Blue kitchen island with vertical paneling and light taupe cabinets

If you’ve been following along on our kitchen refresh journey, you’ll know that we decided to have our cabinets painted to give them an entirely new look. The kitchen is just a few years old, so replacing them definitely didn’t make sense economically, but the off-white combined with an antiqued detail was far from our style (check out the before post here) so it was time to do something about that.

After some contractor drama, we finally found some great painters who started on our cabinets last week. They spent six days giving our kitchen new life - there was a lot of sanding, carpentry, priming, and painting to be done! We decided to leave this job to the pros, and I’m so glad we did - the results are really beautiful.

I’ve been itching to tackle this project since we moved into our house almost three years ago, and pored over tons of inspiration photos to figure out what I wanted it to look like. I landed on two different paint colors: a light taupe for the perimeter cabinets (Benjamin Moore Pale Oak) and a gray-blue for the island (Sherwin Williams Breezy).

Let’s take a look at it!

Blue shiplap island with light taupe cabinets

When I was dreaming up this refresh, I knew the island needed something special. It always felt so unfinished to me, and the people who installed it never painted the shoe molding or trim pieces to match the cabinets. I landed on a vertical paneling with base molding to match the rest of the house. We have some really lovely detailed molding (our home was built in the 1930s) and I wanted to bring some of that charm into the kitchen.

Our painters installed this shiplap paneling and then added the baseboard molding to the bottom before painting it and I love how it turned out.

I’ll tell you more about the brass hardware later on, but man, isn’t it beautiful? I partnered with Signature Hardware for those, the sink, and the faucet and I’ve been really impressed with everything I’ve received from them.

Pale Oak kitchen cabinets with brass hardware

Now let’s turn the angle and take a look at the other side of the island! The blue and brass combo has my heart - the complement each other so well.

Blue kitchen cabinets with brass hardware and a vintage rug

I couldn’t be happier with these colors! Since I know paint colors can be tricky to choose, here’s a peek into my process for getting it right the first time:

Pick a general color family (blue-grays or light taupes in my case) and head to the paint store to pick up a few chips (or look through a fan deck) of colors that are in that family. Look at them in YOUR home to see how they look in natural and artificial light. Once you’ve narrowed it down…
Use Samplize to order large swatches of those. They offer big peel-and-stick paint samples that you can move around and look at in different lights to see how they’ll look. This larger size makes a big difference in being able to make confident decisions about color.
Be sure to hold your sample next to other items in the room like the trim, tile, upholstery fabric, etc. to see how it looks with those. In my case, I wanted to make sure my colors worked well with the countertops, tile, brass hardware, and white wall paint.
Order your paint knowing you’ve done your due diligence! 😊

Our painters were really wonderful to work with - they were thorough, detail-oriented, took their time, and made sure I was informed throughout the process. If you’re in the Richmond, Virginia area, check out VA Fresh Painting. They did a fantastic job!

We’re just one step away from having a completely finished kitchen. Did you notice it from those gaping holes in the drywall from the photos? 🤣 Yep, it’s the backsplash! That project is scheduled to start next weekend, so hopefully we’re just a couple of weeks away from having this project wrapped up and ready for its big reveal!