Mint Green Is the Unexpected Cabinet Color Your Small Kitchen Needs
The right kitchen cabinet paint color can change everything.
Trends in kitchen cabinet colors come and go, as anyone struggling to pick a paint color for their new or updated cabinets will know. White kitchen cabinets have been popular for a while, but bolder, darker paint colors are slowly coming into style (as are more varied kitchen color schemes). Still, sometimes the best color option when painting kitchen cabinets is something a little off the beaten track—something unexpected but nonetheless stunning; something like mint green.
Mint green may not be at the top of the kitchen cabinet paint colors wish list, but it’s a surprisingly excellent pick for any kitchen, especially smaller ones. Take the above space, located in a 100-year-old home in Austin, Texas. Designer Maureen Stevens chose mint green paint—Mint Condition from Sherwin-Williams—for the cabinets to help make the small, rather dark space look brighter, and the results are making us reconsider our opinions on light cabinet paint colors.
Stevens knew her clients wanted the updated kitchen to feel light and refreshing, and also that she needed a color that would pair well with the black-and-white tile floors, which are vintage. She also planned to use patterned tile with navy blue coloring for the backsplash, so the final paint color choice needed to fit with the previously chosen details while still fulfilling the clients’ wishes.
“I was infatuated with the idea of mint everywhere,” Stevens says. “And it’s really a smaller kitchen, so because it’s smaller, and it needs to achieve the refreshing look, and it’s not cluttered, I didn’t want to have anything competing with each other.”
Photo: Lauren Logan
Mint complements the blue backsplash tile and the stark black and white floors, and brass hardware warms up the rather cool color palette. With pure white walls and countertops, the space feels impossibly fresh—and the unexpected kitchen cabinet paint color is sure to be a delightful surprise for any visitor.
For anyone looking to bring the same effect into their homes, it’s normal to be cautious and maybe a little hesitant, especially if the color seems really bright. Even Stevens’ clients were wary when she first proposed painting the kitchen cabinets mint green.
“When I got a color swatch or a color card and showed it to them, they were like, ‘That’s too bright,’” she says. “I was able to convince them that paint colors usually are much brighter in paint cards.”
Remember too that, in almost all cases, kitchen cabinets are not isolated—any color will look different surrounded by the backsplash, floor, appliance garage cabinet, countertops, and other details. “All the other details that go with it are going to make it muted a little bit and not stand out like a sore thumb,” Stevens says.
If you’re considering an atypical color for your kitchen cabinets, don’t let inexact paint swatches or fear of being too bold keep you from the look you’re dreaming of. Finding that just-right color may take time, especially if it’s not among the lists of common or oft-recommended kitchen cabinet colors, but the final result will be well worth the time and effort—this stunning cookspace should be more than enough to convince you of that.
