Kitchens are the most expensive room in the house to get wrong.
Cookers, fridges, worktops, that's daunting enough. Then you reach the cabinet doors and the finishes and the handles, and suddenly you're standing in a showroom holding fourteen samples, quietly panicking about committing several thousand pounds to a colour you might hate in a year.
I've been there. So here's how I'd approach it, starting with the reversible decisions, because the reversible decisions are where most of the joy is anyway.
Plan properly before you commit to anything
Get physical samples. Screens lie about colour, and they lie badly. Order sample door fronts, worktop offcuts and flooring pieces, then live with them. Look at them in morning light and again under the kitchen lights at nine at night. A green that sings at 10am can go distinctly swampy after dark.
Make a mood board. I use them for everything, new design collections, product shoots, colour schemes, my own rooms. I once made one to plan the children's playhouse. Being a designer I can usually picture what I want, but a mood board is what tells me whether it actually works, which is a different question.
Use Pinterest properly. Not just for pretty pictures, you can search kitchen floor plans, which is genuinely useful for working out how to use an awkward space before anyone quotes you for anything.
If you are choosing units
Deep blues and greens have had a long run and show no sign of tiring, navy, midnight, forest and sage all work in both shaker and flat-fronted styles.
Brass and gold hardware looks superb against those darker tones. Taps and handles now come in coordinating ranges, contemporary or traditional, which makes getting a consistent look far easier than it used to be.
Two-tone schemes are a good hedge. Natural timber is still very much in favour, and pairing it with one bold colour, coloured base units, timber uppers, or a painted island against a wood run, gives you personality without committing the entire room.
Black kitchens are the brave option, and genuinely elegant with the right lighting. They need warmth from somewhere: timber, brass, and accessories doing real work.
Or just paint the ones you have. Cabinet paints have improved enormously and the colour ranges are excellent. A weekend, a hundred pounds of paint and some new handles will transform a dated kitchen for a fraction of a replacement.
And don't forget the fifth surface. Patterned floor or splashback tiles are often the single biggest personality injection in a kitchen and a splashback is a small enough area to be bold in.
The cheaper, braver route: accessories
Here's the thing about kitchen colour. The units are the expensive, permanent, terrifying decision and they're not actually where most of the colour in a beautiful kitchen comes from.
Look closely at any kitchen you've admired on Instagram and you'll usually find the cabinets are one or two calm colours, and everything vivid is a thing sitting on a surface. Boards, cloths, ceramics, plants, fruit.
That's brilliant news, because those things cost tens of pounds rather than thousands, and you can change your mind next month.
Our designs are built to do exactly this job:
Cherry Blossom and Vivid Garden Blooms sit beautifully against dark blues and greens, hot pinks and corals lifting a deep, moody cabinet colour.
Chica Camellia and Bold Blooms work hard in a paler or timber kitchen where the colour needs to come from somewhere.
Wild Cat is the one for people who've gone black or charcoal and need something with attitude.
Where to put it: tea towels over the oven rail, placemats and coasters on the table, an apron on the back of the door, oven gloves and a trivet that earn their keep, a bone china mug next to the kettle.
Boards as objects, not just equipment
Boards are usually treated as pure function, plain oiled wood or scratched plastic, kept in a cupboard, brought out under duress.
Ours are designed to be left out. A eucalyptus core with a melamine surface, heatproof to 160°C, stain and scratch resistant, and printed with my illustrations in full colour.
Propped against a splashback, they read as artwork. Laid on a worktop, they're the thing your guests comment on before they've taken their coats off. And they're doing something useful the whole time, a cheese board, a grazing board, somewhere to put a hot pan, or the landing spot for the gin and tonic on a Friday.
Browse the board collection, or the larger serving platters if you're feeding a crowd. If you want something to genuinely chop on, our glass worktop savers are non-slip, knife-friendly and dishwasher safe.
Three quick styling rules
Repeat a colour three times. One hit of coral reads as an accident. Three, spaced around the room, reads as a scheme. A board, a tea towel and a mug will do it.
Odd numbers, varied heights. Group things in threes and fives, at different heights. It's the oldest trick in styling and it works every time.
Leave some empty worktop. Colour needs space around it to land. A kitchen where every surface is covered doesn't read as colourful, it reads as busy.
Made in Britain
Our boards, placemats and coasters are made in the UK from sustainably forested eucalyptus board with cork backing farmed in Portugal. Our tea towels, aprons and oven gloves are handmade in the UK by a family business using 100% cotton panama and Oeko-Tex Standard 100 certified inks, vibrant, hard-wearing, and free from harmful substances.
There's a great deal more detail on all of this, including what our manufacturers do with their offcuts, and the things we haven't managed to solve yet, on our how we make things blog post.
Where to start
If you're planning a kitchen, start with samples and a mood board, and take longer over it than feels necessary.
If you're stuck with a kitchen you didn't choose, start with a tea towel and a board. It costs very little, it takes ten minutes, and it will tell you more about what colours you actually want to live with than a month of scrolling.
Browse the kitchen collection →
Michelle x
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Frequently asked questions
How can I add colour to my kitchen cheaply? Accessories do most of the work for a fraction of the cost: tea towels, placemats, coasters, boards, mugs and a trivet or two. Repainting existing cabinet doors is the next step up, a weekend's work and roughly a hundred pounds of paint.
What colours are popular for kitchen cabinets? Deep blues and greens continue to dominate, often paired with brass or gold hardware. Two-tone schemes combining natural timber with one bold colour remain a popular way to add personality without committing the whole room. Black kitchens are increasingly common for the bolder.
How do I add colour to a rented kitchen? Nothing permanent required. Textiles, boards, ceramics and open-shelf styling will transform a magnolia rental kitchen, and all of it moves house with you.
Are melamine boards heat resistant? Ours withstand temperatures up to 160°C, so hot pans and dishes are no problem. They're wipe-clean only, not dishwasher safe, and never microwave them.
What is panama cotton? A 100% cotton fabric with a basketweave structure, absorbent, hard-wearing and excellent for printing on, which is why we use it for our tea towels and aprons.
Where are your kitchen accessories made? In the UK. Our melamine range and our textiles are both British-made.