made of ceramic tile, laminate or solid surface material. Some homeowners may opt for counters of concrete that have been stained or dyed blue. This concrete is poured on site, and the homeowner needs to make sure that the floor cabinets or kitchen island is strong enough to support its weight.
Midnight blue cabinets in another kitchen contrast with pure white walls, the white of an apron sink and white countertops. Instead of a wall cabinet, this kitchen might have open shelving painted the same midnight blue as the floor cabinets. There may even be open shelving above a midnight blue fridge.
A really eye-popping option is ultramarine floor cabinets topped with a stainless steel countertop. The ultramarine color is continued on the vent hood over the stove.
Wall and floor cabinets don’t have to match either. The wall cabinets can be a blue-gray while the floor cabinets can be a darker Spanish blue. Both cabinets have large, self-colored knobs that can be noticed even at a distance.
On the other hand, the walls of the kitchen can be painted blue while everything else is an entirely different color, as can be seen a kitchen whose walls are cadet blue while the cabinets, islands and shelves are white.
Even the tiniest kitchen can be dominated by blue. A narrow kitchen can end at a navy blue floor cabinet against a white wall and beneath white wall cabinets, with the navy blue continued in the pattern of floor tiles.
Some homeowners even paint their kitchen ceiling blue. It might do best if it’s a different shade than the walls or cabinets. A ceiling that echoes the azure of the backsplash in an otherwise Alice blue kitchen might be just the thing.
Islands and Peninsulas
Some homeowners treat kitchen islands and peninsulas much like floor cabinets, and paint them the same color. But islands and peninsulas do not have to match cabinets or walls. The kitchen island in the midst of ultramarine floor cabinets can be a soft sky blue. An unusually large island, large enough to hold a collection of cookbooks and have its own sink and cooktop can turn a kitchen blue even as it’s the only blue painted object in the room.
Backsplashes
Backsplashes can be a strip of tile or can take up half of a wall. Some dramatic backsplashes are made of glass tile in different shimmering shades of blue. Others are have patterns that recall Azulejo tile, which is often shades of blue. Backsplashes can also have hexagonal tiling of blue and white or different shades of blue alternating or placed randomly around the backsplash. Subway tile, named for the type of ceramic tile found in New York City subway stations, doesn’t always have to be white. It can also come in shades of blue.
Seating
There’s no rule that says the legs and even the top of a wooden table can’t be painted blue, but shades of blue are most often found in kitchen chairs. There’s a small trend toward painting old fashioned wooden chairs pastel colors, and some of those colors are light blues such as baby blue or powder blue. Chair upholstery can also come in blue patterns, and dark blue and white stripes on the seats of stools lends the room a maritime feel.
Floors
There’s a place for blue is on the floor of the kitchen though many kitchens have luxury resilient flooring made to resemble expensive hardwood. A real wooden floor can be painted blue to complement the other blue items in the room, but since the floor also takes up a lot of real estate in the room, this needs to be done judiciously. Resilient flooring can come in an amazing variety of patterns, including hexagonal, diamond and checkerboard, and these patterns can have an amazing number of shades of blue. A blue floor may be just the thing for a gallery kitchen where the floor is long and narrow. Its blue colors won’t overwhelm the space, even if there are blue cabinets.
Other blue solutions for the floor are blue slate tiles, which go well with a country kitchen. Blue mats are not only aesthetically pleasing but protect the floor from the inevitable spills and protect bare feet from hard, cold kitchen floors in the mornings.
Windows
Some homeowners prefer to leave their kitchen windows undressed so they can enjoy as much natural light as possible. But if they want to dress their windows, blue is as good a color as any. Window dressings can range from blue and white checked or striped cafe curtains or curtains with sprigs of blue flowers on a white background. Other solutions are blue shutters with adjustable louvers, or roll-up shades in shades of blue.
