Beige is not a color!
I spent the morning “shopping” at some of the big box home reno stores and I am about to declare war on beige. I hate beige. I don’t wear beige. I will not have a beige kitchen! What is with all these washed-out monochromatic color schemes? I think I would rather have a harvest gold kitchen than beige. Okay. Of course I do not want harvest gold but I will get lost in there if everything is beige and no one will be able to see me. Er, actually harvest gold is in my kitchen NOW!!! Yikes! I have come full circle.
To be fair, part of this problem is that natural materials are all the rage. And that is good. I want to use natural materials too. I’m looking at wooden cabinets and granite/marble counters and wood or maybe bamboo or cork for the floor. And, with the exception of granite, you get varying shades of beige with all of those things. They may be beautiful in their own right but when they are all in a small kitchen together, the whole dern thing looks beige. Yes, I know we can paint whatever wall surface is left and that won’t be a lot in our kitchen. And I know we can accessorize. But I’m not quite there yet. Today I was really disappointed that the big box tile store we went to had hardly anything other than shades of beige. Again. It is not a color.
We will figure this out eventually. But here’s the thing. I am not a beige person. I am a black with jewel-tones and some glitter around the edges person. This will be is MY kitchen (and it will not be black, despite that last sentence). I have lived with my ugly old 70s-style kitchen with the cheap plywood tomato-red and harvest gold (yes) cabinets for 25 years. I am not gonna settle for some big-box store’s version of a kitchen. Wish me luck! Beige? Yuck…
January 2nd, 2010 at 9:19 pm
My kitchen is WHITE–which is really not a color, but it is bright and cheery. I would love to remodel it, but I’m not a masochist. Remember to take before and after photos of your kitchen. P.S. My husband has done work in houses with black granite(marble?) counter tops. They were stunning, but I sure wouldn’t want to keep them clean.
January 2nd, 2010 at 9:42 pm
There are many different colors of wood to choose from for your cabinets. I’m sure that you can avoid beige. When your kitchen has been remodeled, you will wonder why you waited so long. I think the reason that many people stick to beige for a “color” for tile is because it is easier to add color in areas that are easily changed like the paint, towels, blue bottles, etc… It isn’t so expensive or messy to change those things, and tile is more permanent, so sometimes neutral is the way to go. Margaret can probably have a red kitchen or a blue kitchen just by changing a few items in her kitchen. I find that I have a multi-color kitchen. Nothing matches, but I do have nice cabinets.