Ab. So. Lutely. In my parents house I had a windowless bathroom that I thought would always feel yucky and dingy. Turns out going from a weird medium green to bright, light, aqua-y blue made all the difference— as well as repainting the door/trim/ceiling bright, true white. Some may disagree, but in kitchens and baths, I think the only acceptable white is a bright white (no weird ivory/beige colors for me).

Well I have to say that the bathroom in picture #5 seems less clean because of the mottled brown floor and baby poo colored walls :) I like the kitchen in picture #6, it's light and airy but not sterile. It looks cozy because of the wood beams and other details.
White looks fresh and clean, but enough is enough.
I lived with white floors for three months, and NEVER AGAIN. I was constantly wiping and sweeping and vacuuming.
On the other hand, if there is no white at all, rooms can easily look stuffy..

I totally agree on color making a room feel airier and therefore cleaner. I also love a good white, but I find trendy all-white kitchen to feel sterile and cool too. Yes, cool feels clean, but also cold, so I enjoy balancing the two (I really like the kitchen in photo number 6 for that matter). I tend to replace the all-white recommendations with very minty-fresh colors like a light yellowish-green or a soy babyt blue. The lighter the color, the cleaner the room feels.

You didn't mention materials: put wall-to-wall carpet in a bathroom, any color, an tell me if it feels clean... plushy fabrics don't feel clean in bathrooms and kitchen (except in towels of course), but put tiles instead and voilà ! instant freshness.

Light 'clean' colors (pure tones that aren't muddled) in cool tones tend to appear cleaner than warm colors. That's why Scandi tends to seem cleaner than Old World or Tuscan.

Crisp, minimal design is visually cleaner. The fewer competing lines, the cleaner the space will seem. Sharp corners (think sofas and table legs) generally seem cleaner than scrolls and rolls.

i've always loved white bathrooms, but there's no way to keep it clean. also, in a rental it seems like there are so many different shades of white (sink vs. tub vs. toilet vs. tile) that it just makes one look more grungy than another, so i've taken to painting them bold colors.

the kitchen, on the other hand...i've never liked white. it's filthy. we just painted our kitchen an olive green (backsplash) with Benjamin Moore Silver Fox (honestly, its in every room in the apartment, minus a few accent color walls) and it's lovely. doesn't show any grime, easily washable and looks very clean and modern.

My last apartment's bathroom had (no joke) completely unfinished wood paneling from mid-wall down and zero ventilation. you can imagine that after 20 or so years this wood was DISGUSTING looking. I painted the wood a light grey and the trim white and it looked 100% cleaner. However, the wall above i painted an awesome medium grey-blue which looked great until the moisture from the shower left streaks all over it. I was wiping down the walls for months until i moved out. ugh.

I never ever thought of baby poo as a color until I looked at #5 and then I see someone else had already mentioned it. Yep, white it is for me and yes, bright white!

I love bright white but we and the dogs are just too dirty. We did the kitchen in mostly gray, lots of stainless, which gives it a bit of a commercial feel, which I like, and seems to be a good compromise. And it doesn't show the dirt so readily. I refuse to constantly wipe things down.

Yes. Bright white tends to look dirtier faster. White accents look great, though.

Those door knockers on the vanity in the first pic look ridiculous.

I think light/lighting has a huge effect on any space! But after living in a 100 year old twin for two years (that I loved, but was old and impossible to keep clean - there were massive cracks in the hardwood floors) I needed white and bright and minimal! We installed a window in our bathroom where there was none, and put down white tile and painted walls white. I will say it feels unfinished, but it definitely feels clean, even when it's been a week! I think that one of the big things, though, in the bathroom, is grout age/color. That can make the whitest bathroom look grungy.

Bright white looks fantastic but only if you can actually keep it clean. I never understand, for example, magazine features with all-white interiors in homes with young children. I always imagine a maid with a bottle of spray cleaner and a rag hovering just outside the border of the photographs.

@JasmineIsDomestic: yeah, the door knockers are silly. Is someone living in there?

My mother painted her en-suite bathroom a muddy red and she has dark floors and dark counter top and if I lived there I just feel I wouldn't be able to relax. For one, I tend to prefer cold colors and do enjoy white in a bathroom.

"Excessive" grout always makes me think things are feeeeeeeeeelthy, no matter what color the grout is. Not a fan of penny tile. Don't know why anyone would do that to themselves.

On the other hand, a white/light floor and surfaces means that I can detect the dirtiness before it becomes a big problem.
Just primed over my kitchen with the disgusting, cheap, poorly executed Tuscan-y terra cotta red. I haven't decided what color to go with yet, but I might just keep it white for a while. What an eyesore.

in the bathroom, brown is unacceptable (to me) - old or modern varieties. peachy-pink in any room puts me off - reminds me of a hospital in the 80's.

I love white for kitchen cabinets and appliances. It's just me and my husband and easy to see the dirt and keep it clean. We are in a rental with dark floors (looks like bricks but is vinyl flooring) and black plastic baseboards in the kitchen...dust shows sooo much. And I made the mistake of getting a black refrigerator and stove. Never again! Dust, dust, dust. Dust is white. I want my white fridge back.

Same with the bathroom. I love white. We are cursed with the same black plastic baseboards in there with black accent tile. The dust!

OMG, white floors, never! We live in Tennessee, so lots of clay, have two dogs that love to get muddy, my boyfriend's a carpenter so tends to track in dirt and I garden a lot, hence dirt. A white floor would mean I'd have to mop daily, which means a lot less time to do more important stuff. Our downstairs floors are all a cloudy gray that hides an insane amount of dirt, which I'm grateful for. I mop weekly (mostly) and am amazed at how much dirt comes up. But it's just dirt.

My bathroom door is probably 80 years old and I would have to get at custom made one to replace it, because it's quite a bit narrower then the modern standard. I've lived for five years with a 2005 white and gray tiled (even the celing is white tiles, which I love) bathroom, and an off-white old door with tons of paint layers from all those years and heavy wood trimmings. Last month I scraped off some paint layers and painted it a light gray with a touch of blue in it - it looks SO much crisp and clean than the old one!

I think contrast has a lot to do with it, a strong contrast nearly always conveys cleanliness. That's why white so commonly makes rooms feel fresh, because it works as a contrast with so many colours.

I personally don't like browns in bathrooms, I know this is often touted as a "relaxing spa" look but personally I like a bathroom to feel above all clean and refreshing and browns (including any and all shades of beige) just never do that.

Yes, WHITE! I like white, black and gray for kitchens and baths with pops of color from towels, rugs, etc. This feels cleanest to me.

I think most clear bright colors, in all color families, look cleaner than those that start into the dull-dirty tones. To me, lime green reads clean, that baby poo color in #5 - not so much.

White. No substitute.

#3 Oh those blue tiles and white wood! want want want,such a surprise, for a lover of all things red!