Looking for a full researched blog on how you can decorate your kitchen like a pro ? well we are your saviours. From DIY tricks to under budget décor, we have got your backs. So let’s begin !
How to decide the colour theme ?
There is generally a basic three colour palette which governs the overall colours of your kitchen. Let’s consider the first colour as the colour you can’t change. The colour you can’t change depends on your own choices. Which component can you not accommodate to change its colour? For eg. The walls. Do you have the budget to change the walls ? or the countertop which might be marble. Can you really paint it? It will look terrible. So according to those choices, you choose one colour that you will decide not to change.
The second colour is a neutral. It should be faded and simple, a very medium, neutral colour that blends all other colours in. It can be a neutral anything – neutral pink or grey or yellow or an off white. We will help you through that too.
The third colour is the one that pops in your kitchen. The one that is unique and very bold. This is the colour that will make your kitchen look interesting. Depending on the previous two colours, it can be a bright red, any bold pink, black, dark or bold blue or any other unexpected colour that works.
Some colour palette suggestions –
The very basic and always working one is black, white and golden. You may exchange golden with metallic brown too. It is simple. It is classy. It works every time. This can be accommodated with the 3 colour palette that we have too. If the gold is not enough to pop for you, feel free to mix a bright red as a statement piece and some complementary pieces. You could go for the following –
white, blue, golden and rose gold.
Blue, grey and pink
Lavender (neutral), bright blue or purple and bright yellow.
Whites, blues and caramel
Garnet and whites ( you may go with just two complementary colours if you want)
Cream, orange and Chocolate
Red or orange, baby pink and white
Navy blue and shades of pink ( light )
The right shades of yellow and pink. Imagine – hot pink, white and yellow.
Muted shades of green and pink
Brown and shades of pink
Light pink and brass
You could go with light grey and pinks for the light tones. Add any bold colour.
Go blue on blue. Very light blue and very dark blue and a metallic colour.
Orange, golden, white and navy blue
Mint, pale grey and brown
Fuchsia, very light Blue and brass
If you want to go very bold, go all white and bright yellow
Turquoise, marigold and one dark colour like black.
Hot pink, mint green with hints or blue or yellow
Peach, golden and black
Teal, copper and white
Pale pink, mint green and brown
Lavender, Chartreuse and white
Bubblegum pink and hues of green
Some other suggestions of colours to give you an idea about it –
Neutrals
Pale lavender
smoking ring blue
Borrowed Light Blue
Baby Blue
Gray blue
Dove Gray
Gray’s shades
Faded turquoise
A list of Bolds –
Sage green
Bright turquoise
Red
Scarlet
Tangerine
Burnt Orange
Ruby red – steals hearts with white
Hot pink
Pigmented mustard
Bright yellow
Garnet
Bright purple
Navy blue
Black
Now, Only keep pieces that fit into the colour scheme well. If you are having a low budget, we have a tip. Buy a statement coloured storage device like a cupboard maybe. Keep all the pieces which do not have the same colour in there. This will keep your colour scheme safe and also hide the clutter.
Then just buy a few more pieces to coordinate with the colour scheme.
If you’re decorating or renovating, you can let the display items have the same colour as one of the colours of the scheme. For eg. If you’re going to hang your utensils, keep them in black or red, say black or red are in your palette. Hide the rest of them which destroy the vibe into drawers and cabinets.
Now again,
If your appliances are silver – which will be the case for most of you. Then you have the following choices as to colour palettes. We recommend these so that you get the feel and vibe. You can totally go with your own choices. Remember the original mantra of 3 primary colours.
Silver, Woodsmoke, swirl, cottonseed, tuna and black
Ebony clay, silver, barley, mercury and for bold- go for yellow or red.
Silver, maroon, brown, very light brown.
All greys, silvers and faded pinks – all pastel. For bold colour – black.
Silver with shades of blue
Silver, turquoise, teal, blue peacock and north star
Silver, Bismark, Athens grey, tussock, leather and red/maroon.
Dune, alabaster, scarlet and boulder
Mustard yellow, silver, black and white.
Shark, driftwood, bone and silver
Silver, grey, hot pink and peach
So these were the colour combo suggestions if you have silver appliances.
Click here to view various kitchen paint themes on Amazon.
On a budget –
For colour schemers
As told earlier, you may buy a new storage place like a cupboard which belongs to your colour palette and shoves all colour disturbers into cabinets and drawers. Buy new pieces that will go with your scheme. You do not need to buy many new pieces. Just one or two big ones – especially if you lack a bold colour.
If you have some pieces that go with the palette already, use them well.
If you can’t paint your walls, choose such a colour which suits the palette and get the cabinets painted ( which are usually wooden ).
If your choices don’t allow amendments in cabinets n all, wallpaper your walls or hang pieces that make differences.
How to decorate kitchen walls -
Well, a kitchen wall generally doesn’t need décor since they are covered with cabinets and storage. Hardly does it happen that kitchen walls are large and that they’re empty. You need not do heavy décor if the walls already have cabinets. The right thing to do then is just to get the walls painted smartly.
If you have more than 2 walls that are empty, then only go for extra pieces. Exceptions can exist.
You could go with the simplest trick by painting them in the neutral colour of your palette and then decorate them with the other two theme colours.
There are so many options that you might get overwhelmed. So we’re categorizing.
If you want to add lights
( ceiling section )
The most common way of decorating a ceiling is to hang glass bulbs. These days it’s very trendy to hang a glass bulb with thick brown jute ropes. You could go abstract and keep them any length or have symmetry and logic.
Another common way is to have ceiling led lights.
For example in this kitchen –
You can see the hanging lights here too, it adds the decorative element. Note how the lights’ rod also is colour complementary according to the palette.
You could go non traditional – non brown lights like in the picture below. They have hung the glass lights too low from the ceiling and it looks crowded. It’s not recommended for a kitchen. What we want to bring your attention to is the colour and shape of the lights
Another way of décor is hanging a chandelier to the ceiling, like in the picture below. Just look at this picture also. It’s the colour palette that needs to be kept in mind. Look at the whole kitchen. Everything is complemented according to the palette. The metal part of the chandelier complements the colours very well. This is the key to making your kitchen look professional.
Lights – wall section
Wall decor with picture frames
Even though kitchen is not a place where you do this, you can do this on the dining room wall in case it is attached to the kitchen. Otherwise, in a fully operated kitchen, having photo frames is not practical at all. Only have a wall of photo frames when you kitchen adjoins your dining or drawing room.
Wall Paint
How to paint your walls so that your kitchen looks modern ?
As we said earlier, If you want to play safe, paint your walls the neutral colour that you have chosen from your palette and then do the décor in the other two primary colours.
Now, there are a variety of things you can do with the walls.
If you are renovating, you can get one of them repainted in the bold colour and keep the rest of them neutral.
If you’re not looking for decorating them at all, add dimension by adding texture. You could make the walls get a brick texture. There are many other textures available too.
You can get a wall wallpapered.
You could get a pattern painted, like stripes ( horizontal or vertical ), or some particular pattern, etc.
you could go for an ombre design.
There are so many things to choose from when it comes to walls.
If the wall has an opening ( like a door or a window ) then you could go for a symmetrical design which is absent in the window area. For e.g. in the pic below,
Not necessarily a parallel line design, you can go fully abstract with slanting lines and different colours.
Wall Clock
When in doubts, do this. A wall clock is something that will suit any wall. You may go for any design according to its aura.
Décor with utensils
If you’re smart and you utensils match your colour palette, don’t think twice before using them for display. The wall which belongs to the kitchen, you can hang utensils there via nails. Not only will this make them easily reachable, it will be a smart move too.
If displaying is not your thing, you may display them on shelves too. Its all about perspective.
VERY IMPORTANT NOTE:
- Do not implement all the options that we have provided. If you’re decorating walls, either have little décor on some or full glam on one. Do not do everything possible, your kitchen will look like a disaster.
DIY - On a budget décor
There are many DIYs that you can go for. We present some too.
- First of all, you could hang any bedsheet or scarf or maybe even a mat on the wall as wall art. Not every piece would go, but it will look great if the wall art you hang matches your colour palette well. There are completely round jute mats that people use, that could be hung on a wall as art.
- You could make your own art.
Another DIY is that you take a leaf, do the same as above, just keep a black background. The key to making it look store bought is to not smush the leaf down. Just put glue on the backbone and let the rest of it just be 3-D.
Silver branches were very good. You take an artistic looking thin branch, spray paint it silver and place it in a 3-d photo frame.
Floor décor
Since it’s a kitchen, it’s bound to get dirty, we recommend that you avoid carpets at all cost.
Rather, just go for simple shiny tiles which may or may not have patterns.
If you’re not a professional and want to do safe, make your tiles have the neutral colour of the palette.
You can also go for wooden flooring. That however, might be a bold choice and you need to be careful with the décor.
Floors might use a mat too. This is a good replacement for a rug and will be of good use too, in case you need it to absorb any recent spills.
Small Space Hack
For a small space, paint the ceiling a very light colour as compared to your walls. It makes the place look larger. Horizontal stripes will make the walls look wider.
LIGHTING –
Let’s get into details. Like we told you a trick for colours, that you need three of them and which ones too. Similarly, we have a guide for choosing lights. Professional lighting needs a lot of specifications to be kept in mind. For eg., There are 3 to 4 layers of lighting. There are many types of lighting, it can be sharp and of dimension or it can be ambient.
The three basic layers are ambient, accent and task.
Ambient lighting is the one that adds softness and removes sharpness and dimensions from the room.
Accent lighting helps you in highlighting the various points of the room that you want to display. For a good accent lighting, the focal point should be three times brighter than the ambient one.
Task lighting is the one that is used to keep a workplace free from shadows like the kitchen island or the countertop. People install lights under chimneys to task light the stove.
Good lighting is especially needed for a small kitchen. You can play with many options.
Simple Indian households prefer simple LED bulbs and tube lights. They are a good choice provided you place them good. In the main workplace of the kitchen area, you can work with them two. But it is a great choice of décor if you place cool hanging lamps over the kitchen island. The best way to add dimension to your kitchen is to have hanging lanterns in symmetry ( and of the exact same design or complementing each other very closely) over the kitchen island. Most of the modern kitchen you see will have this look.
Now, coming to the lanterns. They must complement the colour scheme. If that’s not possible, their metal pieces ( hanging rod, etc) must be one of the colours of the scheme as stated above.
The actual term used is pendant lights.
The other thing you may do is buy a chandelier. Not the vast, royal ones that have to go in the living room, simple classy lanterns that will look good in the kitchen as stated above with examples.
There are chandeliers that change colours on your voice recognition and even work on remotes. You can have them installed and change the intensity and colour of light as per the situation.
If you want to go one step extra, then people these days buy LEDs that even kill certain bacteria.
Also, it is not a bad idea to have just the task lights that light up the room, in fact, this is what happens in most Indian kitchens. It also saves electricity. Having multiple lighting will obviously use more electricity.
A tip for people who want to play very safe,
Add the task lights ( LEDs and Tube lights ) and make a shelf which is kind of a display pantry. Make all the shelves have highlight lighting. Put junk food like chips and chocolates there. Or you could just put up similar beautiful containers. The point is that it should be a cute small beautiful pantry which kind of is the focal point with the only highlights. You could add more highlight lights on the beautiful areas. You could put one below any statement piece or a painting.
Decorating the pantry –
The way to make your pantry look good is to have it organized. Keep all the packet related things into containers. The containers should be of a set, they should be similar. For e.g. all of them glass jars, or all of them plastic of a same style. It is not necessary to have it all in the same style. But at least have similar containers in one shelf.
Buy similar baskets if you find some things that might not come into a container. You can keep various things in there.
Similar containers and baskets give a very flown and organized look to the pantry. You may check out Khoe Kardashian’s pantry video where she gives us a tour of her pantry.
To add beauty, fix the lighting. Make it highlighted.
On a budget –
Baskets are your saviour. You can easily buy many cheap baskets from any wallmart or nearby store. You can store packets in them, you don’t need to buy new containers for each packet of cereal or pulse, etc that way. You will save money and will also make your pantry look super cool. If you don’t have the budget of baskets, you can even DIY them. There are many tutorials on youtube.
Seating arrangement -
Indian kitchens prefer having legit dining tables. If you’re going for a proper dining table, you must buy a set so that the table and chairs are complimentary. There are many options to choose from. You could get one of those tables that can we rolled, or one that can be folded smaller, one with a glass top or one whose certain points heat up to keep the food warm.
If you have a kitchen island, then you need chairs to put into it. You could go with a cantilever chair, a wing chair, a ladderback chair, a bar stool, a Windsor chair, a dining room chair, a wood chair or nice armchairs too. Generally, people prefer bar stools on the kitchen island. Not the normal generic ones, but some weird bold colour ones are also good these days. You can check our Lilly Singh’s vlogs and see what type of stools she has for reference.
Kitchen island décor -
Well, obviously have cutlery stand there. It will add to the beauty. But you can experiment with succulents or other plants too. Kitchen Island is a good place to put vases too. You could have beautiful fake flower arrangements if you don’t have time to change them every day. But as we stated earlier, succulents or small pot plants are going to look very cute too. If you don’t have the time and energy for taking care of real plants, you can just put up fake plants for décor purposes.
You could keep it bare or put a beautiful sheet that goes with the décor.
Choose the chairs carefully as they can either make or break the look if the island.
As we told you earlier in the lighting section, it is very common for people to put pendant lights as task lights over the kitchen island. They can be very stylish and make your kitchen look good.
A simple fruit basket also does wonders. The basket could be of any material. It could be a crystal royal fruit basket, or maybe just a cute jute one.
We recommend you watch Khoe Kardashian’s way of storing cookies. She takes these huge glass jars and statistically places cookies in them that look fabulous and last over a month.
Many people have even wash basins in their kitchen islands, you could get that for you.
Sinks and washing basins -
Cleaning supplies -
Decorating a small kitchen -
Follow the mantra of organizing and being simple. Keep the counters and Kitchen Island clean. No need for any large vases or many small pots.
You could keep a medium vase if you want to add it as a statement piece. You could add not more than 3 succulents along with the window or maybe along the counter. You may hang utensils but on the wall adjacent to the stove. Use as many cabinets. You may use underground secret storage too. Shelves might look good too. Have hidden storage and don’t keep piling things up. It will make it all look messy.
Brighten every corner. A well-lit room gives an illusion of a bigger room. A shady room has more dimensions than needed.
You could paint the ceiling lighter than the walls that too helps in creating an illusion of a bigger room. The walls can be painted with stripes be it horizontal or vertical. Horizontal stripes make it look wider, vertical ones make it look taller.
You can get shelves installed in your cabinets to make more use of vertical space. Even racks are available these days, that fit inside your cabinet and utilize vertical space perfectly.
Voice recognition -
If you’re super rich, you can have this privilege. You can install voice recognition software such that it controls lights on your vocal commands. Some kind of software even opens microwave, oven, stove, etc. on your commands.
Pros
- You do not need to do any hard work
- You can schedule the time at which it should do the cleaning everyday.
- This type of vacuum cleaner can reach even in difficult places like under the bed, under the sofa because of its compact size.
- This type of vacuum cleaner cleans even the spots due to its mopping functions
- It doubles as a mop, it can mop as well. So you get a vacuum cleaner and a mop.
Cons
- It lacks smartness- it will suck anything regardless of what the floor presents. Even clothes which will get stuck.
- When the battery starts to get low, it is supposed to get back on its own, sometimes it can not as it either is not able to reach its designated place or sometimes some obstacle stops it in its path.
- It gets stuck when a large obstacle like a table is introduced in its path.
- Its cost is more as compared to regular manual vacuums.
How to decorate country side kitchen -
Countryside kitchens have a cosy, rustic vibe. You may go wooden with furniture. The rustic vibes have wooden – orange-ish vibes.
If you’re going for French country kitchens, then go for earthly colours, orderly florals, farm animal décor and toile fabrics.
English country kitchens have rustic, used furniture, hunting scene décor and chintz floral.
Keep some elements retro. Mix match the seating. Add comfortable sofas with wooden bench type stools. Have many vases and keep beautiful flower arrangements in them. Linens are also a great way of incorporating the countryside feels. For countryside kitchens, long hanging pendant lights look best. You could go for antique looking chandeliers which are hanging long from the ceiling. Go for antiques. Antique statement pieces are what make your kitchen look a countryside one. Have high ceilings and make it look low maintenance. Copper outsides of utensils like pans and pots make them look rustic too.
Decorating apartment kitchen -
Apartment kitchens are small, and you need to attach it to the dining or drawing room. Generally, the kitchen is not a separate room and just space where there are a counter and kitchen island along. Irrespective of all this, what you can work with is the countertop. As mentioned earlier, add one or two succulents along with a window or on the island. If not that, add a medium size vase with beautiful flowers.
Your key to décor is adding pendant lights over the kitchen island and having a good set of stools that come along it. They will make or break the look. The counterpart which is visible should have cabinets because they are your only options of storage and hiding ugly things.
You can have the cabinets coloured a certain way to match the colours of your palette.
You may hang certain good looking utensils on nails or pegboards on the empty side of the wall. One thing you must consider at all cost is to have good lighting. Have lights under the chimney, have lights under the shelves, under the cabinets and other places that you think you can highlight.
Place large baskets that match the colour palette and you may place all sorts of packets and tiny things that disturb your aesthetic.
De-clutter everything – Very especially the visible regions of your kitchen. If the shelves look bad, cover them with a curtain. You could even DIY your curtain by using just a good cloth and a wire or rope.
You can have multifunctional devices. For eg., There is a kind of a sink that can be covered as a cutting board i.e. the cutting board slides out of it.
You could attach a magnetic strip to the wall above the counter and hang knives and spoons there. Racks will be of great use to you as storage relief.
Add shelves even in cabinets to make use of the vertical space.
You can sort your drawers into different slots too using simple tools available in the market.
Décor under a budget -
We have stated on multiple instances above, but if you are specifically searching for this topic, here is a compilation.
Colour scheme
In short, colour schemes must have three primary colours. One neutral, one basic ( the one you can’t change) and one bold ( which is unique and surprising to the eye ).
If you are not able to change the counter tops and remove the marbles, get your walls and cabinets coloured.
Most of the times, you can surely incorporate these colours. If you can’t paint and can’t change the counter tops, choose your palette in such a way that they’re also included. Make the metals have the same colour. If not the walls and cabinets, the least you could do is paint the metals. You can do that yourself too.
Shove anything that hinders the aesthetic into cupboards.
You may buy a cupboard that is according to the colour palette and keep things in it.
Lighting
Lights are of three types too. One is a task light which illuminates the task area. Then there Is accent light which highlights focal points. Ambient lighting is the one that adds softness and removes sharpness and dimensions from the room.
LED bulbs are cheap and they save electricity also. You can use them under lamps and lanterns. They work great as task lights. Mini LED lights will also be great as highlighters. Pendant lights ( you can buy cheap ones too ) or a good lantern is something you should prefer over kitchen island. But if you won’t have the budget for that too, go for the LED or tube light.
Misc
- For walls, we have mentioned DIYs of what pieces you can put on your walls.
- If you don’t have the budget for a bar, a trolley would do just fine. You may pull it out when needed in parties and occasions.
- For the pantry, just put similar huge baskets. Put the stuff inside the baskets. That’s it.
- Cover any spots on the walls if you can’t remove them.
- Cover the shelves with any curtain if they are non-displayable.
Conclusion -
So this was our researched guide on how you can decorate like a pro. We have added various sections for different people like for people under a budget or even DIYs. A request to all of you is, please manage your waste well. Think of mother earth before doing something that is unnecessary. Sprinkle some love in your kitchen and you will be good to go.