“Orangey Pine” Cabinets Take a Turn for the Extremely Colorful in This Kitchen Makeover
If you love to cook (and perhaps even if you hate it), consider adding a few moments of joy into your kitchen. Choose a fun, whimsical sponge for your sink, add colorful dishware, or give your cabinets a makeover.
Sarah Murphy (@colourfulsaz), with the help of her dad, Paul (@phoneboxman), gave her kitchen a makeover with “all the rainbow elements,” from the cabinets and seating to the doors and accessories.
Before, “the kitchen was a duck blue color on the walls and … the cabinets were an orangey pine,” Sarah describes. “The previous owner was a carpenter, so I think the cabinets were all handmade. They were beautiful, but the pine wood just made the room pretty dark.” Sarah loved the huge windows and natural light, but “it looked as if it hadn’t been updated in a long time,” she says.
First, the bones of the kitchen got some TLC.
First, she and her dad installed parquet floors — something that makes Sarah feel “calm and safe,” as she had the herringbone pattern in her childhood home. The father-daughter duo actually salvaged the flooring from the garbage of an old school and refinished them. “This project took months — cleaning the old parquet tiles, laying them, sanding, filling, and varnishing them,” Sarah says.
Sarah also chose to close up one window between the kitchen and living room and reconfigure the layout a bit so the refrigerator would go on that wall and they could extend the cabinets. “I know a lot of people will be worried about losing light, but it was just more practical,” Sarah says.
The counters, backsplash, and cabinets got a makeover.
She and her dad took a hiatus after the painstaking process of refinishing the floors, but after a couple months they worked on the counters, backsplash, and cabinets. They removed the old tiles from the backsplash and added a new stone counter and backsplash, which was the biggest splurge — and surprise — of the project because Sarah was surprised by her dad’s DIY skills.
The kitchen cabinets are painted yellow (Farrow & Ball’s Babouche) and pink (Farrow & Ball’s Nancy’s Blushes and Cinder Rose). They also used Blue Ground for the door and radiator.
Sarah says the white upper cabinets provide a nice balance to all the color. They “just sit back in your eye and aren’t as prominent,” she says.
The dining set and doors also provide a pop of color.
In hindsight, she says, she might choose a color other than purple for vinyl-wrapping her fridge. “The dark purple doesn’t feel right to me,” she says. “I love the yellow stripes, though.”
A couple of other pops of color Sarah loves in her new kitchen? The rod of colorful cooking utensils, the vinyl added to the glass doors that “create gorgeous colorful shadows throughout the day,” and the dining set. The table belonged to her parents, and the chairs were thrifted.
“Initially they were black and brown, which just didn’t work,” she says of the table and chairs. She created her own custom paint colors by mixing Jacquard Neopaque paints and painted over the faux leather. “This is what really finished off the kitchen,” Sarah says.
If you love multicolor kitchen refreshes, check out this maximalist kitchen that also uses yellow cabinetry stunningly.
Inspired? Submit your own project here.