Here’s Why Ty Pennington Says Gray Is “The New Everything” For Kitchens

In his new HGTV series “Ty Breaker,” host Ty Pennington has taught viewers a thing or two about kitchens, especially in his most recent episode where he strayed far from playing it safe in his design choices. As Ty renovated a family’s home to give them more space to cook, parent, and entertain, he dropped some design tips all kitchen DIYers can use — including his suggestion to go gray.

In this week’s episode, Pennington and his design team stained both the maple floors and the countertops a gray/whitewash, exclaiming, “Gray is the new everything! It’s the new walnut.” Instead of using traditionally darker woods to make a kitchen look expensive and trendy, his team opted for this gray stain which he says creates a youthful, fresh vibe in the well-lit room.

He didn’t stop there with his gray obsession, utilizing it as well in the lower half of his two-toned kitchen cabinets (the uppers were white, as seen in the third photo above). He advises people to try out two colors of cabinets to keep the upper half lighter than the lower half, whether you choose to integrate grays or not.

But before you picture a sterile and boring gray and white kitchen, take one from Pennington’s book and get playful with colors in the decor and chairs. The couple’s renovated kitchen has an oblong, oval dining table with light green painted chairs (pictured in the second photo above), complementing the rest of the kitchen’s gray tones.

Beyond the colors, Pennington also had a few other helpful tips when designing your kitchen, specifically when it comes to the kitchen cabinets and backsplash. An amateur artist himself, he advises to play with the design in the backsplash as an art feature in the kitchen — in this case, opting for a geometric patterned tile featuring grays, black, and white.

For the cabinetry, he chose hardware (pulls for the bottom half, knobs for the top) inspired by the square/diamond shape from the backsplash. He and his design team joke that it’s a “ballsy and bold” choice, and it made all the difference in the finished product.

To get more tips, look for “Ty Breaker” on Discovery+, Amazon Prime, and HGTV.