my kitchen is not yellow, but my living room is painted a shade of yellow. its benjamin moore powell buff. its very subtle. your DH might like it since its not too "yellow". Even though I have not seen your merlot walls, it sounds dark to me. If your not getting much light, I think that a warm bright color is just what you need to counterbalance a cool, dark room.

Well, this isn't a really nice kitchen - it was a quick flip job I did a while back, but I loved the yellow in the kitchen. It's SW Birdseye Maple, and the cabinets/trim were painted out SW Dover White.

For a laugh, this is the before:

My kitchen isn't yellow, it's Navajo White but it looks ivory/yellow in the sun if you want subtle instead of bright.

{{!gwi}}

Sorry for the pic, just started a thread and had this one copied. At least you can see the wall color!

My kitchen is YELLOW with yellow tile, so perhaps not exactly what you're looking for, but we adore it. We used Benjamin Moore Cambridge Heights on both walls and ceilings in our small 12x13' space. My camera's on the fritz, so this is the best pic I could dig up.

Also definitely check out AtticMag's collection of yellow kitchens:

Here is a link that might be useful: atticmag yellow kitchens

Yellow is my favourite colour (hence my username) and I painted the entire first floor and stairwell of my old house a light creamy yellow but I don't have any pictures of it. I loved the way it made the rooms look sunny on even dark winter days. My cabs were white, floors were beige tile in the kitchen and a medium stained maple everywhere else. I don't even remember the name. I haven't painted this house that colour because it won't work with the sunlight here.

All I can suggest is to get lots of piant chips and place them at various places around the room and live with them for several days. Yellow can be a very tricky colour to decorate with since it changes so much with the light conditions throughout the day. When you narrow it down to a few pony up and but a quart of each to paint test samples in several places.

And before you do any of that paint the merlot walls white. It will be very difficult to get a true reading on any new colour with such a strong colour next to it. You can save money by using a primer for this, or save time by using high grade wall paint. Either way you will have to cover the merlot before you put the new colour on so it won't bleed through.

I chose BM bronzed beige. As its name implies, it presents creamy yellow, beige, sometimes it throws a soft green undertone. I paired it with oyster vintage shuler cabs, an affiliate of Medallian cabs. Everyone likes it.

My lower level laundry cabinets are a very soft yellow I was interviewing for the rental kitchen. It's from Sherwin Williams called "Patience" (and I remember that because I was hoping I'd get some while painting heh heh) It's a very very soft yellow tone, really a more lemon cream (just a hint of lemon). You might try a sample on your wall. I went with the color because the laundry cabinet has no windows so I wanted to brighten it up a tiny bit, without being obnoxious because the room it's in is in soft tans and deep greens.

I also have a deeper yellow with a tan base in my library called deep cowslip 4 from either Home Despot or Lowes (can't remember which). It's the color you find in a lions mane (we matched it to a lion). Not yellow, not tan, but a soft combo of both. It's quite a bit deeper in tone than the patience, but again a really lovely color.

I thought there was no other color besides yellow. My kitchen & the rest of my house is RH's Butter.

If your room does not get too much natural light, choose the yellow carefully. Yellow can look dingy if there is not much natural light.

We used BM Philadelphia cream at 85% intensity.
It seems a little peachy in the picture. There is no peach, orange, or red in it at all.. the formula is just just yellow, black, & grey.

Maureeninmd posted a pic of the color a while ago ... if you search for Philadelphia Cream, it should come up.

Yellow is my favorite color too. Always have loved yellow in kitchens so we did ours in Ralph Lauren Golden Finch, it matches the yellow in a plate with sunflowers that we used for inspiration. We also only have 1 small window in the kitchen area and the yellow glows when the sun shines in. In our living room, I used Behr Warm Muffin, on the sample it looked tanish brown but when it went on, it was a soft golden color. I don't have any really good pictures, and it's raining right now so lighting is bad but will try to post some tomorrow when the sun is out and post them for you since they really are nice yellows.

I don't have a yellow kitchen so much as I have a few exposed wall areas that are painted. In those places, I used BM's "Soleil" in the kitchen and pantry. That's a fairly pale/pastel but one that has enough yellow in it such that it never ever looks "dingy". :) In the adjacent hallway area, I used BM's "Ylang Ylang, which is a much paler yellow that is closer to being a yellowy white. I'm happy to say that color never looks dingy either. Both colors were in the Aura line of paints and I think they look great. So far, though, I haven't been able to produce a photo that shows these colors as they actually appear in real life!

I'm also a yellow lover. We painted our kitchen and adjacent living/dining areas the same buttery yellow when we first moved in two years ago(excuse the dated cabinets and whatnot, we're working on that!). I can't remember the name right off the top of my head, but it's a BM shade as is the ceiling's blue Cumulus Cotton. The wall color in the living room is the "true" color, not the brighter look in the first pic:

We went with Behr paint - Daffodil yellow. We love yellow in our kitchen as it seems to brighten the room.

I love my walls. The color varies all through the day depending on the light amking me feel like I have different walls. Walls are BM Barley and ceiling is Behr Havana Cream.

Well, I'm not a yellow-lover and thought I'd never have a yellow kitchen...but here I am...! It just seemed to work the best w/my cabinets, floor, and granite...

Benjamin Moore (BM) Cornsilk. It's in the Kitchen & DR.

View from FR:

View from DR:

We have low-E glass in our windows, which kills the vibrancy of the sunlight and washes everything with a dirty-gray-green haze. Going for a pale cream slightly on the yellow side that didn't turn a nasty green, I eventually found Sherwin Williams Venetian Lace. In the morning light it's definitely a very pale yellow but warm and pleasant. In the afternoon it's more of a neutral cream.

My last kitchen was yellow -- along with the living room and dining room -- and I loved it. It wasn't cream at all . . . it was YELLOW! It's SW Optimistic Yellow -- and like Igloochic with her "Patience," I loved the name as well as the color. When we first put it on I panicked . . . were we really going to like living inside a lemon? However, the cabinets, countertops, furniture and artwork toned it down and we ended up loving it. I can't tell you how many people commented "I never would have thought I'd like yellow walls, but this is beautiful! The buyers liked it, and a neighbor copied the scheme in her new house. I found it absolutely cheerful and pleasant.

If I could have found comparable cabinets, I would have done it again, but it didn't work out. So I'm using the same yellow in our den/sunroom and my office, plus one of the guest rooms.

I've shared these pictures before, so if you've seen them, I apologize.

We used the yellow from the SW colonial palette in our old house, along with SW Navajo on the cabs, butcher block laminate from HD, and 70s era slate floors. Very cheery color in a room with only a small window and half glass door.

I love yellow walls in any room. Yellow is my favorite color.

We used Benjamin Moore Honeywheat in our kitchen.

thank you! this has greatly helped me cross my dh over to the dark side...er rather the bright side. :)

My kitchen is yellow. It's a little too bright for my taste though. Plus I have florescents thoughout the whole kitchen, which casts even more of a yellow shade. Only the first two pics shows the true color. The last pic shows it as the florescents make it appear in pictures.

One tip to remember, which will become a bit more obvious when you start to look at paint chips and samples, is that the yellows all have a strong dose of something else -- green or brown or red or something. And they only become more intense up on the wall!

Just because something is pale, if it's too green or too yellowy citrusy or too brown to start with, it will still just look wrong.

You have a good start with white cabinets and butcher block. Unless your white has a secret hidden identity, or you have other things in the kitchen that come into play, like fabrics or floors neighboring rooms or a lot of other colors, you should be pretty good.

I would also take lululemon's advice seriously that, both in order to test paint and before you paint for real, you need to paint over the red. You could just get a little sample pot of white at first if you couldn't bear it, or, if you're committed, ask for a gallon of primer at the paint shop, and paint a good big patch of white, enough so your eye doesn't take in the red and can view the yellows on their own, even if you step back a bit. (Yes, your kitchen will look like crap for a little while.)

I think you will be much happier with a yellow kitchen than a merlot kitchen!

When finished, our new kitchen will have white cabinets and the walls will be BM Weston Flax from the historical palette.

Here is another yellow kitchen, painted SW Corn Chip. It is from our first house, which we sold years ago, but it was a really nice cheery yellow.

I really like SW Humble Gold, too, like Jaymeilo has. I have it in a hall way with not much natural light and it looks great.

Our house isn't anywhere near done, so excuse the mess, but here's the two yellows I posted about earlier.

warm muffin (Behr): {{!gwi}}

and Gold Finch (Ralph Lauren):{{!gwi}}

Love these yellow kitchens! Especially the ones with the amazing tile too!