My two cents . . . I LOVE blue or yellow. We built our current home about 7 years ago and I just couldn't commit for some reason to white at the time. I debated for a long time and finally committed to a yellow (SW Martha Stewart Cava - like lemonaid). It may not be for everyone, but I have never regretted it. And I recently saw a couple of blue cabinets that are fabulous too. And soapstone would be great!

We are nearing a completion of a budget refacing, so although I didn't choose everything from a blank slate, I think the process of choosing cabinet color might be similar. I initially envisioned white cabs, but could not find a white that I felt really worked with the stone we chose (which was not what I thought I would choose, either!) . So, for me, the countertop choice really drove the color choice for the cabinets. Ended up with a light pearly gray and a darker gray for the pantry area and am happy with the look.

I think blue or yellow cabinets would be stunning with soapstone. Looking forward to hearing about your decision process!

Not totally sure this counts. I chose a snowy white.A very light taupey grey. It is the lightest color on my paint strip that coordinates with the other rooms on my main floor. We are in the middle of a total kitchen gut job. We just finished painting the walls a satin sheen this morning and the cabinets will be a semi gloss sheen. It at times appears as an off white. Overall a neutral kitchen.

We will know more when the LED can, strip lights get put in and black honed absolute granite counters, the silver mist appliances and the brushed nickel tin ceiling are in. Hoping 6 more weeks!

crl,

I am planning to paint the cabinets in my kitchen a dark blue, maybe with cream on the uppers. We are choosing to paint because this is just a refresh of a 70s kitchen: we have terra cotta floor and mexican tile backsplash that has blues, cream and terra cotta. The cabinets are in good shape, a natural stain, but I don't like how they look with my butcher block counters.

I have a recent thread on navy cabinets and people posted *beautiful* kitchens that will confirm how beautiful blue can be!!

Here is a link that might be useful: thread on blue cabinets

We went for two runs of painted on site cabinetry, in BM "Vellum" (if you've seen Fishie's reveal, Vellum, and her color, Barley, are virtually indistinguishable but you'll find one or other just looks more "right" in your space). It's a muted yellow, sort of vintage-y. But I want my cabinets to be easily repairable, hence the site brushed finished -not "factory" sprayed with catalyzed varnish or whatever. I also wanted the kitchen to look like it had been here awhile (although full overlay aren't particularly authentic, period wise, to the 1920's).

I've had white and off white cabinets, but this time I was ready to take a bit more of a chance.

Thank you for the feedback, link and picture! I appreciate the help.

If you haven't already, check out the kitchens by JAS Design Build in Seattle for some gorgeous uses of color! There are definitely green and yellow cabinets with soapstone or similar counters in there, and maybe also some blue. I wish we had been brave enough to do it--we debated green cabinets for a long time, but in the end went with gray and put the green on the walls in order to be able to change the color in the future. However, we also aren't likely to be in our house forever, and wanted a color scheme that could be adapted to tastes more conservative than ours. I painted boards and put them up over our old kitchen cabinets to get a feel for the different colors, though, and then once we chose one, we got a sample door painted and brought it to choose floor, counter, etc. I would choose the element of your kitchen that is least flexible and start with that--we had a lot of color choices for flooring (linoleum) but I think that's often an easy one to start with if you have fewer options or know for sure what you want. We also have some white cabinets and knew we'd use the white that everything in our house is already painted with (happily the PO chose that so I never had to go through the crazy number of white options!) so that was another fixed point; it's a warm creamy white so it pointed us to warm grays rather than cool blue grays.

Our house is pretty old and all of the moldings are painted, so I thought painted cabinets would "fit". We love color, though, so although we talked about white we knew we would get bored of it. We were originally going to go for a mix of green and white cabinets, but we really wanted something brighter and happier, especially for the winter months. So we chose yellow and love it! We did a lighter green for open our open shelving (2nd pic):

Here's a pic:

I'm generally fearful of committing to color, so most times I stick with neutrals for things not easily changed. But I did go with painting my island blue at the lakehouse we built 5 yrs. ago and I am still delighted whenever I walk in the door and see it.

I have soapstone on it, as well as on the perimeter counters, and I love the look of the stone with blue. The island is a more muted gray/blue shade than it appears in the pictures in the Finished Kitchens Blog.

I was most concerned about using color because of the open floor plan. However, I think it works just fine with other colors in the LR area which is adjacent to it. It's a big island in a central spot and I think it would have looked too antiseptic if I'd gone with white and it would have competed with the floors if I'd done a wood stain.

I think both yellow or blue would be beautiful with soapstone.

hlove, I particularly love the area with your shelves/fridge/oven. It really makes the white appliances look so fresh - and makes me wonder why the majority of us are still chasing stainless (smudgy) steel!

I think many, many colors would look great with soapstone.

The floors are the same hardwood as the rest the house. Currently finished a medium dark color. They puzzle me a bit as the house was built in 1926 and the current kitchen cabinets are original. I would not have expected wood in the kitchen from that era. I wonder if they were done sometime later for some reason. Perhaps the orginal flooring (linoleum?) had to be replaced fairly recently? All the closets have cedar floors so I wonder if they raided the closet floors to do the kitchen?

We are toying with keeping one wall of cabinetry (built-in Hoosier and shallow floor to ceiling cabinets next to it). If so we will have those cabinets repainted at the same time as we have new cabinets painted so they all match.

The wood floors are neutral and barring catastrophe between now and remodel, we will keep them. Soapstone, if that's what we choose for the counters, could go with either blue or yellow (or white or a myraid of other choices). And I think if we go with a color on the cabinets and soapstone, I will keep the backsplash simple and neutral so it doesn't compete with the other elements.

And all of that was to say there really aren't any color constraints based on the other elements in the kitchen. Yellow is so cheery and I find myself drawn to it right now. But I also like blue and wonder if I will find that more appealing in the summer.

I am starting to plan now, but we are a couple of years away from doing the kitchen so plenty of time to ponder it.

Love all the pictures and feedback. Thank you so much!

I'm still in the planning stages for my kitchen update and likely will be for some time. I too am contemplating whether to go with white, yellow, blue or blue green paint for the cabinets. Seeing pictures really helps me visualize options and I came across a pinterest site for This Old House 'period perfect kitchens' that might be useful for you, too. There are several pictures of yellow and blue painted cabinets.

Here is a link that might be useful: painted cabinet examples from This Old House

Love the pinterest link, thank you! I am noticing that I like pale yellows but mid-range blues. So that may play into a decision for one or the other if we go with color. We would get more contrast with pale yellow and the darki floors and the dark soapstone. Plus it is a small space with not huge windows so a pale color on the cabinets may suit it better. But definitely not ruling out blue yet.

I love painted cabinets and put a new kitchen into an 1810 cape. I followed the style of cabinetry in the original pantry and went round and round about the color. I finally chose a dark red. I absolutely love it and after all the work I went through to get them painted I would be shocked if I ever found the time to change the color.

Please excuse the unfinished state of the kitchen. You would think after a year I would have finally completed everything!

Maine Mare, who cares what you've finished! We need to see more photos of your great kitchen!

We are in the process of redoing our kitchen and counter colour was what determined cabinet colour. We wanted to reuse our existing emerald pearl perimeter counters, but also wanted a marble look for the island but without the maintenance. We chose macaubus white. The greenish tones in both counter tops and my pash for grey at the moment led us down the green grey tones, choosing BM Cos Cob Stonewall for the island. BM Dove White went under the emerald pearl.

Thanks, grlwprls! I really like our white appliances...easy to clean and they give off a sort of vintage vibe without having to buy actual vintage or vintage-repro appliances!

Maine Mare...I absolutely love those cabinets! The style and the awesome color! I agree with clueless...please share more photos!

Love the red cabinets. Thank you for all the helpful feedback!

crl - I just did yellow cabs (base and upper) and gray cabs for island and pantry/laundry area. I knew yellow was the color for me because when I went back over 10 years worth of pages torn out from magazines (way before pinterest or houzz!), the consistent theme that stood out was painted over stained, with a predominance of yellow. Since you have the blessing (or curse) of time to figure it out, my advice would be to clip/pin/ideabook every photo you see that has any cabinet paint or stain color you remotely like. Then a few months from now, sit down and go through them critically, tossing out anything that doesn't really make your heart sing. Then put them away for a few more months. By the time you've gone through the process a few times, the answer will be clear to you. Good luck!