Learn Interior Redesign from a Professional

Color choices help rooms flow together

Q. My kitchen needs a facelift. I like the layout, so I don’t need to make any major changes, but since we decorated the adjoining family room and nearby living room the kitchen now looks unfinished. I’ve never liked the counters, and the room needs more color. I am planning to buy new appliances, but I want to keep the tile floor. I need your help with the finishing touches and to make sure the rooms flow together. I want the kitchen to be as eye-catching and attractive as the rest of the space.

A. I love the colors we selected for the living room and family room — the warm yellow walls are cheerful and inviting, and the rusty red color on the back wall of the built in bookcases in the family room makes a bold statement. I like the dark wood furniture you chose — it provides needed contrast to the light wood of the cabinetry and banister.

To tie the kitchen to these rooms, I recommend repeating some of the same decorative elements. Your kitchen cabinets are a light honey-colored oak. They are in good shape so there is no need to replace them, and they coordinate nicely with the yellow wall color. However, the first thing I would suggest is changing the hardware. A dark bronze or black finish on the cabinet knobs will tie in with the dark wood tone of the family room furniture and stand out against the light wood.

Next, I suggest refinishing or re-facing the center island. A current trend in kitchen décor is having two different cabinet finishes, and your island is the perfect place to do that since it is a stand-alone piece in the kitchen. Stain the cabinets in a darker color — an espresso finish would blend nicely with your family room furniture and also tie in the dark finish of the new cabinet hardware. In addition, since the tile floor is a light color like the cabinets, the new dark finish on the island will really ground that space.

Hang two new amber-colored pendant light fixtures above the island for task lighting as well as accent lighting. The amber color will coordinate with the yellow walls, and also bring in one of the colors from the upholstered chair in the living room.

Currently your countertops are a sand-colored solid surface material, which provides no contrast against the honey oak cabinets. Since you are not a fan of granite, but still want something durable and easy to maintain, I suggest a quartz material such as CaesarStone, in a darker color like Copper Canyon, which has some brown and red tones, which would help tie in the rusty red accent wall in the family room. A polished finish on the counters will continue the contemporary look you started in the other rooms.

This article first appeared in Alameda Newspaper Group papers on Oct. 13, 2007.

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All articles copyright 2003-2008 Anna Jacoby.