Two tone kitchen cabinets work when you settle where the colors split before you pick the colors. Placement does as much work as the shades do. Two-tone means two cabinet colors or finishes in one kitchen, and the split is the line where one color stops and the other starts. One group of cabinets carries the darker color. The other group stays quiet. Then the counter, the backsplash and the hardware tie the two together. The order of those decisions matters, because the shades can’t rescue a line in the wrong place.
Pick both colors off photos and chips, then settle the line after the cabinets are ordered. The finished kitchen can show every bit of that. The split looks arbitrary. One color overpowers the room. The counter or the hardware suits one of the two colors and fights the other. None of that is easy to live with, and it isn’t the sort of thing a chip warns you about.
Two Tone Kitchen Cabinets Start With Where the Colors Split
NKBA is the kitchen and bath industry’s trade association. NKBA’s look back at kitchen design trends describes a two-color pairing: darker lowers under lighter uppers. The lowers it describes are gray, and later shades of blue and green. The uppers are white, off-white or light wood. It looks back at design and isn’t a rule for your kitchen.
Dark and low can ground a room. The eye can take the weight at the bottom, and the lighter uppers can stay quiet above it. Turn it around, and the uppers can feel heavy, as if the wall is leaning in. That doesn’t make one direction right and the other wrong. It makes the choice worth testing before the order. The same NKBA page notes that some clients kept color to an accent in paint or tile, so two cabinet colors are one way to bring color into a kitchen and not the only one.
The line doesn’t have to run between the uppers and the bases. Three other places can carry it.
- Between the island and the perimeter cabinets.
- Between one tall run and everything around it.
- Between the range wall and the rest of the room.
Wherever it lands, the line reads as planned when it falls where a run ends or at the edge of the island. A corner works too. It looks arbitrary when it stops in the middle of a run, because nothing in the room explains why it stopped there. Walk your kitchen and find those natural stopping points first. The colors have an easier job after that.
Should the Island Be a Different Color?
Yes, it can be. In NKBA’s design trends survey, 68 percent of respondents opted for a different color on the island, and light was the preferred cabinet tone at 70 percent. More than half those respondents were designers, so that’s what industry professionals expected, not what homeowners chose.
An island in its own color can mark the spot where people gather, and it can give the kitchen one focal point instead of two. It can also carry the darker color without crowding the walls, because it sits out on the floor, apart from the walls. Decide which group the island joins, the darker one or the lighter one, before the order goes in. That keeps the cabinets at two colors. A third cabinet color turns a plan into a collage, and it’s one more thing the counter and the hardware have to agree with.
What Ties Two Cabinet Colors Together?
The tie comes from the parts both colors touch. The counter runs past both groups of cabinets. The backsplash sits above one group and beside the other. The hardware lands on every door and drawer, so it’s the one finish both colors share. Those pieces carry the split or expose it.
Hold the counter sample against both door colors before anyone places an order. A counter that suits one color may fight the other. Repeat one hardware finish across both colors, and the two groups can read as one design instead of two jobs. Keep the same door style on both sides of the split, so the colors carry the contrast and the doors don’t. The quieter the doors are about it, the more deliberate the split can look. If any one of them can’t work with both colors, you’ve learned something useful before the order and not after.
How Do You Judge Two Cabinet Colors Before You Order?
Put full-size doors in both colors side by side in your own kitchen. Stand them against the counter and the floor you’re keeping. Hold the hardware up to both. Then look at all of it in the morning, and again at night under the lights.
Light from a window and light from a pendant can pull the same color two different ways. A color can read warm at noon and flat after dark. Stand the doors up where they’ll hang, because a door lying flat on the counter catches light from a different angle. Look from the doorway as well, since that’s where the two colors meet your eye at once. A chip is a small piece of a big surface — that makes it a guess. A photo was shot in someone else’s light and someone else’s room, so it’s a guess too.
Our post on when blue kitchen cabinets work lists a blue base with lighter uppers as one approach, and says that approach keeps the room feeling open.
A McDaniels designer will work with you in your home and in our showroom, measure the kitchen and go over your design goals. On a kitchen remodeling project, we coordinate the cabinets, the countertops, the hardware and more into one design. Keep both colors in that conversation with the counter and the hardware, and the split isn’t left to chance.
If both colors are painted, the sheen is a separate choice, and McDaniels has its own post on how the sheen changes what a painted door shows.
Frequently Asked Questions About Two-Tone Cabinets
Should the upper or lower cabinets be darker?
Neither one is a rule. NKBA’s trends page describes a pairing with darker lowers under lighter uppers, and dark down low can ground a room. The other way around can work as well, if the sample looks right in your light. Set full-size doors both ways in your kitchen, at the height they’ll hang, and let the samples settle it. A page can’t do that part for you.
How many colors are too many in one kitchen?
There’s no fixed number, but two cabinet colors can give a kitchen a clear plan. Remember that the counter and the floor bring color of their own, and so does the backsplash. Stack a third cabinet color on top of those, and the room can get harder to read. If you want more color than two cabinet finishes carry, it can come from a surface that isn’t a cabinet door.
Do both colors need the same door style?
They don’t have to match, but one door style across both colors can keep the kitchen reading as one design. The colors do the contrasting, and the doors stay out of the argument. Mix the styles and you ask the eye to track two changes at once, which can work or can look busy. A designer can show you what the mix would do before you commit to it.
Should the hardware match on both colors?
One hardware finish repeated across both groups can tie them together, and that’s the simpler path. Two finishes can work, but then the hardware becomes a third thing to coordinate with the counter. Whatever you choose, hold the finish against both door colors in your own kitchen before the order goes in. A finish can flatter one color and go dull against the other.
What should I bring to a design consultation about cabinet colors?
Bring photos of your kitchen by day and at night, the two colors you’re weighing, and the counter and floor you plan to keep. Samples beat descriptions, so bring the physical pieces if you have them. McDaniels offers complimentary consultations with its designers, who work with you in your home and in the Lansing showroom. Bring the questions you haven’t settled yet, including where you think the split should fall.
Put Both Colors Side by Side Before You Order
At McDaniels, your designer works with you in your home and in our showroom, and coordinates the kitchen cabinets, countertops, hardware, plumbing fixtures, appliances and more into one kitchen design.
Two tone kitchen cabinets look planned when the split and the tie-ins were settled in your own light, before the order went in. Settle them afterward, and you’ll see the difference every time you walk in.
Bring your photos and your two colors to our Lansing showroom, and book a complimentary design consultation to put them side by side with a designer.
