How to Add Drama with a Black and White Kitchen

Black and White Can Bring Essential Color Balance

Balance is an important thing to bear in mind as you work with these two colors. It is determined by your style, the size of your kitchen, and how it harmonizes with the rest of the house. Lighting is also crucial in black and white kitchens as it dictates the overall look. Here are some guidelines to help you transform your kitchen.

Make Your Floor Come Alive with Black and White Flooring

Why not bring a dramatic feel to your black and white kitchen flooring styles? You can combine black and white tile to come up with a color palette that’s perfect for your kitchen. A checkered black and white floor is versatile and budget-friendly. It can also enhance different kitchen styles. Take time to choose the right floor tile for your kitchen and you’ll never regret your decision.

Ceramic tiles are ideal for a kitchen floor because they can withstand foot traffic, are easy to install, and last long. Porcelain tiles are durable, rarely absorb water, and are stain resistant. Their only drawback is that they are expensive. Polished granite tiles resist scratching and are suitable for kitchens as they can withstand high traffic. Slate tile is extremely dense and durable while mosaic tile adds both beauty and function. If you want to try something unique, glass tile will do. It offers you a reflective surface unlike any other.

Focus on a Monochromatic Backsplash

An all black or all white tile can help you to create the look you want. For your kitchen backsplash, use subway tiles which offer a wide range of kitchen color ideas. White subway tiles give your kitchen a bright and airy look, making it feel fresh. Their black counterparts generate a powerful contrast, balancing your design. Black and white subway tiles can give a kitchen a timeless look. Consider marble, ceramic, glass, and porcelain backsplash tiles and mosaics for your black and white kitchen. You can also consider using tiles as accents to create the desired look. Paint your kitchen cabinets a different color to make your backsplash vivid. Take a look at these black and white tiles to give you ideas for your kitchen backsplash.

Add Subtle Interest to Walls with Black & White Details

White cabinets with subtle shaker style faced doors or a mosaic wall featuring black and white Spanish tile can all bring subtle interest to your kitchen. The walls are spots where silhouettes, mosaics, and patterns can be exhibited. Wall art and pictures contrasting with the walls bring life to your kitchen. Black and white tiles call attention to the walls, especially if the designs are unique. Black wall clocks, pictures or paintings with black borders, and black countertops accentuate white walls.

Your walls do not have to be painted one plain color. You can play around with black and white hues to create the look you want. Don’t forget about wallpaper with geometrics, floral patterns, or textural grass wallpapers that bring life to your kitchen without even trying.

Use Black and White in Strategic Kitchen Areas for Added Beauty

In case you prefer not to have the two colors together on the walls, floor, or backsplash, use them in different areas of your kitchen. For example, you can paint the walls white and get a black colored table and seats. In addition, don’t restrict yourself to regular black and white colors. You can creatively alter the shades or values of both, causing your kitchen to stand out. Black can be substituted with dark gray and white with ivory.

Black and white kitchens are fascinating. a dull and boring space becomes a sophisticated and attractive one. Use these ideas to create that dream kitchen you have always wanted.

For more kitchen design ideas on Stagetecture, visit our kitchen archives.

4 Kitchen Design Questions to Choose the Perfect Kitchen Cabinets

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Determine what your Kitchen Design Goals are for your Kitchen Cabinets:

First start by defining your goals for your kitchen? Get some general idea of how you want your kitchen to look and function so that you can create a space that you’re happy with. Here are some questions you might consider asking yourself to determine your goals for your kitchen.

1. What’s Wrong with Your Existing Kitchen Cabinets?

In order to get the custom kitchen cabinets you want, you should start with what you have. You’re obviously changing the cabinets for a reason, and jotting those reasons down will help when it comes to designing your new ones. Whether they were just old and dated or they did not provide enough shelf space, everything you dislike should be written down. The more specific you can be with what you don’t like, the easier it is to create what you would like.

2. What’s your Kitchen Design Purpose in Installing New Cabinets?

The purpose for new kitchen cabinets can help you in determining how much you’re willing to invest in them. For instance, if you were selling your home, you could invest a smaller amount of money and purchase economically friendly, practical cabinets to appeal to potential buyers. However, if you intend to make good use out of the home for years to come, investing a bit more and going all out with customization would be to your advantage.

3. What Design Style of Home Do you Have? What Kitchen Cabinet Style will Look Best?

The decor and style of your home will play a significant role in the design of your kitchen and the type of cabinets you choose. For instance, if you have a more modern home, you might stick with more modern, sleek cabinets. However, if you had a more country, rustic home décor, you could go with vintage wood cabinets to tie everything together. You also want to make sure the cabinets you choose will flow with the kitchen colors. These 8 kitchen cabinet style doors on Houzz give you ideas on how to choose what looks best in your home.

4. How Much Storage Space do You Need?

Does your existing kitchen cabinet space provide enough storage for now and in the future? Or will you need more storage space? If you’re not sure, just go to the kitchen and look at all the things you’d like to store on a cabinet shelf or in a drawer. If everything is securely put away in the existing cabinet space, then you can invest in the same amount of space with the new cabinets. However, if you have a lot of things and no room to put them, you might want to invest in more cabinets. If you’re trying to squeeze more room into your kitchen these 20 kitchen space saving tips  could help from Apartment Therapy.

Each of these questions will help to shape goals for your kitchen’s design. You’ll have a better understanding of the style of cabinets you’re interested in, how much space you need, and what features you absolutely must have to make your kitchen as functional as possible. Again, be sure to work with a professional contractor for the creation and installation of your cabinets for end results you’ll be proud of.

For more kitchen design help on Stagetecture, look to our kitchen and bath archives.

4 Ways to Save Money On New Kitchen Countertops

1. Kitchen countertop ideas: Choose Your Material Wisely

Another place to save money when replacing your kitchen counters is in your choice of counter material. First, you should consider what you really want, because you will be living with your countertops for a long time. Perhaps you love the classic look of marble and granite, or maybe you prefer the industrial look of stainless steel and concrete. Next, think about how much maintenance you are willing to put into your countertops. Marble and butcher block are higher maintenance than other materials. After all of this is done, think about the price. Butcher block, tile, and laminate are three of the cheapest counter materials available, and can help you achieve a variety of styles. If you need help choosing a countertop look at this Popular Mechanics article: 6 Great Countertops: How to Choose the Best Material.

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2. Consider updating your kitchen cabinets along with countertops

Many people think that to significantly change the look of their kitchen, they need to replace their kitchen cabinets and countertops, but as long as your cabinets are structurally sound, this is not the case. Changing the look of your kitchen cabinets is as simple as washing them down thoroughly, adding a coat of fresh paint in a modern color, and updating your kitchen cabinet hardware. This can all be accomplished in a day, and will make a big difference in your kitchen’s appearance. After you update your cabinets, you can plan the installation of your new kitchen counters right on top of your existing cabinets, saving a significant amount of time and money over replacing both.

3. Get 3 Professional Kitchen Remodeling Estimates

Once you’ve thought about what you want to do in your kitchen and what material you want to use for your counter, talk to a few professional contractors. Most contractors will provide a free estimate on a potential job, and they may have some good ideas for how to achieve the look you want for less money. It is a good idea to get more than one estimate on any job you are thinking of contracting out to get a better idea of the price. Three estimates will give you a good idea of the price range for your job, and will give you three different opinions on how best to do your job.

4. Kitchen Design: Consider a Do It Yourself Countertop Project

If after talking with the pros you think it all sounds pretty easy, then consider turning your kitchen upgrade into a DIY project. If you are confident in your construction skills, this can be a huge way to save with new kitchen counters. You can find lots of tutorials online that show you how to work with most common countertop materials, and you can rent most of the bigger tools you’ll need to do the job. So enlist the help of a friend or two, buy your materials, and make over your kitchen in a weekend with refreshed cabinets and a new countertop. The DIY Network has an article about installing granite countertops. Take a look and see if you can do the job yourself.

Use these four tips to help you update your kitchen counters this spring, without breaking the bank. Choosing your material wisely, updating your old cabinets when replacing your kitchen countertops, and doing the work yourself can save you lots of money while allowing you to achieve your desired kitchen you’ve been always wanted.

For more kitchen remodeling tips visit our kitchen and bath archives.

How Refacing Kitchen Cabinets Can Be Inexpensive

Try refacing kitchen cabinets with a professional

Hiring a professional refacing person that applies veneer onto your existing boxes is much cheaper than replacing the entire cabinets. Moreover, it’s much less disruptive than a kitchen remodel project that involves the replacement of old cabinets. In most cases, it can render your kitchen unusable. Whereas, a cabinet reface does not involve this level of disruption and can be done in just a few days especially when done by a professional.

Painting kitchen cabinets can save money

Whether your kitchen cabinet design calls for you to brighten up with bold colors or lighten up dark cabinets, there is no doubt that paint can provide an instant makeover for almost all types of cabinets. And apart from being a fastest and easiest method to update a tired, worn-out kitchen, painting cabinets can save you a lot of money and hassle. While you are at it, consider changing the kitchen cabinet accessories such as the knobs and handles for the best result.

But, don’t make these mistakes when painting cabinets, Good Housekeeping warns.

Kitchen cabinet ideas: Remove doors and stain shelves

Going with an open-shelf cabinet arrangement is another great way to lower the overall cost as you won’t need to buy the new doors. But as it’s a complete style change, make sure to spruce up the interior of your kitchen cabinets by cleaning and staining the shelves. You can also apply white paint to these surfaces for a cleaner and brighter cabinet interior.

Watch this how to convert kitchen cabinets to open shelving video from BHG.

No doubt, if done correctly, cabinet refacing can be an easy and cost effective way to upgrade the kitchen and give it a brand a new look. Moreover, you can easily avoid the muss and hassle of a more extensive remodel.

Are you getting tired of looking at your outdated kitchen and wondering what you can do to bring it into updated standards? Your kitchen cabinetry is the perfect place to start and Wellborn Cabinets has unique and creative ways to bring modern kitchen design into your home. Take a look at their resourceful tools that will help you choose your cabinets and enter to win their Dream Kitchen Makeover below.

Updating your Kitchen Cabinets with a #WellbornCabinet Kitchen Makeover

Update your kitchen cabinetry with Wellborn Cabinets

Kitchen cabinetry history: Wellborn Cabinets has been family owned and operated since 1961

I was fortunate enough to see the Wellborn cabinets and meet many of the family members when I attended the KBIS (Kitchen & Bath Industry Show) this last January. Seeing and touching the cabinetry was a great experience and to hear how their Alabama company has been bringing quality cabinetry to homeowners for over 50 years was a real treat!

Here are some of the qualities you can expect from Wellborn Cabinets:

• Choose from over 100,000 door styles, species and finish combinations
• Choose beautiful overlay and inset door offerings with a vast selection of stains and paints with glazes and finish technique options.
• Door materials include Cherry, Character Cherry, Maple, Character Maple, Oak, Hickory, Medium Density Fiberboard, Laminate, and Thermofoil

Customize your kitchen design with ColorInspire:

I loved seeing this gorgeous green cabinet in-person at KBIS and one of the unique features Wellborn Cabinets offer is their ColorInspire option. The program offers the consumer thousands of kitchen cabinetry paint color options for their cabinetry from trusted brands such as, Benjamin Moore, Sherman Williams, and Valspar.

Kitchen islands and entire home cabinetry:

While you may only think of Wellborn for kitchen and bathroom upper and lower cabinetry they offer a large selection for other rooms of your home. Cabinetry for your laundry room, home office, basement and even craft room are just a few areas where custom cabinetry without the expensive price tag is what Wellborn stands for.

Bringing Smart Design and technology into your everyday living:

Another unique feature for today’s home is Wellborn’s Smart Design:

“It’s a way of incorporating great designs for all ages in smaller spaces using technology, organization and lighting to create storage solutions that make use of every inch of space.”… Wellborn Cabinets

Take a look at the Wellborn blog to read more about the innovative solutions they have for your kitchen cabinetry, wardrobe closet, home office and more.

Are you ready to transform your home with Wellborn cabinetry? Enter their sweepstakes and you could have your dream kitchen sooner than you imagined.

Wellborn Cabinets Dream Kitchen Makeover Sweepstakes

One grand-prize winner will receive a check up to $12,000 for his or her own Dream Kitchen!

See the official rules and enter the kitchen makeover sweepstakes here.

I invite you to learn more about Wellborn Cabinetry and see for yourself the difference in their quality while keeping their prices affordable for your family home.

“Whether you are building an affordable first home or the home of your dreams, Wellborn Cabinet has options that allow you to create exactly what you want in every room of your home.”… Wellborn Cabinets

How to Avoid Common Mistakes in your Kitchen Remodel

Mistake #1: Kitchen cabinets are chosen before selecting a sink

You may think selecting the kitchen sink before your new kitchen cabinets are installed seems backwards, but it can save you a lot of time and money, not to mention frustration. Dependent on the type of sink you want, the connectors for the water lines could be in a different place than the sink you have currently. With some sink models, especially an under cabinet sink, your current water lines would be placed too high in the wall to connect to the sink. For more helpful tips about where to place the sink in your kitchen remodel – This Old House gives some tips for sink location.

Kitchen sinks and kitchen sink plumbing should be coordinated

If you have the kitchen cabinets installed before selecting kitchen sinks and then find out the water lines are in the wrong place, the cabinet may have to come out so a plumber in your area could be your best option for fixing the problem. For example, a plumber in East London can reposition the waterlines in order to properly connect the new sink. This would mean spending extra time, and money, on a problem you could’ve easily avoided by discussing the sink selection with the cabinetmaker or by selecting the sink before the cabinets were installed.

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Mistake #2: Kitchen flooring isn’t installed beneath kitchen cabinets and dishwasher

In order to save money, many people choose not to have flooring installed under the cabinets and dishwasher. However, if the flooring isn’t installed, when the dishwasher arrives, it may not fit because the new flooring is higher than the subfloor. While this can be corrected by waiting for the dishwasher to be installed before the flooring is put in, if the dishwasher needs to be repaired, the flooring around it would have to come out in order to do so.

To prevent wasted time, have the new flooring installed under your cabinets and where the dishwasher goes so it can easily be put in and pulled out when necessary. Don’t just install the flooring where the dishwasher goes, because then the kitchen cabinets will need to be lifted slightly to allow for the dishwasher. The extra expense for the flooring will help prevent bigger, more expensive problems in the long run.

Avoiding these two easily preventable mistakes will save both time and aggravation for all involved with the kitchen renovation.

For more kitchen renovation ideas on Stagetecture, click here.