The first thing to address is the lighting for the room. The lighting will affect all your colors.

Hi BeverlyFLADeziner. The existing lights is all recessed. We plan on retrofitting everything for LED and will most likely install smart lights that can adjust their yellows and whites. In our old apartment, we typically used warmer lighting since we had a cool gray walls, but prefer a slightly warmer feeling (although I really don’t like too much warmness or yellow, hence the lighter saturated paint)

Painting the cabinets the same color as the walls would be fine. You will need a countertop that is either lighter or darker than the cabinets though. I'd consider using the standard swiss coffee color for the cabinets, and then using a brighter (but still warm) white for the countertop. Or do the opposite, with a brighter (warm) white for the cabinets, and a very light tan/taupe countertop. Have you tried a sample of the swiss coffee up against your floor tiles? You don't want to paint the lower cabinets any color that will make the tiles look grungy. You could also consider using very light taupe cabinets, like this example, which would offer slightly more contrast with your floor, and look great with a solid white countertop and back spalsh. Or some other light shade on the cabinets that works with your floor tiles.

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You might also consider keeping the maple cabinets and just adding a bright white countertop and backspalsh. That would save you a lot of money, works with your floor tiles, and stained finishes are easier to maintain.

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Thanks for the feedback calidesign! That’s very helpful!

Since the kitchen is pretty small we wanted to go with a light color to open it up a little.

Do you think the standard Swiss coffee is going to look too similar to the walls where it just looks off? We were also possibly thinking of Creamy White from Benjamin Moore for the cabinets.

white tile, white cabs, white quartz, white tile white walls?? good lord. please, remove one or two of the whites unless this is going to double as an OR!

This is an all white kitchen. the only saving grace to this not looking like a surgical space is the wood shelving and the wood floors.

if you want the white quartz, then consider doing a tile backsplash w/a bit of color, pattern or even something like marble.

what if you did the walls in pale Oak, cabs in this white, and then chose a light quartz w/a bit of veining? or even a lighter color quartz or granite?

this has white on white w/marble, but the wood floors help warm it up a bit

These were painted BM Soft Chamois. wall color is a medium gray. black/white granite

YOu could do a two tone like this. no, it won't make it looks smaller. this is SW CyberSpace and Pure White

After steam cleaning the tile floors, you could get Grout Renew and do the grout a lighter color.

Wow, thank you Beth!!!! This is so helpful. I love the 2 tone idea. Our main concern was it would make the kitchen feel smaller, but this helps a lot. With the cost of wood right now putting hardwood in the kitchen wasn’t in the budget (we’re refinishing the existing hardwood though). It could be down the road, but not at this time. Thanks!

Justin, there are products you can use to paint ceramic tiles. It's like a porch paint, so it holds up pretty well. would give a few years to save up for the wood, or some other type of tile if you like.

ususally a base coat is put down, and then a stencil design in another color goes on top of that.

Before

After. looks like those cement tiles. Now THIS would look cool w/all your white on white kitchen

hundred diff stencils, designs, colors, etc that you could do

BTW, are you painting the cabs yourself? I have the best link on a how to

We plan on having contractors do it since they’re working on the rest of the house anyway. I would love a link though just in case!

Thank you for the paint tip. That’s super helpful if we just can’t stand the old tile.

I just had a white kitchen installed it took me many hours to find a back splash that matched my Dunn Edwards Swiss Coffee cabinets. I would choose a counter top in another shade so both your cabinets and back splash can shine....

Spoke with my flooring guy and we’re actually going to sacrifice the hardwood in the upstairs hallway for now to put hardwood in the kitchen!!!

Question for you all, should we keep the cabinets the same color as the walls at 75% Swiss coffee? We really prefer white quartz countertops.

Pick the color you like best for your cabinets that goes with the new wood flooring and then pick your wall paint color. The wall color is the absolute last decision, after counters and backsplash. Get all the hard permanent finishes picked first, paint is the last thing and also the easiest to change if you aren't so pleased with the color. Choose the cabinet color you love the best, you only get one shot at this and it dictates all of the other decisions.
Good luck!

What a relief you are doing hardwood in the kitchen! @modpod is right - start with the paint for the cabinets. Then do countertop. Then backsplash. Paint on walls is the last, last choice. Most whites will work with wood floors. If you go with white cabinets and white quartz countertops, please list to @Beth H and add an interesting backsplash (that is chosen after the cabinets are painted and your countertops and lighting are installed). There is an infinite amount of tile available, so start collecting photos from Houzz that have the look you want. ALL white definitely is too medicinal. Post a photo of the color of your wood floors.

Thank you all! Maybe this helps too, here’s where we’ve drawn some of our inspo from:

What color will your hardwood floors be? You can likely use Swiss Coffee on the cabinets with a lighter white quartz countertop. I would have the floors installed first, then choose your countertop and the cabinet paint color together. After all that you can finalize a back spalsh tile.

@calidesign were not sure yet. We’re leaning towards something a bit lighter like the picture below. But that’s a good idea, thanks!

I would not use swiss coffee for the cabs. if you like it on the walls keep it there. it's fine to do white cabs, or white uppers and some other color on the lowers.

doing a creamy white cab next to a bright white quartz isn't always the best look.

Find the countertop you like. (since you want white, it's will work w/just about any flooring)

Then find the wood floor you want.

Now pick your cabinet color to work w/both of them. Don't worry about the wall color. you can always repaint the walls to work w/the other elements.

Once the cabs are painted, countertop / flooring is in, now pick your backsplash tile and hardware, and any lighting.

since you're getting these professionally painted, see if they can modify the doors to have european style hinges and lose the exposed hinges.

Another option is refacing. shouldn't be too much more to do. I had mine painted and went w/new refacing of doors/drawer fronts. you could have a carpenter make a few doors for you w/the hidden hinges. you might also consider doing a few doors w/glass (opaque is fine) to open up the kitchen a bit.

this layout is almost identical to yours. if you can, have the ceiling filled in leveled out so you don't have these recessed cans in a 'box'.

and yes, you need hardware. pulls, not knobs.

Thanks @beth! I should also have mentioned the reason I’m so torn is that the new wall color is going throughout most of the house. That’s also a big part of this dilemma.

I wouldn't worry too much about the wall color w/your kitchen. your cabs take up most of the wall space. I'm sure whatever white cabinet color you pick, it will be fine w/the other rooms.

if you want white cabs, then pick a white paint color, not a creamy white or yellow white. and don't worry about matching your cabs w/the wall color! the kitchen is somewhat seperate. you'll be fine.

(you seem to really be stressing over this wall color! )

this inspo pic you like w/the swiss coffee walls/cabinets is a completely different layout than what you have. this is a huge open space w/tall cabinets and a wood island. you can't compare this w/yours

slightly smaller kitchen. all of the cabinets are BM swiss coffee.

https://fitnessista.com/we-painted-our-kitchen-cabinets-benjamin-moore-swiss-coffee/

They went with this color probably to match their granite and floor tiles. a bright white wouldn't have looked right. You don't have to worry about that. go brighter

https://www.2cabinetgirls.com/portfolio/swiss-coffee-kitchen/

just so you can see, a white next to the swiss coffee looks perfectly fine. and the white will look better w/your white quartz

I love Kendall Charcoal. looks great w/Swiss Coffee too.

Before and after oak kitchen done in all white with wood floors. notice the accent colors to brighten up the space. the wall color is similar to your swiss coffee

Before Oak

After, Paint color is Panda White

Before/after. BM White Dove

oak cabs painted SW Alabaster. notice the exposed hinges. you can always spray those

if you want a nice neutral white, try BM Simply White. The others are nice if you want a two tone

here's a two tone. does it look smaller to you? it actually looks bigger

Make sure you ask your painter ALL of their steps on prepping. get a run down on what they do. also get a guarantee for chipping.

Mixing warmer white with brighter white can look great.

Thanks @calidesign! Do you know what color those cabinets are?

We may be leaning towards a brighter white on top cabinets and doing a darker color on the bottom, or doing a warm white like this.

Not sure of the color, but it certainly could be swiss coffee.

Don’t worry about the fact that the rest of the house will be painted Swiss Coffee. My entire house is Antique White by SW but my kitchen is a soft grey green to complement my countertop. It’s very hard to see the difference but each room looks “right”. If your floors are going to be a light wood, the two color kitchen will make it look larger. Light on top, darker on bottom visually expands the walls.

Thanks again for your help everyone! @beth , your info has been especially helpful. So in short you’re saying if we want all white cabinets we should go with a brighter white and add some color (like in the backsplash) to break it up a bit?

I think we’re leaning towards that once we pick the flooring, and going with brass hardware (hidden hinges). Still waiting on final cost from our contractors but we May end up just getting new doors.

Also, does anyone have an opinion on possibly taking out 1 or 2 of the cabinets and installing some floating open shelves to add some warmth if we end up going the all white route? Just trying to think outside the box a little.

You could add wooden shelves in the corner between sink and range, or just near the sink. I wouldn't put directly near the range because of cleaning and grease. Some of Beth's photos could serve as inspiration. Really depends on if you need the storage, if you will use for everyday items or just for decorative purposes. It could definitely work though.

Thanks @modpod. Yeah, I was thinking exactly there, near the sink. That way if we do all white some wood would help warm it up along with the flooring and some brass accents/hardware.

Probably just place the nice glasses, plates, bowls and a couple decorative items like a plant or two up there.

I do live in California, so maybe having a small ledge might help in case of an earthquake?

justin, I'm also in So Cal. I have open shelving over my coffee bar. I made the walnut shelves myself. haven't had the 'big one' yet, so it's fine. you could line the bottom of the shelves w/that sticky rubberized contact shelf stuff. I have it inside my cabs and it really grips.

btw, if you in the OC or LA county area, I have a great painter/reface company.

They did mine two years ago.

it wasn't much more to have all of these refaced w/new doors/drawers (soft close) so I went for it.

now they all match. you'll notice how my drawers were slab, and the doors were shaker. similar to yours

they also modified the space so My micro is below my oven, and they made the vent hood cover. They did some other things too. Very, very good company.

Thanks @beth ! I’m actually up north, but this is very helpful!

Ok, change of plans. Our floor guy was unable to find the type of wood we need to match and refinish the existing floors and extend into the kitchen. We're going to be stuck with the white tile OR we can replace it with some other type of flooring (any recommendations?) Our fallback option in this case is to paint the lower cabinets some type of dark navy blue and keep the top cabinets white. Possibly still removing 2 of the cabinets and replacing with open wood shelving.

If going with tile, then anything goes. You could do larger formet porcelain tile in grey shade (lighter to darker), a patterned tile like Beth had showed in some of her photos. Use a border detail or lay tiles in a herringbone pattern

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I wouldn't use a high contrast like navy and white in your space. Decide on your floor tiles first. If you want to change them, look for a medium dark tile that looks like stone, and will flow with your hardwood floors, and then you can paint the cabinets white. Or keep the tile and cabinets as they are and just change the countertop and back splash.

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@calidesign changing out the tiles might not be something we can do right away since it’s the same tile used on the fireplace (same room), the entryway and all the bathrooms. I’m having a tile person come out tomorrow to take a look and give me a few bids though. If the cost is too high, I think the white cabinets and white flooring is going to be too monotonous. We were thinking like a BM Hale Navy and brass fixtures if we did go dual tone. Do you think that would be ok?

Personally, I think the Navy and White cabients is going to look dated much faster than almost anything else you choose. It's also a smaller kitchen, so I l think lower contrast colors would be better if you want a darker color on the lowers next to the floor. You might consider keeping the lowers stained wood, and painting just the uppers white, along with a white countertop and backsplash. When everything is finished, if you decide you don't like the wood, you could paint the lowers a softer, muted color at that point, but I think the wood lowers would look great.

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