What Color Goes With Light Grey Kitchen Cabinets

• Grey room ideas

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In the past, there may have been more of an all-or-nothing approach to colour in the kitchen. Today's palette is more restrained, with grey kitchen ideas proving a major hit. Tone is important, probably even more so within the grey family where warmer greys create a different feel from blue-based shades of slate, for example.

When it comes to kitchen ideas in shades of grey, consider every surface, from walls to worktops and everything in between. For subtle contrast, two different shades of the same calm colour tend to work better on cabinetry than three or four, which can look like a design mistake.

An island painted in a deeper or contrasting colour to that of the wall cabinets will make it a focal point in your grey kitchen.

Base cabinets in darker shades than wall cupboards enhance the design and prevent it looking top heavy. For stronger, contrasting kitchen colour schemes, think light and dark, or two bold greys of the same 'weight' and balance. Too much heavy colour can make a room feel smaller, so you may want to balance things with a neutral floor and walls.

For balance, clever kitchen lighting is all-important in a grey kitchen. Delivering the right level of brightness and warmth as and where you need it.

Grey kitchen ideas to inspire

1. Blend contemporary designs

Image credit: Harvey Jones

Create a sophisticated grey kitchen by mixing contemporary design materials across cabinets, worktops and flooring, seen here in this grey and white kitchen. Combining different materials adds interest to the space, allowing the design to reflect the character of the rest of the house.

Streamlined matte grey cabinets welcome a throughly modern vibe in this white kitchen idea, while the natural wood worktop helps to ground the look, and stop it from feeling too stark. It's all about balance.

Expert advice for mixing materials comes from Melissa Klink from Harvey Jones.

'A wooden worktop adds warmth in a kitchen, but it is a soft material which can become scratched or scorched during wood preparation. Confine the use of wood to soft-use areas, such as breakfast bars for eating or entertaining. Use a harder surface which is easy to clean, such as  granite or quartz composite, for food prep areas.'

2. Frame grey units with brass detail

Image credit: Matthew Williams

The devil, they say, is in the detail. But we find this subtle use of brass to edge these deep grey units positively heavenly. It's a great way to bring extra glamour to existing cabinetry. Or to make new off-the-shelf furniture look a whole lot more expensive. Coordinating kitchen lighting ideas up the ante even further.

3. Unite an open-plan living area

Image credit: Brent Darby

Choose a warming shade of grey to make an open-plan kitchen and living area feel like a comforting haven. Use the same rich tone of grey throughout, from kitchen cabinetry to the paint colour on the walls of the living area to unite the spaces, making them feel like one.

Enhance the warmth by using natural wood worktops, flooring and accessories. Textured fabrics with a tactile quality will help to add depth and a sense of cosiness to the open-plan elements.

4. Team grey with light-coloured wood for Scandi-style

Image credit: Colin Poole

To emulate the effortlessly stylish ethos of Scandi design in your grey space, look to incorporate wood or wood effects. In this Scandi kitchen idea, on-trend grey base cabinets paired with open shelving showcases the natural material to perfection, creating an understated air of sophistication. Consider stripped-back wood for flooring, dining tables and worktops, as well as shelving.

'Look to light coloured wood like beech or ash if your budget allows,' suggests Hayley Simmons, Head of Merchandising for Magnet. 'Avoid stained or varnished woods for countertops as the raw, natural, untreated looks is much more in keeping with Scandinavian style.'

5. Match your paint shades

Image credit: David Giles

Create a uniformed look by matching the paint colour on the walls to the chosen grey shade on the cabinets. This helps to seamlessly blend one into the other, helping to create the illusion of a bigger space.

This is an especially useful technique if you're looking for small galley kitchen ideas. With paint matching services, and many kitchen fitters even making their own paint range this look has never been easier to achieve.

6. Introduce a colour match for all work surfaces

Image credit: AluSplash

If you're looking for a matching grey colour scheme, choose one tone to incorporate throughout all of the work surfaces. To keep the look unified choose the same finish for all surfaces, so if the paint finish is matte choose the same for the floor tiles and the splashback.

This new matte splashback features a coarse finish that forms the surface of the Smoked Ember panel, ideal for complementing natural finishes and enhancing a soothingly soft colour palette.

Keeping the walls painted white helps to highlight the grey choices on the furniture and flooring. Finish the look off perfectly with a statement butler sink and wicker accessories.

7. Work the pastel trend with a grey backdrop

Image credit: Dulux

Last on-trend in the early noughties, pastels have been reworked for 2021 with a new emphasis on sherbet oranges, violet whites, peaches and muted greens.

And the best backdrop to these mouthwatering array of colours? Grey – in this case Misty Mirror by Dulux, paired with Tranquil Dawn cabinets. A change of wall colour can transform every other element of a kitchen design.

8. Add interest with a feature wall

Image credit: David Parmiter

Add interest and character with a feature wall that mimics the grey colour scheme. Shaker-style units in an easy-going mushroom hue keep the look light and fresh. Original Victorian wooden flooring adds warmth, and a woodland-inspired feature wall for the dining area gives this space depth and detail.

Wallpaper can work well in a kitchen. Go for a dramatic design to create a feature wall. Although the pattern is bold, the colour is a subtle grey, which brings tranquility to a large, open-plan room like this.

Bright wallpaper is a great choice if you're looking for ways to add colour to an all white kitchen, too.

9. Echo grey elements of stainless steel

Image credit: Darren Chung

Enhance the natural tones of stainless steel. The brushed-chrome finish offers as close a colour match as you'll get within the grey colour palette. Encase an industrial-style sink with tonal cabinetry to present a uniformed finish. Go one step further by adding matching taps and fittings, even industrial-style pendants to tie the cohesive scheme together.

10. Mix materials and finishes

Image credit: David Sill

With an increasing trend for championing natural materials in our homes, designers are looking for more and more creative ways to incorporate wood into their kitchen designs.

This example is a perfect partnership of contemporary high-gloss cabinets alongside natural-look wood worktop and splashback. The contrast creates a harmonious blend of modern design with the warmth and grounding ethos of wood.

11. Brighten an outlook with a splash of yellow

Image credit: Robert Sanderson

What brightens up a cloudy day? A little bit of sunshine, of course! The same can happen in a deep grey kitchen.

This yellow glass splashback beside the window is a smart colourful kitchen design idea, as it sits ready to attract the light and shine a warming glow onto the surrounding space. Yellow works brilliantly, thanks to its association with sunshine, but you could use any bright colour to create the same effect.

12. Balance the light with darker hues

Image credit: Chris Snook

Go for stylish and sophisticated with dark design choices. Feel emboldened to use brooding dark greys and walnut wood by getting the balance right with lighter tones.

Keeping the walls white will allow the light to fill the space more freely. Teaming a white tiled splashback and a light grey herringbone floor adds the perfect fashionable finishing touches that won't date thanks to the muted colours.

13. Create the perfect grounding with concrete

Image credit: James French

Draw on the natural grey tone of concrete to create a contemporary, authentic grey scheme. Start from the floor up, tailor your kitchen to create a vision in grey.

Polished concrete flooring has become increasingly popular in recent years with the rise of open-plan living. The look can be easily achieved now thanks to a luxury vinyl to save on the expense of having your flooring professionally tailored.

The beauty of vinyl over the real thing is the maintenance. Faux flooring measures are more durable and easier to clean than the real thing because the material is less porous and harder to mark. Which can't be a bad thing in a busy kitchen?!

14. Embrace exposed brick for an industrial look

Image credit: Magnet, Tribeca kitchen in Graphite, starting from £3,136

The kitchen trend for industrial style remains hugely popular. Grey is the perfect shade to help achieve the look, because it's not too far removed from industrial steel.

This contemporary look is characterised by raw materials like exposed brick, natural wood and metal paired with rich greys and urban-style accessories like prominent metal pendants and matte black bar stools. The mix of dark grey tones and textures creates a sophisticated industrial finish.

15. Say yes to Shaker units

Image credit: David Giles

Want a kitchen that looks both sleek and stylish? Then bespoke Shaker units could be just what you're looking for. And this design doesn't have to be traditional, as this Shaker-style kitchen idea proves. While handleless is all the rage, we think these stylish copper handles add wow factor here. White metro tiles also help set off this striking look.

16. Add natural vibrancy to grey with accents of green

Image credit: Lizzie Orme

There's no danger of this grey kitchen looking gloomy thanks to an injection of forest green. The splashback tiles are a smart green kitchen idea, especially when complemented by real-life greenery in the form of succulents and fresh herbs. Leather handles are a smart finishing touch that makes the off-the-shelf units look high-end.

17. Welcome warmth with wood furnishings

Image credit: Lizzie Orme

Grey has a reputation for being a cool and clinical colour but by mixing in some wood, you can create a positively warm and cosy look. The trick is to find the right shade, and mix in the right tone of timber.

In this grey kitchen idea, almost purple-grey units have been teamed with a chunky pale oak worktop and knotted floorboards to harmonious effect. If you wanted something that works with a darker, charcoal grey, you could try a deeper walnut.

18. Layer tones of grey

Image credit: Tom Howley

Using various layers of grey shades to pick out individual elements of the room creates a cohesive feel in this modern kitchen idea. The walls and island are painted a dark, slate grey, the cabinetry is a softer shade, and darker flecks in the marble of the work surface and splashback prove an effortless transition between light and dark.

Keeping the rest of the scheme light keeps the room feeling airy despite the abundance of dark grey.

19. Smarten up compact kitchens with colour

Grey kitchens | Kitchen | PHOTO GALLERY | Beautiful Kitchens | Housetohome.co.uk

In a smaller space, some might worry that grey will prove an oppressive choice, especially darker shades, but this well-ordered kitchen shows that doesn't have to be the case.

Using the same dark shade on the lengthways run of cabinetry, sink area, upstand, kickplate, stool and lighting is a cohesive, eye-catching choice, and the pale shade of grey used throughout the rest of the scheme keeps the look airy.

20. Add grey shelving for a casually cohesive look

Image credit: Lizzie Orme

We love these smart grey kitchen units but using them on the walls, too, might have been a step too far. Instead, this simple grey kitchen shelving idea makes for more casual – even rustic – storage that doesn't make the room seem too dark. Marble worktops, a Belfast sink and worktop-to-ceiling metro tiles in bright white further lighten the mood.

21. Choose French Grey for a rustic scheme

Image credit: Philip Lauterbach

Grey is just about the most flexible colour for a kitchen. In charcoal, it can feel very modern, but opt for a French grey like in the small kitchen idea shown above and you're immediately transported to the Gallic countryside. Even if you do live in Grimsby.

A soothing green-grey, French grey takes its name from the shade heavily featured in French design and wallpapers from the 19th century. It's as popular now as it was then thanks to its unique soothing quality, which makes it perfectly suited to relaxed rustic kitchen-diners like this one.

If you're going to introduce a few different colours in accessories, it's best you keep to one single tone for the backdrop so make sure your splashback, cabinets and flooring all match. Otherwise the overall effect will be less stylish and more shambles.

22. Throw in pops of bright yellow

Image credit: David Merewether

Add highlights to brighten up the grey in the form of an accent colour. Here, bold yellow Tolix-style stools along with matching flex cord on the lights and accessories inject energy and fun. Notice, too, how the interior door has been painted in a very dark grey to match the window frames for a more cohesive look.

23. Go white on the walls

Image credit: Lizzie Orme

Deep grey base units make this kitchen feel very grown up. But to keep the scheme bright and airy, off-white units have been used above and the walls have been painted in a brighter white shade so that they blend in. We said earlier that a darker walnut timber works well with charcoal grey, and here's the proof.

24. Tiny kitchen? Pick pale grey and add reflective surfaces

Image credit: Lizzie Orme

Dark grey units may have been too much in this diddy kitchenette, but a soft grey works well. The cabinetry is complemented by stainless-steel accessories including a sink, appliances and kickboards, which also help to reflect light around the small space. It goes to show that grey doesn't have to mean gloomy.

25. Add copper accents to warm a mid grey

Image credit: Paul Massey

Copper is very on trend right now and it makes the perfect foil for a pale grey space, bringing out the pinky hues and feminising what could be a very austere space. Use it for lighting, pans and, if your budget can stretch to one, a bronze or copper range cooker like this one from Mercury.

26. Trim with timber

Image credit: Darren Chung

Temper all-grey units with a wood trim to give a clean, warm edge. Take it a step further by introducing matching wood wall cabinets. Give your scheme a cool, New York loft vibe with ever-popular metro tiles.

27. Go dark and dramatic

Image credit: Paul Raeside

For true drama, go for a really dark shade of grey or even consider black kitchen ideas. This charcoal vignette gives the open plan area a sophisticated, sexy air, disappearing when not wanted, while still being no-nonsense, functional and capable of being put to hard work.

28. Incorporate a contrasting colour splashback

Image credit: Lizzie Orme

Add a punchy accent colour by way of a statement splashback. This can be tiled or glass, depending on the look you're after. In the high-gloss grey kitchen idea shown above, a fabulous fuchsia pink splashback adds a vibrant hit of colour. The chosen accent colour is accentuated further by stark white walls as a contrast.

29. Dare to pair pink walls as a backdrop to grey units

Image credit: Colin Poole

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This pink kitchen idea isn't a look for the faint hearted, but if you LOVE pink, it's a winning combo. Rosy copper handles and utensils, together with wooden furniture, help blend the cool of the grey with the warmth of the candy-coloured walls.

 30. Team glossy grey with striking blue

Image credit: David Giles

Finding an accent colour to go with a mid grey like this can be tricky but this teal works perfectly. An expanse of glass splashback mimics the glossy finish of the slab-style doors for a look that's very clean, modern and practical.

What colour goes best with grey kitchens?

When choosing an accent colour or a mixed palette for your grey kitchen, it's wise to follow the trusted colour theory. 'Either select complementary colours, which are next to each other on a colour wheel, or contrasting shades from opposite sides of the wheel,' says David Mottershead, MD at Little Greene.

'Contrasting colours are energising, while complementary colours are calming.' Soft, pale greys tend to work well in small kitchens but larger spaces may need some sections of bolder colour to prevent the scheme looking bland and wishy-washy. We like pairing pale greys with deep navy kitchen ideas, or even a shot of fuchsia pink.

How do you add warmth to a grey kitchen?

It's all about the right shade. Warmer tones on the grey scale create a different feel from blue-based shades of slate. So if you're looking to add warmth, start with the right shade – that goes for paint, cabinets and flooring.

Elements of natural timber will add warmth to cooler grey kitchens, and equally a grey-white natural stone floor can cool down a fiery palette. As in nature, earthy browns, greys and sand colours blend harmoniously. Cool greys paired with stainless steel and brightly coloured accents, such as small appliances, splashbacks and barstools, will help lift the mood.

The right lighting is key to making the colour scheme feel warm and inviting. Opt for warm bulbs rather than cooler white tones, to avoid making your chosen shade of grey feel cold. Pair overhead lighting with plenty of task lighting to add pools of warming light.

So there you have it. Proof that grey is one of the most stylish shades going, and can look great in any style of kitchen. Which look is your favourite from our pick of the best grey kitchen ideas?

What Color Goes With Light Grey Kitchen Cabinets

Source: https://www.idealhome.co.uk/kitchen/kitchen-ideas/grey-kitchen-ideas-197627

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