This Kitchen Makeover Has a "Very Risky" Cabinet Color (It Paid Off!)

Cullen Ormond
·2 min read

ABOUT THIS BEFORE & AFTER

HOME TYPE: House

PROJECT TYPE: Kitchen

STYLE: Colorful, Organic Modern

SKILL LEVEL: Professional

RENTAL FRIENDLY: No

Blue painted island in kitchen before renovation.

Oftentimes, home projects can have a domino effect — one room makeover bleeds into another until you’re transforming every space in the home. At least, that’s what happened in digital creator René Daniella’s (@ownbyfemme) Los Angeles home.

Blue painted cabinets in kitchen before renovations.

Originally, René’s kitchen cabinets were painted a “nice pastel mint color” and were offset by the crisp white walls. But after she installed a vibrant mural in her living room (which connects to the kitchen in the open plan layout) and painted the kitchen walls in a lavender limewash, the kitchen cabinets “started to feel too much like Easter decor,” she shares.

“I decided I wanted to change the kitchen color to complement the space more and drew color inspiration from the mural I had in the living room,” René explains. “It did feel very risky going with a deep plum color — would it make the space feel too small or too dark or dramatic? — but I loved the color so much that I decided to take the leap!”

Eggplant painted cabinets in kitchen with light pink painted walls.

René shares that when she first started designing her space, she picked “colors inspired by a garden in bloom,” with purple being her favorite. Because she has an open floor plan, all of the rooms needed to blend seamlessly together and have complementing color palettes. The newly lavender walls and colorful mural encouraged her to replace the light blue cabinet paint with the deep purple shade. (She went with Behr’s Exotic Eggplant.)

And while René developed the kitchen design herself, she hired professionals to execute her vision. “I hired a carpenter to build a pantry cupboard for food storage that blended in seamlessly with the original kitchen build, and a painter to do the lime wash on the walls and paint the cabinets,” she shares. “We did DIY a few flower vases, which add some pops of color to the kitchen!”

Pink kitchenaid on countertop in kitchen with pink painted walls and eggplant cabinets.

It cost her around $6,000 to transform her kitchen, and she says it was worth every penny. The experience also reminded her that designing rooms should be an adventure and reflect only your visions and ideas — not others. For René, the space is truly reflective of her own colorful vision.

Eggplant painted cabinets in kitchen.

“I am obsessed with the richness of all the colors,” René says. “I also love how open and inviting the space is.”

Not to mention the kitchen is more functional, too. “I enjoy hosting dinners, and the layout of my kitchen makes it very easy to prep and cook while simultaneously entertaining and engaging with my guests.” Now that’s how you do monochrome.

This post originally ran on The Kitchn. See it there: Before & After: Striking Purple Cabinets (and Walls!) Add Instant Drama to a Pastel Kitchen