Me + a picture of our kitchen + Photoshop = this post.
Back in December, when we bought our kitchen stools (from a school supply store for $32 each), we mentioned we were considering a few ways to tweak them down the line—painting, upholstering, or staining the seats—but we wanted to live with them for a while first so we weren’t making any rash changes during a kitchen remodel. We wanted the room to come together, use the stools for a bit, and then decide.
They actually tied in nicely with the stainless appliances, gave off a bit of a geek-industrial vibe, and echoed the gray in the wall of penny tile on the other side of the room. After some thought, though, we decided it was time to paint them. It’s not that we dislike them as they are—just that a fresh coat of paint could take them from good to great. So here are our musings and experiments…
Our first thought was a dark teal. Don’t judge the horribly photoshopped stool rendering (it’s not a totally accurate portrayal), but in our minds we could almost picture it.
Why dark teal? If you look at the back of the built-ins in the dining room from an older shot of the space, you can see that deep teal peeking through. Since the kitchen and dining room are open to each other, we love seeing that sliver of color. Bringing a bit of the same teal to the stools felt like it could be a nice, cohesive choice. It could also be a little too matchy-matchy, so we kept exploring other options.
White was another possibility, but it felt a touch too flat for our space. With light cabinets and counters, glossy white stools might read modern and clean, but they could also disappear into the surrounding brightness.
Next we tried oil-rubbed bronze (ORB). That would be an easy, safe choice. We worried it might blend into the floor, but in the rendering it pops nicely against the white cabinets and counters. ORB would also balance the dark hardware on the pendant lights above. I also tried a dark charcoal gray, but it didn’t look as strong as the ORB, so ORB seemed like the better neutral option—though not the most exciting.
Then we tested yellow, because we like the small pops of yellow around the room—a jar by the fridge and a planter on the open shelves. The Photoshop version looked intense, so I brought Clara’s yellow highchair into the kitchen to see how a real yellow would read in front of the peninsula. It turned out to be pretty cute in person.
I also pulled a couple of random stools from other rooms (blue from HomeGoods and red from Joss & Main) to see how those hues would look. We actually liked all three options—yellow, blue, and red. A cheerful pop of color at the peninsula felt fun and lively.
The blue worked nicely with the blue accessories on the open shelves, but this exercise also made us seriously consider tomato red. It’s not used much elsewhere in the house, so it would feel fresh and bold, and it would pick up red tones in a nearby print by the fridge. To picture it more clearly, I jumped back into Photoshop to try a red rendering.
Our only worry is that with the yellow-green walls in the adjoining area, red or deep orange stools might read a little too McDonald’s when viewed from the other side of the kitchen, where there’s more green paint. That led us to try leaf green and a deeper emerald—both of which also read well and made the shortlist as alternatives.
At that point we realized that our neutral kitchen palette—white, gray, and brown—works with almost any accent color. It really comes down to which color we like most and how bold we want to be.
We also tried a lighter teal with gray undertones to see how a more muted blue-green would look.
Of course these renderings aren’t perfect—real life lighting and reflections will change how any color reads—but we love the idea of stools as a small, colorful focal point in the kitchen. A pop of color at the stools can give the space a playful, personal touch.
Funny aside: right after I took one of the photos, I walked into the office and saw a stack of books in the same color family. Guess I’m a die-hard fan of those hues—for accessories, potential stool colors, and beyond!
We’ll keep you posted when we make a final decision—hopefully within a week or two—because these renderings have us excited. This little Photoshop exercise was useful: it showed there are many directions that would work, so we don’t have to hunt for a single “perfect” color. We’ll likely poll friends and readers for their favorites in the meantime—anyone else testing colors in Photoshop or moving items from other rooms to see what works?