apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I tried painting my kitchen cabinets yellow for this same reason. Our kitchen has no natural light. The closest window is over 20 feet away in the living room. But painting the cabinets yellow made the kitchen look sickly rather than bright and fresh. Every day I look at them and wonder how to get the light, bright, beautiful yellow that looks so great in everyone else's home!! Am I using the wrong color light bulbs?

I love it! My kitchen is a golden yellow and everyone says it's very bright and cheerful, despite having honey wood cabinets and dark counter tops. This brighter yellow looks great with all that clean white and your lovely floors.

sagekitten - if you need to brighten a room with no natural light, paint it white. end of story.

hardly the end of story.

Just experiment sagekitten85 - yellow is the way to go for dark gloomy rooms which is why it is so popular in Ireland and Scotland. Sounds like you need to go a LOT lighter. Try the Benjamin Moore yellow color strips, pick a yellow you like, go higher up the strip, then slap some up on a cupboard door. Then just wait until a yellow calls out "I'm the ONE!"

Thanks Headzo, that's the conclusion I've come to... not looking forward to repainting all the cabinets though :(

Bo Placebo, that's pretty much what I did and it looked great on one cabinet (the cabinets were dark dark brown before). But when I painted them ALL yellow, it reflected an unpleasant color onto everything else. Maybe I will try a super light yellow that is almost white, but I'm wondering if it will still have the same effect. I would rather not have to paint them plain white but I also don't want to repaint them 3 more times!!

Yellow will forever remind me of my best childhood friend's house (the carpeting and sofa), and not in a good way. Cheesy. I've only barely begun to wear it, and I just don't see painting my walls that color. Ever.

I just painted my kitchen yellow. We have white cabinets and appliances and we opted to paint the boring landlord brown that was there before. It's a very sunny lemon yellow that I am still scared of (the boyfriend picked the colour). In the daylight the room is sunny and cheery, but at night, with our bad flourescent fixture, it gets a really ugly tone.

Yellow is a hard colour!

Before:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marmarsupial/2908133287/
After:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marmarsupial/3025545631/

Nacho Cheese - Benjamin Moore
in my kitchen! It always looks the lights are on....in a good way!

Using Behr Milkyway Galaxay this afternoon. Soft creamy yellow looks great against the fields of winter grass and in summer when everything is green, it looks like reflected sunlight.

sorry but in a space truly without natural light, white is the best option.

i lived in a garden apartment and the previous tenants tried to "brighten" up the place with a really bright teal and it didn't work at all. we painted it bright white and it worked out fine. you can always go back and add color through furniture and accessories.

How about both white and yellow? Agree that there can be too much yellow but white often comes out sterile and cold. Like the idea of cabinets and appliances being white but how about making the walls yellow and possibly the bottom cabinets. Neither color should be relied upon to do it all - white to brighten the space and yellow to lighten or cheer it up.

Hmm. I think having the bottom cabinets light yellow could work. There isn't much space for them to reflect on anything except each other (enclosed U-shaped kitchen), it's the top cabinets that are the problem. As far as painting the walls goes, our walls are made of cinder block and it just looks strange for them to be any color other than white.

Thanks to you both for your suggestions!

I actually had the opposite problem - 10 foot ceilings and lots of white white walls and a skylight. The kitchen is all along one wall and on the opposite side I painted the wall with Behr Chickadee. I also added sheer curtains and threw christmas lights behind them. There's now a cheeful warm glow in the room.