Which Appliance Finish Should You Choose for Your Kitchen?

Can’t decide what your device should look like? Sometimes, stainless steel may seem like the only option used by designers, but there are actually many options, all of which have their own uses for different design situations. To help you make the right choice to match your cabinets, flooring, lighting, and more, here’s a list of the five most popular appliance finishes and when you should use them.

When to Choose Stainless Steel

Love it or give it up, stainless steel is undoubtedly a popular appliance finish – and for many good reasons. As an intermediate tone metal between light and dark, stainless steel is a safe neutral choice that can match almost any color palette. This material looks of high quality and often comes at a higher price than other finishes, so whether or not it’s worth splurging depends on personal budget and priorities.

Although it’s hard to go wrong with this choice, there are a few situations where stainless steel is a particularly powerful choice.

1. When your home is ultra-modern. Crisp metallic finishes are often associated with modern or even futuristic spaces, and in fact, there’s no better option for a sleek, minimalist kitchen to achieve such a clean, streamlined aesthetic. In this case, choose all other metals (faucets, handles, furniture) that are close to your appliance finish to keep the entire design as stylish as possible.

Note: Polished metal finishes look brighter but are more likely to leave fingerprints. If you want a polished shine, be prepared for a little more care to maintain a spotless glow.

2. When your cabinets are wooden. Do you think only smooth white cabinets are suitable for cold steel? Think again. Wood and metal are complete opposites, but this contrast makes them fit together perfectly. In kitchens with plenty of wood cabinetry, stainless steel appliances can make a visual breakthrough and help highlight the richness of the wood’s organic patterns.

This is another case, and using a similar metal finish in other places, such as cabinet handles, will help make the whole room look tightly connected.

3. When you’re craving transitional style. The transitional kitchen style – somewhere between traditional and modern – is one of the most coveted looks, and it often sticks to a palette of white, gray, metallic, and the aforementioned wood.

Here, interest often comes from mixing different neutral colors and textures, such as combining wood and white cabinetry, so feel free to contrast your steel appliances with warm metals like brass or bronze.

Brushed brass is a particularly powerful choice to pair with stainless steel, as it has a subtle warmth that doesn’t contrast so dramatically with steel.

Bring in plenty of textures – such as rattan seats and placemats – and you’ll have a rich mix and match color palette.

4. When you’re feeling blue. Tired of unisex cabinets? For those who want a little drama while remaining semi-neutral, bold blue is a great cabinet color choice, and stainless steel is the perfect complement to this tried-and-true hue. As mentioned earlier, steel, as a mid-tone, is actually more neutral than pure white or black, so it won’t look harsh even in the most daring colors.

When to Choose Black

Black is both a neutral color and a bold color due to the fact that it does not have any actual hue, as it is very dark in color. Therefore, it can be a risky or safe option for the device, depending on what device you pair it with. This is the time to choose it.

5. When you like black and white drama. There’s a reason black and white is a classic color scheme – and not just because it makes your photos look artistic right away. This combination is vivid and eye-catching, without any pop of color, which may clash when looking at it in a few years.

Black appliances are paired with white cabinets to achieve this look with enough black, bold but not overbearing. Warning: Your device should be spread out enough to avoid an overly heavy or unbalanced appearance. In a compact kitchen that doesn’t have too many cabinets, this look is riskier, so designers should be careful.

6. When your cupboards are dark. While black appliances can be bold punctuation marks on white woodwork, paired with dark paint or espresso wood cabinetry, they blend together to create a more subtle effect. Dark cabinetry will always visually shrink the space to some extent, but pairing them with black appliances that don’t contrast will help minimize this shrinkage effect, and some clever white and wood elements can also create long lines.

7. When your cupboards are moody gray. Your cabinets don’t need to be just as dark to work smoothly with black appliances. Black can also be complemented by a rich smoky grey. Add dark stone counters to the cabinets and you have a very sophisticated color palette. Be sure to install some LEDs under the cabinet to compensate for all the light absorbed by the surface.

8. When your kitchen is spacious. If your kitchen is large and well-lit (you’re in luck!) Then the best design move might actually be to break up your longwall plane a little bit with some dark appliances to prevent the space from feeling too spacious. Some black, or similar black and steel appliances, will give a little impact to the walls, making the space feel more intimate and relaxing.

When to Choose Paneling

Paneled appliances are designed to fit a custom door front that matches the surrounding cabinetry, rather than having its own front finish. This is essentially camouflaging the device. In addition to letting you match cabinet materials, this also allows you to match door profiles (such as Shaker style) and even hardware for complete consistency.

You can panel mount multiple devices, or just devices in specific areas. Refrigerators are a popular choice for panels because they are usually tall, wide, and visually dominant. This approach, while almost always more investment than standard equipment, can solve many small design challenges, such as the following:

9. When your kitchen is very compact. In very small kitchens, such as those common in apartments and apartments, sometimes there are very few actual cabinets and most of the visual space is occupied by refrigerators, microwaves, ovens, range hoods, and possibly dishwashers. This can often make the kitchen look busy or unbalanced, especially when appliances are crowded at one end.

Paneled appliances, especially refrigerators, help create a more streamlined look, which can make the kitchen look larger and more compact.

10. When you love wood, wood, more wood. If you like an all-wood look, why let your appliances ruin this earthy elegance? With panelled appliances, you can hide modern conveniences from sight and enjoy the natural atmosphere without interruption.

11. When your look is already dramatic. Have all of these looks been too low-key for you so far? A striking color combination like green and red doesn’t require bold appliances to compete for the spotlight. The use of paneled appliances will eliminate a visual element that will help prevent an edgy look from going all the way beyond the edges.

When to Choose White

White appliances are less common in designer kitchens, perhaps because the classic white refrigerators that many of us grew up with look ordinary today. However, in fact, there are many cases where underrated white is worth considering. Here are a few.

12. When your cabinets are light tones. Kitchens can be bright and airy, while cabinets don’t have to be strictly white. Light neutrals that are slightly darker than off-white create a welcoming atmosphere, and white goods help to compliment its subtle undertones.

Note: For white refrigerators, you can easily notice the difference in texture between different models. For a more elegant look, I recommend choosing a premium white refrigerator with a flat surface and easy wipe, rather than a corrugated texture model that is more prone to dirt. Fingerprints may show a little more in the short term, but it will be easier for the device to maintain its new look over time.

13. When your ceiling is dark. The wooden beams on the ceiling give a lot of cottage appeal, whether your kitchen is actually in a country farmhouse or a city home. However, dark ceilings like this can depress your space to a certain extent, and that’s something that white appliances can solve. Keeping everything on the walls bright and breezy will make your rich dark ceiling a feature without making the whole room feel like a cave.

It’s also a good idea if your kitchen doesn’t have windows, or if for any other reason it’s darker than you’d like.

14. When you want to mix and match. Sure, the golden range hood is eye-catching, but do you really want to go with all the other brass appliances to go with? If paneling isn’t an option, try incorporating white goods into white cabinetry and let other appliances be the breakthrough stars of bolder materials.

15. When you have a light counter. Cabinetry isn’t the only material your appliances need to work with. When you have a lighted counter, such as luxury marble or hardy quartz, the fixtures can bring the hues of these horizontal surfaces to the vertical surface, so your color scheme feels more tightly knit.

Notice how the counter here picks up the white of a smooth fridge and the gray of the cabinets (through rich textures) and adds a silver handle to connect the latter two to each other. All the colors are repeated somewhere, forming a truly cohesive palette – clever genius work.

When to Choose Color

So far, we’ve mostly focused on devices that can fit into your color palette, but sometimes devices can actually define your color palette. If you like the idea of a real personality appliance, or you just think your kitchen needs a special touch, maybe you should consider color. Here are a few situations when color devices work.

16. When you love the charm of a retro restaurant. The pastel tones and checkerboard floors of the local milkshake huts don’t have to be stuck in the past. They always look fresh and interesting in the home kitchen. Mix and match a light blue vintage fridge with classic restaurant-style décor, modern furniture, or a mix of the two to bring your own unique style.

17. When you’re ahead of the curve. While stainless steel appliances have been at the forefront of fashion trends for quite some time, some experts predict that the non-ferrous metal “ferrous stainless steel” will be the next big trend. This finish is almost as neutral as the classic silver stainless steel, but is tinted in a soft carbon black for more drama and better stain resistance. If you have a busy home kitchen or just want to stay ahead of trends, black stainless steel may be the right choice for you.

18. When your kitchen needs something special. If you have classic white cabinetry, demure hardware, sophisticated tiles, and hidden, fully functional lighting, you probably have everything you need – except for a little glamour. A flaming oven or a cheerful blue fridge can add a lot of vibrancy to an otherwise humble kitchen.

To keep things classic, try the Italian kitchen-style red oven with its bold fire truck-approved hues. While fashion trends may change, this look will stand the test of time and will always be a great conversation start.