Kitchen Cabinet Colors: What Five Whatcom County Kitchens Chose

Choosing a cabinet color off a fan deck is hard. The chips are two inches wide and your kitchen is not. It helps to see what real kitchens nearby ended up with, so here are five: every cabinet project documented on our site, painted between 2023 and 2025 in Bellingham and Ferndale.

Five kitchens is a small sample, and it is our own work, so read these as examples. Each one links to its project page with photos. For the wider count across 68 projects, see what color Whatcom County is painting its houses. If you already know you want yours painted, the cabinet painting page covers the process and the price.

Snowbound, Twice

Snowbound SW 7004 is the only color that shows up in two of the five.

The first is a 20-door kitchen in Bellingham with a pressed-tin backsplash and dark counters. The cabinets had gone dull from daily use. Snowbound is a soft white with a little warmth in it, and that warmth is why it sits comfortably against the tin.

The second is a Ferndale kitchen with exposed beams and a skylight. Same color, different reason. Under wood beams a soft white keeps the room warm, where a brighter one can look stark.

Two Whites in One House

That Ferndale job had 48 doors and drawer fronts across two rooms: the main kitchen, and a glass-front corner bar unit in the next room. Both needed to read bright without reading identical. The kitchen went Snowbound. The bar cabinets went Cotton SW 9581, a touch creamier, so the bar looks like its own piece of furniture.

That is worth remembering if your kitchen opens onto a room with built-ins of its own.

The White That Has Been Through It

The oldest kitchen here is a white farmhouse kitchen in Bellingham, painted in February 2023 along with the bathroom vanity to match. It has glass uppers and an island, and the black hardware and countertops do the contrast work against all that white.

It was one of our earliest cabinet projects. It is also the one we point to when someone asks whether painted cabinets hold up.

From Espresso to Foxhall Green

Some people do not want white. A Bellingham kitchen with 37 doors and drawer fronts came to us in dark espresso, which made the whole room feel heavier than it was. The owners chose Foxhall Green SW 9184, a deep green.

Trading one dark color for another sounds like it would change very little. It changed the room, and part of the reason is what happened around the cabinets. The walls went to Sanctuary SW 9583, a light warm neutral, so the green has something pale to sit against.

Golden Oak to Blue-Green

The fifth kitchen wore its original golden oak: 35 doors and drawer fronts, arched uppers, and a peninsula with plain panels facing the living room. The owner wanted the oak gone and something calm and colorful in its place, and picked a soft blue-green.

Two details helped the color. Every old hardware hole was filled and sanded flush, so nothing of the old pulls shows through the new finish. And the peninsula got board-and-batten trim before paint, so the side facing the living room now looks like furniture.

What Nobody Picked

Gray. Nobody picked it. Nobody picked black or navy either.

Five kitchens cannot tell you what the whole county is doing. It does line up with what we counted across all of our projects, though: whites first, and greens coming up behind them.

How to Choose Yours

Start with what is staying. Counters, backsplash, and floor are not getting painted, so the cabinet color has to get along with them. The tin backsplash and dark counters decided that Snowbound kitchen as much as the owners did.

Look at the color in your own light, at two times of day. Our daylight is gray for half the year and kitchen lighting is warm. A white that looks clean at noon can look cold at dinner. Warm whites are more forgiving, and both Snowbound kitchens went that way.

Give a dark color some room. The Foxhall Green kitchen has a big island and light walls. The same green in a small galley with one window would be a different kitchen.

Do not choose a color for durability. The coating does that job. The four most recent kitchens all got the same prep: degreased, puttied and caulked, primed, and the primer sanded before the finish coats. Three of them were finished in Emerald Urethane Trim Enamel.

If you have oak, decide about the grain. It can be filled for a smooth finish or left with a hint of texture, and we show you samples of both during the estimate.

Before You Book

If the holidays are your deadline, read the cabinet timeline post first, because a cabinet job has a longer runway than a wall does. Then book a free estimate. Bring a photo of a kitchen you like. It is the fastest way to a color.