19 Great Kitchen Cabinet Ideas
Because they play such a big role in terms of the way a kitchen looks and functions, it's important to make thoughtful decisions about them—from the materials and colors to the scale and layout. Whether you're looking to build some colorful cabinets or want to install a clever, hidden storage system, these examples will inspire you before embarking on your kitchen remodel.
1. Get playful with a family of colors
Go bold by painting your cabinet doors different colors. In this Tennessee home, laminate kitchen cabinets in three shades of blue and a Corian top in Glacier White completes a fun and modern composition.
Try using the same finish on your kitchen cabinets, walls, and ceiling. This creates an effect that allows everything to blend in seamlessly with the rest of the home. Case in point: this home employs a consistent wood palette.
If you don't like handles sticking out from your cabinet doors, one clever idea is to have a hole drilled near the top of the cabinet door so that you can stick you finger in and pull the door open. These orange-painted MDF cabinets in a New Zealand beach house show how this technique can work brilliantly in cheery, low-key kitchen.
Blending in with the fiberboard walls, the MDF doors in this kitchen hide a pull-out storage system that serves as a kitchen pantry.
This 40-year-old, mahogany-paneled kitchen system from Poggenpohl was salvaged in a quirky, 1970s London home. Poggenpohl is the world’s oldest kitchen brand, and this model comes with pocket doors that slide up to reveal shelves for dishes and glassware.
Mixing materials and finishings can add visual and tactile variety to your kitchen. Architect Janet Bloomberg combined a dark concrete counter with candy-colored kitchen cabinets and particleboard walls to create a cool, midcentury-inspired look.
Stainless-steel cabinets, such as these ones by Bulthaup, can give kitchens a no-nonsense, industrial feel. Stainless steel also reflects light, which can help brighten up your kitchen.
If you're a minimalist, you may prefer hingeless track doors over swinging doors with handles. In this steel-frame Texas home, the bright blue galley-style kitchen has no visible hinges, which makes it look like it's one with the similar-colored back wall.
In this Palm Springs duplex, the architect-owner got creative with the cabinet doors by designing aqua blue plywood sliders that park at specific positions, fitting together like puzzle pieces. Contractor Franklin Pineda custom-built the cabinets using Baltic birch plywood from Anderson Plywood.
10. Use live wood
Just because your kitchen is on the smaller side doesn’t mean you can’t make it as efficient and effective as possible.
Lin specified the String shelving across the walnut panel wall and had it surround a restored Paul McCobb credenza that the couple found at a garage sale twenty years ago. "Almost everything in our apartment has a story," says Kitty.
In the kitchen, Angle removed the cabinet doors, applied a coat of Poppy Red paint by Benjamin Moore, and put down a striped linoleum floor to brighten the space.
Frosted Tip
Church wanted open shelving above the kitchen counters, but DeSalvo convinced her to go with Ikea cabinets with frosted-glass doors to ensure a uniform look. He installed inexpensive strip LED lights by Zilotek on the top inside edge of the cabinets to provide ambient illumination and silhouette the contents inside.
This living/dining space is the social center of the apartment. For that reason, the architect designed the cabinet walls as a unifying visual feature that anchors the two rooms and provides practical storage space.
Black and white kitchen cabinets painted with a triangular pattern add a whimsical touch to this funky kitchen.
Vintage kettles and a wide-ranging assortment of pots and pans sit above kitchen cabinets from IKEA.
The sculptural end piece to some of the cabinetry in the kitchen echoes some of the other arched motifs. The natural wood is an anomaly in the kitchen, with cabinets, backsplash, and countertop that feature man-made materials.
In a centuries-old building in Montreal, Belgian architect and designer Gaeten Havart undertook a DIY kitchen renovation that makes the most of inexpensive materials. These simple cabinets and modern cabinet pulls are from Ikea and painted with a matte black finish.
In this sleek kitchen renovation in San Francisco, the kitchen backsplash is an easy-to-clean glass that mimics the glossy finish of the surrounding white cabinets. Painters accomplished the high-gloss finish on the cabinets by applying a coat of paint, polishing it with very high-grit sandpaper, repeating the process for each layer, then topping it with three coats of clear varnish. "It’s like an auto body," says builder Jeff King. "It’s incredibly beautiful." The island provides shelving space and storage as well as a second sink, an is topped with pietra grigio marble.
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