People spend almost an hour of each day in the kitchen, so it stands to reason we’d want the room to feel homier.
Whether you want your kitchen to feel like a cozy cottage or a bohemian retreat, wooden furniture and cabinets are the way to go.
But with so many wood stain colors to choose from, how do you go about narrowing down your kitchen’s color scheme?
Here are some tips to help you choose the right stain so your kitchen becomes your favorite room in the house.
Wood Stain 101
Finish, varnish, stain, and dyes – the world of wood treatment can be a confusing one. When choosing your wood stain colors, you’ll want to know exactly what you’re using.
Wood stain, unlike varnish, soaks into the grain of the wood to provide a decorative finish. It can also help preserve the wood. There are many types of wood stain but all darken or color the wood.
Which brings us to our cabinet coloring tips.
Mix, Don’t Match
Design style leaders, like GH Wood Design, recommend diversity when it comes to wood. Mixing colors, wood grains, textures, and stains throughout a room will keep your kitchen from feeling dull and boring.
Just make sure you know when to stay consistent! Designers agree that wall cabinets should match the finish of your ceiling moldings.
That Goes for the Cabinets Too!
Don’t be afraid to stain your wall cabinets differently to your base cabinets! Style leaders recommend contrasting your base and wall cabinets, so dark for one and light for the other.
Just make sure to break up the trend of your upper cabinets with different counter-tops or kitchen island wood.
Contrast Is Key
Contrast isn’t just for cabinets, either! If you choose a dark stain for your cabinets, make your floor lighter. With light stained cabinets, go the other way around.
Contrasting the wood stains throughout your kitchen keeps the mix looking deliberate, rather than giving the impression you ran out of one sort of stain and needed to scramble.
Design in Terms of Temperature
Wood textures add warmth to a space while block colors can be used to open it up. Choose your approach based on how you’d like the room to feel.
Also, remember that darker colors tend to instill a more cozy feel. Light colors, on the other hand, lend an area a cooler, more open appearance. If you have a particularly small kitchen, using lighter stain colors can be a great way to give the illusion of more space.
Sometimes No Stain Is Best
Sometimes you want your wood grain to speak for itself. When you have particularly interesting wood, a finish of oil and wax will often be enough to protect from ware while highlighting the wood’s natural character.
Just remember to work with the wood you have. The more porous it is, the tougher your job will be. Maple, cherry, or birch woods are perfect for an oil finish as they have tighter grains, and so the oil won’t absorb too deep.
Don’t Stress Your Wood Stain Colors
Wood is a designer’s ace up their sleeve. It’s one of the most versatile materials and can be matched with all manner of surfaces.
So don’t get too stressed out when trying to pair your wood stain colors.
Now that you’ve made your kitchen a home inside your home, why not extend the feeling to the rest of the house? Here are 5 simple home comfort ideas your family will love.
