Colour Drenching in Kitchen Design

Rather than a feature wall, a single colour is carried across every surface in the room including the ceiling and the joinery. The effect removes visual edges and makes a room feel enveloping rather than decorated.

Strong equatorial daylight renders colour far more intensely than northern light. A mid-green that feels sophisticated in a European kitchen can read as saturated and loud here, so we always sample on site at several times of day.

Deep, slightly greyed tones hold up best: muted sage, clay, stone and charcoal. Pure saturated colour is exhausting in a room you cook in daily, and it dates faster than anything else in a kitchen.

The scheme needs one relief point or it becomes oppressive. A pale stone worktop, a timber island or brass hardware gives the eye somewhere to land without undoing the effect.