old country house blog

White Kitchen Cabinets

 The color WHITE is a popular topic. It always makes a showing and my guess is that choosing the “right white” is what drives the most people crazy. Am I white? I mean right?
I think I represent the majority of people when I say that we are not in the position to do a gut renovation of our kitchen. Would that we were. If I were, then well, I don’t know, I would be in a different boat. But finally, after 7 years,  we have happily set aside a few extra dollars and we are giving our 50 year old kitchen a much needed facelift.

7 years ago…We started with this….
and We went to this….I have changed the wall color about 6 times, aquas, beiges, greens, and finally
 this is where we are today….
and this is where I want to be….
photos House Beautiful

And so we begin.

Stage one of the facelift involves installing new cabinet doors and drawer fronts. The old cabinets were installed in 1967, but the layout is practical and really, I resolved that to tear them all out would not be a wise use of our dollars. I decided to replace the door and drawers with a 1″ overlay, almost covering entirely the boxes and making them look like almost new. I researched doors and carpenters online and settled on a great guy in Kentucky. Hunter’s woodworking. Ask for Charlie. He has the patience of a saint!
Measuring out the doors and drawers was huge undertaking, especially for me, but after much obsessive measuring and check-double checking, I got it done, the numbers sent off and the doors are being made.

Now…choosing the color for the cabinets. The current color is Benjamin Moore Linen White. It is fine, but the room gets terrible light and the linen white makes the room almost too warm if that makes any sense. Colors I tried were “Glacier White“,(too grayish), Timid White (too close to Linen White)  “Dove white”, “Chanitilly lace” (too light) but gorgeous and I am going to go through my entire house and re-do the trim with this, “Soft Chamois” (too dark and a bit dingy), “Marscapone” almost perfect but still a tad too white, “Mountain Peak White” too bright and white, and “Deep in Thoughtalmost, but too dark. What I came to realize is that in my 130 year old house, a too white white looks incredibly out of place, like it landed here from outer space. The age of the house and my shabby by default decor, needed a more aged white, but not too yellowy color, or it would look contrived.

Might as well pile a bunch of money on this counter…but I finally figured it out,
and I ALWAYS use my sample for my paintings (leslidevitopaintings.blogspot.com)

                                                            Winter White…too gray-ish

                                  I am getting rid of the doors anyway, so what better way to see….

Guess which one I chose?
Moonlight White. – Benjamin Moore OC 125 . In the light of my particular kitchen, it is warm yet not too yellowy.  Country Living had a FANTASTIC white Issue recently and Darryl Carter, said  that is it  a “warm white that never looks dingy”. So we will keep our fingers crossed. The very limited wall space will be 90% subway tile, with  BM Wickham Gray accents and the interior of the glass door cabinets will be “Bird’s Egg”, my favorite BM go to soft aqua.
Thoughts?
What are your favorite Go-To whites? How did you decide?
Tomorrow…we talk hardware!

1 thought on “White Kitchen Cabinets

  1. Lesli – how fun! I just looked at this blog entry and can almost imagine standing in that beautiful kitchen having strong, fresh coffee! The pictures are wonderful! The description is great!

Comments are closed.