8 Kitchen Cabinet Paint Jobs We Just Can’t Quit

White kitchens have their place, but kitchen cabinets provide an enormous—ad relatively affordable!—place to add color and personality to your home. You don’t even need to tear everything out and start all over again! Adding a new paint color to the same old cabinets can totally change the look and feel of the entire cook space, and depending on the size of your kitchen, it can even be a project you can do in just a weekend. Creating a single tone kitchen can even make your home look more expensive. Here are a handful of painted cabinets that stuck with me after I first saw them, and that I just can’t quit thinking about. Read on to get inspiration (and actual paint colors) for your next kitchen project.

This kitchen from designer Neal Beckstedt is a winner, and it’s all down to that unexpected cabinet color. He used Farrow & Ball’s Setting Plaster, a dusty salmon pink that pairs beautifully with the pesco marble backsplash and countertops.

Green emerged as a popular color in recent years, and this modern farmhouse kitchen from Jaclyn Peters shows the appeal. She used Benjamin Moore’s Jack Pine for both the cabinets and island, letting some natural wood peek out for a woodsy vibe.

Dabito chose a more olive shade of green for the Shaker cabinets in his guest house makeover, namely Behr’s Fig Tree. The rich yet subdued color grounds the other bright hues—like that pink wall!—without being boring itself.

I know not everyone is going to run out and paint their lower cabinets mustard yellow, but this design from Studio Shamshiri is inspiring enough that you might consider it. The color looks particularly good against pale wood floors. For a similar vibe, try Farrow & Ball’s India Yellow.

Blue is a classic choice. This color looks especially soothing thanks to its slightly gray undertone, which makes it feel more welcoming and homey. Ginny McDonald used Benjamin Moore’s Wolf Gray in this kitchen she designed for Emily Henderson. Bright white walls give these cabinets a crisp backdrop.

There’s so much to love about Athena Calderone’s Brooklyn kitchen, designed by Elizabeth Roberts Architecture, but I’ll start with her cabinets painted with Farrow & Ball Railings. The color stops just short of being true black. Instead, it’s a super dark gray with a hint of deep blue that’s sophisticated and striking. Because it’s not completely black, it’s also less stark—but doesn’t lose the sense of drama that comes with deep colors, either.

When Amber Interiors tackled this California kitchen, they knew they wanted to use Sherwin Williams’ Greenblack on the cabinets as contrast to the white walls. What was before a very ordinary space is now a classic, old-world style kitchen. It’s certainly fancy looking, but stained wood accents—the beams, the island—keep it feeling comfortable.

If you are worried about committing to a bolder color, go the neutral route and feel safe knowing it will never go out of style or get old. It doesn’t have to be white either, especially when there are warmer options like Coventry Gray by Benjamin Moore, as seen in this serene kitchen from Studio McGee.