Last Updated on December 25, 2023 by Kimberly Crawford
The gray kitchen is an unusual solution for a comfortable and functional room. This color is perceived as a symbol of an industrial city drowned in the smog of numerous factories and cars. But the palette of the gray shade is quite diverse, in addition, it is able to calm the human nervous system.
The neutrality of color allows you to get an interior with any character:
- The pearly notes add warmth and elegance to the design.
- The blue component will add coolness to the southern room.
- The color in green tones will resemble the depths of the sea and make the room look more romantic.
- Brown tones add warmth, while light brown wood flooring helps create eco-friendly coziness.
When choosing a kitchen design using gray as the main color, you need to be careful in choosing a shade and its companions so that the interior does not turn out to look “dirty”.
Shade combinations: when gray plays solo
Despite the seeming facelessness, the palette of gray is diverse, as are the possible duets with this color. Ideas of interesting combinations will help you find a solution for any style, any wall decoration, a living room combined with a kitchen.
Gray is most applicable in modern design trends. In the modern style, grey is used in pure metallic, since it is the metal that becomes the center of the composition. Gloss is highly presented in this style. The matte surface is the priority for styles such as classic, baroque, vintage, country, and provence.
As a neutral color, the grayscale palette is combined with many shades:
The classic option is the combination of ashy with white shades.
A variety of details can be white: tables in the dining area or living room, wallpaper, countertops in the work area, the color of curtains or a pattern on them, the shade of the walls as a background for a gray headset, an apron tile or facades against a background of gray walls. To find gorgeous white furniture pieces you can go to NY furniture Outlets.
Related: 47+ Best White Kitchen Cabinet Decor Ideas
This color is similarly combined with shades of beige tones. But if white is a pure open color, then beige is a more noble and austere shade. It can also act as a basic tone for details such as curtains, wallpaper, backsplash tiles, countertops, and ornament or wall painting. Beige is often present in a room along with gray.
Related: 26+ Beautiful Types of Kitchen Curtains and Valances (Modern, Luxury, and More)
Most often, a gray interior is complemented by its own shades: an iridescent design is obtained in one range, but with many tones. As a rule, the floor is made darker – to match the natural stone or non-standard wooden surface. Walls or wallpaper are painted in the lightest shades.
Facades can be different – from light ash to dark anthracite. A kitchen set in any shade will become the accent of such a kitchen. Apron tiles or a metal surface, which will also be appropriate here, work area countertops or dining tables, the color of the curtains can be brighter – mixed with other shades or with a metallic coating.
Rarely, but still sometimes brown is also used in addition to an ash color. If the beige shade is more neutral, then chocolate or natural light woody colors are more specific in use. Gold options will be organic – a yellow palette or pearly metallic. They add glamor and a sense of luxury to the surroundings.
Accent colors are as important as companion colors. With them, the gray kitchen comes alive and gets its own character.
The combination of gray with sunny shades looks organic. The yellow palette gives the kitchen a cheerful touch. Details in orange tones add warmth and dynamism to the interior. But only a few elements can be decorated with such accents: a pattern of curtains, several sofa cushions in the living room, a backsplash ornament.
There better will be exclusively detailed: it is better not to paint neither backsplash, nor wallpaper, nor countertops in solid orange tones. Both yellow and orange colors are more organic in accents.
Contemporary designs can use a duo of grays and palettes in shades of green. It can be gloss, metallic, luscious herbal shade, and deep emerald. Dark green can be the floor, the surface of the stone countertop, partially the facades, and even the backsplash tile. Green curtains would be more appropriate in retro directions. The matte finish of walls, furniture, kitchen units is preferable.
Harmonious gray with pink and shades of lilac. The ash itself can also contain similar notes, which will make the interior romantic and rather delicate. The lilac palette is universal: the gloss looks colder, like the metallic, but the matte lilac surface will make the kitchen cozy.
The blue palette is organically combined with the grayscale. Light shades of blue can be the backdrop for an ashy kitchen set, while dark blue will make the design more mysterious even when used in detail.
A blue pattern looks beautiful if it is decorated on the apron tile, light gray facades, curtain trim. A gray kitchen in dark colors will become lighter, but a light wall decoration and a kitchen set can be emphasized with a dark blue palette. It can be an accent wall ornament, or a curtain pattern, or wallpaper in the dining area or living room.
Related: What Color Trim Goes with Gray Walls? (25 Ideas)
The palette of red tones requires careful use in any room. Against the background of gray, the fiery scale becomes less aggressive and more pleasing to the eye. Burgundy accents easily complement the composition in light ash shades, and red-hot details will adorn any design.
A gray kitchen even in a monochrome solution can be multifaceted but usually are used accents and full-fledged duets, in which there is also room for bright and interesting solutions.
The ideas for their implementation are varied:
- Harmonious design in different shades of gray. Such an interior is interesting both in matte embodiment and in gloss. You can dilute the design with shades interspersed with blue, green, orange tones. The yellow palette is also applicable to create an individual tint range. Pearl gray in beige tones is noble and refined. It is the variety of shades that allows you to realize any ideas in one palette.
- The interior is made more geometric by the use of black finishes – edging of the countertop, frames for the pattern of the main wall, facades of the kitchen sets, etc. Such lines will emphasize the character of the solo color, and also make more contrasting details, which in such a trio can be white or in beige, red, blue, orange tones.
- The blue gloss will be an interesting addition to the gray metallic facades. The ideas for using the celestial scale can be different: from a blue ceiling to a gray-sky shade in stone flooring. The accents can be the blue scale in the details: vases, paintings, ceramics, utensils handles.
- The kitchen will look extravagant in a combination of the red and black palette in addition to gray. Several minor details can be painted red – a couple of pillows on the living room sofa, kitchen appliances, ceramics. Whichever style is chosen, the backsplash tile can also be red in places with a black outline. Metallic gray facades are often complemented with black handles and a similar pattern on a red background in interior details.
- The lilac component of the interior can make even the simplest kitchen set comfortable and mysterious. Although gray furniture is never primitive. Even the matte ash floor looks luxurious. The idea of using a lilac scale is unique since similar notes can be included in the main color, which will make the composition especially harmonious.
- Red-burgundy threads of expensive wood with an aged bloom will organically complement the retro interior in a gray palette. Here, of course, gloss is not appropriate, so the backsplash is most often covered with classic tiles, which may also have a bright ornament.
The choice in favor of gray walls or a kitchen set is always a universal solution, when the floor, wallpaper, and details can be unique: when implementing the same idea, you can include your preferences, be it blue or turquoise palette, beige or green shades … Then literally all the features of the interior will be harmonious – from the decoration of the walls of the living room to the pattern of the accent wall in the kitchen.