Why Two Toned Kitchen Cabinets Make Such A Great Design Statement

The kitchen is one of the most important rooms in your house. Beyond just a place to keep your food and cook, it’s normal to have the room be one of the centers of your home – a place to entertain, enjoy meals together, do homework, and more. The design of this room goes a long way to establishing the overall ‘feel’ and style of your house, especially on the ground floor.

Cabinets are a huge piece of your kitchen design. Because they occupy so much visual space, the colour and style of your cabinets demand some serious thought. Cabinets are also very important for keeping your kitchen functional, particularly for organizing a small kitchen. Styles like floor to ceiling cabinets are a great way to make a statement while helping you keep things tidy.

If you’re looking for a bold new design style for your cabinets, going two toned can be a great choice! This post will cover some of the best advantages of going two toned and some great toned kitchen cabinet ideas.

Why Homeowners Opt For Two Toned Kitchen Cabinets

In 2022 and into 2023, homeowners are increasingly opting for two toned kitchen cabinets. The most popular reason – is to break out of the mould! While monotone white kitchens have been staples for years, many designers are beginning to feel that the look has become tired and have started making some bolder choices.

Two toned kitchen cabinets are a great way to break up the monotony without going overboard. Depending on your choices, you can either add just a splash of colour – or opt for something louder! When you consider all of the different ways to match your wall cabinets, pantries, and kitchen island, you’ll find you have a lot more freedom to be creative than you do with just one colour.

How To Choose The Right Colour Combination

When homeowners are considering adopting two-tone cabinets, some can feel stuck at which colour combination to pick. While there’s technically no wrong answer, you can follow these tips below to make picking a great colour combination easier:

• Balance: Make sure that your pair of colours balance one another. A vibrant green or blue should be offset with a more neutral colour choice. However, sometimes opposites can mesh well together too – remember the classic black and white.
• Higher/Lower: Another way of balancing your colour choices is to paint your upper cabinets a lighter shade and your lower cabinets a darker one.
• When In Doubt, Check The Colour Wheel: There’s a reason why people hire kitchen designers, and that’s partly because picking colours can be tricky! If you’re in doubt about your choices, try consulting the colour wheel – remember that adjacent and opposite colours on the wheel are considered complementary.

Reasons Why Two Toned Kitchen Cabinets Are A Great Choice

In our list below, check out seven reasons why two-tone kitchen cabinets can be a great choice for your space. Each one of these reasons should provide you with inspiration for your own kitchen!

1. Play On Patterns As Well As Colours

If you feel that your kitchen would look better with just one colour, you can still capture some of the styles of two toned kitchens by varying the patterns of your design surfaces.

Without introducing a new colour, you can vary the pattern on your upper and lower cabinets, or on different surfaces – a new pattern on your pantries, for instance, or on your island cabinets. By breaking up your surfaces like this, you’ll produce a similar effect on the eye as you would get from a two-tone design. A similar strategy is to vary the materials on different parts of your cabinetry – an easy way to do this is with some glass doors.

2. Black And White

Black and white is a classic colour combination and of the most popular two-tone variations.  A great way to do this is to colour your upper cabinets white and your lower cabinetry black. For best results, keep other big surfaces in your kitchen (like the walls, ceiling, and large cabinets like pantries) white as well. This is a great way to create a more spacious, open feeling, especially in a small kitchen. You can also experiment with a black-and-white pattern on your kitchen floor to complete the effect.

3. Create A Focal Point

Creative use of colour can be a great way to draw the eye and create a strong focal point in your space. If you have a kitchen island, consider adopting a two-tone scheme where your island cabinets have one colour and your other cabinets have another. This will create a strong center for the eye and can help draw the different pieces of a large kitchen together.

4. Switch Things Up

A common two-tone palette choice is to pair white with another dark hue. Normally, the lower cabinets would be painted in a darker colour and the upper ones in white. If you pair white with another, bolder, colour, it can be a great idea to switch things up and paint your upper cabinets in your brighter colour and leave the lower ones white. This will naturally draw the gaze upwards and will look great in the right kitchens.

5. Play With Stainless Steel

For those not interested in another colour besides white, adding stainless steel can be a great choice. The combination of white and stainless effortlessly creates a modern, sleek look. For serious home cooks, this is a great way to create the feeling of a professional dream kitchen in your own home.

6. Make It Pop

If you want to incorporate a bright, bold colour into your two-tone scheme without being overwhelming, try a more subdued two-colour scheme. Pick just a few cabinets – maybe just your wall cabinets or your island – and add a dash of colour to some features while keeping your more neutral colour in most of your kitchen.

You can even switch to a tri-colour scheme if you want more flexibility – for example, you can pair white, a soft pastel red, and a bolder red to really make your look pop in a subtle way.

7. Blue Skies

If you ever feel on edge in your kitchen, a more soothing colour scheme can help. A two-tone blue and white kitchen scheme can create a fresh, idyllic feeling while looking stylish at the same time. Besides black and white, this is one of the most classic two-tone schemes – think about whether blue upper or lower cabinets would suit your space best.

Summary

We hope that you got a lot out of our guide to two toned kitchen cabinets! Whether you want to make a big splash or just make things a little more exciting, experimenting with these colour schemes can be a great choice. In closing, here are some of our top tips for exploring two toned kitchen cabinets:

• Contrast is Key: The best schemes usually combine a stronger colour with a more muted one. Black and white is a classic combination, but blue and white and many others are popular. Experiment with whether the upper or lower cabinetry would look better painted in the bolder shade.
• It’s Not Just Colour: If you can’t find a second colour that you like, don’t forget that you can also match it with a different material (such as stainless steel) or even with a different pattern on your cabinet doors.
• Let Your Imagination Run Wild: As you can see from our post, there are tons of ways to play with a two-tone scheme! Brainstorm and see what you can come up with for your space.