Choosing Paint Colours and Finishes for your Kitchen
The kitchen is often the heart of the family home. A place you can utilise colour to create a vibrant, inspiring space to enjoy spending time in.
Be bold with dark shades or produce a simple, neutral scheme with a highlight of colour to reflect your personal style. To add texture and pattern, use wallpaper to create a welcoming space for dining and entertaining.
Our range of Intelligent finishes provide a durable, beautiful effect for walls and woodwork, including kitchen cabinets. Our paints have been specially formulated to withstand busy family life, little hands and even pets.
How should I choose a kitchen paint colour?
Consider existing colours
When choosing the best paint for your kitchen, try to decide what sort of style you are looking to achieve, taking into consideration colours that already exist within the space. Surfaces, tiles, flooring and artwork are all elements that should be included as colours within your palette.
If there are any architectural features or areas of interest within the kitchen that you would like to draw attention to, consider using colour to highlight these.
Sample colours in situ
When beginning your decorating project, take time to research schemes that you would like to recreate and browse images on Pinterest or in magazines for inspiration. Consider how the space, orientation and light in the room will affect the colour.
Order sample pots of your selected shades and paint out large swatches onto Letter size pieces of paper. Place them on different walls around the kitchen throughout the day to see the impact of varying natural light on the colour.
Order sample potsWhich paint finish is right for my kitchen?
When selecting a paint sheen for your kitchen, you can choose from a range of sheen levels to create your desired look.
| Suitable Finishes for... | Recommended Finishes | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| Kitchen Walls |
Our Intelligent Paints are completely washable. Perfect for busy family kitchens. |
|
| Kitchen Units & Woodwork |
Eggshell paint is designed to resist moisture and staining. Perfect for protecting your woodwork whilst maintaining complete scrubbability. |
|
| Kitchen Floors |
Floor paint is exceptionally durable, with an attractive mid-sheen finish. An easy yet dramatic way to change the feel of a room. |
Intelligent paints for your kitchen
Our Intelligent Paints are breakthrough water-based paints which are quick and easy to apply. They are completely washable and can be used with utmost confidence on most surfaces including plaster, woodwork and radiators.
Our Intelligent Paints are also certified as ‘Child Safe’ so they are completely safe to use in all areas of the family home.
With their Intelligent Grip™ technology, Intelligent Matt, Eggshell, Satin and Gloss are self-priming, so they can be applied to almost any surface without the need for a separate primer or undercoat.
Intelligent Grip™ means these finishes can be applied directly to plaster, woodwork, concrete, glass, uPVC, brick, ceramic tiles, aged water and oil-based paints, melamine and all metals.
Intelligent Eggshell
Intelligent Eggshell is our most highly recommended paint finish for kitchen cabinets and most other areas in your kitchen. Formulated to resist moisture, staining and general wear and tear, Intelligent Eggshell paint has a tough yet subtle finish. This makes it the perfect water-based finish for woodwork and both kitchen and bathroom walls.
Use this quick drying, low sheen finish for walls in the splash zone and any woodwork, including kitchen cupboards. It has a low-sheen level of 10-15% and is available in the full Little Greene colour palette.
Door, Shelf and box shelf: Dark Lead Colour
Bottom wall: Blush
Above shelf: Gauze – Dark
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Intelligent Gloss
For a high shine gloss finish, Intelligent Gloss is a quick drying alternative to oil-based gloss. It is ideal for use on interior woodwork in rooms that require frequent cleaning.
Choose this paint finish, instead of Intelligent Eggshell, if you prefer the extra contrast of a glossier finish. This 87-90% high gloss paint is available in all Little Greene shades.
Wallpaper: Hencroft – Blue Primula
Door and Baseboards: Grey Stone
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Intelligent Matt Emulsion
A totally matte, yet completely washable, alternative to a traditional emulsion paint is the best paint finish for kitchen walls. Intelligent Matt Emulsion is perfect for busy kitchens or high traffic areas, particularly on walls and ceilings.
The finish has an extremely low gloss level of 2%, providing a beautifully flat finish for a sophisticated kitchen scheme.
Wall (main): Dash of Soot, Pale Lupin
Baseboards: Yellow-Pink
Chair: Mister David
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Intelligent Satin
Supremely hard-wearing, Intelligent Satin is the ideal candidate for everyday household surfaces that are subjected to the wear and tear of daily life: walls, woodwork, kitchen cabinets, kitchen tiles, melamine, wooden furniture and glass.
Intelligent Satin is extensively used, and revered, by professional decorators and bespoke painted kitchen manufacturers.
Colour: Garden
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Intelligent Floor Paint
For wooden or concrete floors, our Intelligent Floor Paint (also oil-based) is one of the hardest wearing paints available for domestic use. Like all our finishes, Floor Paint is available in the full spectrum of Little Greene colours.
Walls: Vulcan
Window Sill, Bath and Floor: Livid
Find out moreHow should I prepare my kitchen cabinets for painting?
Intelligent Satin is the ideal paint for kitchen cabinets and woodwork. Intelligent Satin is extremely hard-wearing and has been designed to withstand knocks and daily use. It is also washable and low odour, with a sheen level of 30-35%. For a lower sheen level, our Intelligent Eggshell finish also works well on wooden kitchen cabinets.
Previously Painted Cabinets
- When painting kitchen cabinets that are already painted, you should remove all loose and flaking paintwork. Then degrease the surface with a suitable detergent solution, like sugar soap, followed by rinsing with clean water.
- Rub the existing surface down thoroughly, using a medium grade sandpaper to provide a key for the new finish. Make good any repairs or surface imperfections, sand and apply a primer to the exposed surface.
- If you are using one of our self-priming, Intelligent Grip™ finishes, apply two coats of your chosen finish.
Bare Wood Cabinets
- For cabinets made of soft wood, any knots should be sealed with knotting compound to prevent staining. The surfaces then need to be primed. Use Intelligent ASP on all surfaces before using an oil or water-based top coat.
- If the doors are made of resinous hardwood, you should first treat the substrate with an aluminum wood primer. Use this primer before applying an undercoat and two coats of your chosen finish.
You can find out more information on all of our finishes, including surface preparation and technical data, on our detailed Product Data Sheets.
Three inspiring kitchens
Tea with Florence Kitchen
1. Combine complementary green shades for a vibrant, contemporary finish.
Pair Harley Green and Tea with Florence for a subtle contrast that is perfect alongside light wooden furniture and gold finishings.
Aquamarine Kitchen
2. Use one of the Colour Scales families to create a balanced, harmonious scheme.
Four different shades are produced using varying strengths of the same pigment which can be used in combination for a fully coordinated finish.
The Aquamarine family are a classic blend of blue green which bring a gentle coolness and tranquillity to a room.
Here, the use of Livid on the door frame adds balance and grounds the scheme.
Briar Rose Kitchen
3. Add colour and texture to a neutral kitchen scheme by combining paint and wallpaper.
Briar Rose - Green Stone is accompanied by units in Book Room Green and the related Green Stone shades on the walls for a neutral tonal scheme.
Little Greene wallpapers are spongeable, to maintain a clean kitchen without damaging the print.
For more inspiration, browse our image gallery. If you’re struggling with selecting shades or concerned about colour combinations, Little Greene Colour Consultancy will help you decorate your home with confidence. Our professionally trained consultants will guide you through choosing the best colours, finishes and wallpapers to bring beauty and personality to your home décor.