Five whites and four cabinet colors our designers like, each with its maker and number, plus how to test any color in your own light before you commit.
Nobody warns you how complicated picking paint is. From a distance, it sounds like the easiest part of the whole project. I’ll just pick a color I like. You grab a fistful of swatches at the paint store, tape them up on the wall, and an hour later you’re staring at five almost-identical whites trying to figure out why they all look slightly different and which one is actually right.
Then you paint a sample patch. The patch looks different. Then you paint a second wall to compare. That looks different too. Then the morning light hits and now everything’s reading warm. Then the afternoon hits and now it’s reading cool. Then your friend comes over and says “I’d go with the other one” and you want to scream.
This is the part of design that’s hard. Color is sensitive to lighting, to neighboring colors, to what time of day you’re looking at it, and to your house’s specific quirks. The same paint color can look great in one room and totally wrong in another, and a swatch won’t tell you which colors hold steady and which ones surprise you.
Choosing paint is part of what our designers do on a remodel, along with the tile, hardware and fixtures, and paint and color help is one of our design services on its own. Below is a short list of colors they like, with each one’s maker and color number so the paint counter mixes the color you mean.
First, the principles that make them work.
Why Whites Are the Hardest Color to Get Right
Before the list, a quick word about whites, because this is where most people get stuck.
White is not one color. White is a vast family of colors that all happen to live near “white” but each have a slightly different undertone: yellow, blue, pink, green, gray, beige. Those undertones don’t show up clearly in the swatch. They show up enormously on the wall, in different lighting, against your floors, next to your trim.
A white that reads “crisp and clean” in a north-facing room can read “yellow and dingy” in a south-facing room. A white that looks “warm and welcoming” next to wood floors can look “muddy” next to gray tile. The same color changes character depending on its surroundings.
That’s why people grab samples and feel like they all look different. They do all look different, and the only way to know which one is right for your house is to test the actual paint, on the actual wall, in the actual lighting you’ll live with. Tiny cardboard swatches don’t cut it. Pinterest screenshots definitely don’t cut it.
A short list gives you a place to start, as long as you still test what’s on it. Here’s ours.
Five White Paint Colors Our Designers Like
Each one gives a room a slightly different feel, and the trick is matching the white to the mood you want the room to carry.
Sherwin-Williams Greek Villa (SW 7551). Warm and welcoming. This is the white for a room you want soft and inviting without tipping into cream or beige. It can bring a little warmth to a north-facing room, and it sits well with wood tones, brass and natural materials.
Sherwin-Williams Alabaster (SW 7008). Soft, balanced and classic. This is the most versatile white on the list: it works in modern, traditional, transitional and farmhouse rooms. It has a slight warm undertone but stays neutral enough not to fight the warm tones in your finishes. It’s a good answer when you want a nice clean white and don’t want to overthink it.
Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace (OC-65). Crisp and clean without feeling cold. This is the white for when you want a true white: it stands out against dark hardwood, contrasts cleanly with bold cabinets and gives a room a fresh, gallery-like feel. It reads a touch cooler than the two Sherwin-Williams whites above it without reading blue or harsh. Good for modern rooms and rooms with lots of natural light.
Benjamin Moore Swiss Coffee (OC-45). Cozy and lived-in. This one has the most personality of the five. It’s a little creamy and a little warm, and it makes a room feel like you’ve lived there for years, in the best way. Good in nurseries and in primary bedrooms where you want softness. It pairs well with linen, wool and warm woods.
Sherwin-Williams Shoji White (SW 7042). Subtle warmth with a little depth. It’s slightly more pigmented than a true white, with a soft, sandy quality, for walls that feel substantial without feeling colored. Try it in a kitchen with cool-toned counters where a stark white would feel clinical, or for a whole house painted one color, where you need a white with enough character to hold its own.
The trick with whites is testing them in your actual space, painted in big patches (not little swatches), and looking at them at multiple times of day. The right white for your house depends on the light you have, the floors you have, the trim you have, and the feeling you want the room to carry. Any of these five is a good place to start.
How to Choose a Cabinet Color
Now let’s talk about cabinets.
In a kitchen remodel, the cabinets are one of the first things you see, and their color sets the tone for the counters, floors and walls around them. Get the cabinet color right and the rest of the kitchen has something to build on. Get it wrong and you’ll notice it every time you walk into the room.
A few principles before the list:
Too light, and cabinets can fall flat. Especially in big kitchens or rooms with a lot of natural light, a too-pale cabinet reads washed out. Too dark, and they can feel heavy. Especially in smaller kitchens or spaces with limited light, a deep dark color can close the room down. For a lot of kitchens the answer is somewhere in the middle: a color with enough saturation to be a color, but not so dark it eats the light.
Sheen matters as much as the color itself. Matte, satin and semi-gloss make the same color read differently, so test your sample in the sheen you’ll actually use. Cabinets get handled far more than walls, so ask the paint counter for a cabinet paint, and ask how well each sheen wipes clean.
Cabinet color and wall color are a duet, not a solo. The two need to be picked together. A “wrong” cabinet color is often only wrong because of the wall it’s sitting next to. A great pairing of cabinets and walls makes both look better than either would alone.
Four Cabinet Colors Our Designers Like
They run from navy to olive, with two quiet neutrals between.
Benjamin Moore Hale Navy (HC-154). Bold and classic. If you’re going to do a colored cabinet, and you should at least consider it, this is an easy place to start: a deep navy that reads sophisticated rather than trendy. It looks good with brass hardware, white walls, marble or warm-toned counters and most wood floors.
Benjamin Moore Oilcloth (CSP-760). A quiet neutral with some depth. This one is harder to describe: a smoky green-gray, in the middle between light and dark, that reads warm or cool depending on what’s around it. It’s the kind of cabinet color that makes a kitchen feel layered and intentional, like someone thought about it. Try it when you want cabinets with more weight than a white but nothing close to black.
Sherwin-Williams Natural Linen (SW 9109). Warm, earthy and easy to live with. A creamy, slightly tan-leaning neutral for cabinets that feel quiet rather than colored. It feels grounded, like a color that belongs in nature, and it sits well with wood, sage greens and terracotta.
Benjamin Moore Tate Olive (HC-112). Organic and elegant. If Hale Navy is the easy bold choice, Tate Olive is the interesting one: a deep, muted olive green with a hint of warmth that gives a kitchen personality without feeling trendy. It looks good with brass, walnut and creamy whites.
Four colors, four different moods. The right one for your kitchen depends on the light you have, the counters and floors you’re pairing it with, and how you want the kitchen to feel day to day.
Wall and Cabinet Pairings to Try
Picking a single color is one thing. Picking the combinations is where great rooms come together. Here are a few:
Hale Navy cabinets + Greek Villa walls + brass hardware. Warm and layered.
Tate Olive cabinets + Natural Linen walls + warm wood floors. Earthy and modern, without going cold.
Swiss Coffee walls + Hale Navy island + black hardware. A two-tone kitchen: bright, airy walls with a bold anchor at the island.
Chantilly Lace walls + Oilcloth cabinets + black or polished nickel hardware. Crisp and modern, with more depth than an all-white kitchen.
Alabaster walls + Tate Olive cabinets + brass hardware + warm marble counters. Warm and rich, with the olive doing the talking.
You can mix and match. The point isn’t to copy these exact combinations. It’s to see how the colors play together when they’re chosen as a set, not in isolation.
It’s Your House, So It’s Your Call
One more thing, for when the color conversation gets tense: this is your home. Not ours. Not Pinterest’s. Not your mother-in-law’s.
Our designers have favorites, and they’re happy to tell you what they’d pick. But none of that matters if you walk into the finished room and the color doesn’t feel right to you.
Color is more personal than most design decisions. It’s not really about what looks good on a screen or in a magazine. It’s about how your home makes you feel the moment you walk in after a long day. Some people want soft and quiet. Some people want bold and dramatic. Some people want warm and lived-in. Some people want crisp and gallery-clean. There’s no wrong answer, only the one that fits how you want to live in the space.
The way we see our job: we’re not here to tell you what to like. We’re here to help you find the version of what you like that works in your house, in your light, against the floors and finishes you already have. Then we narrow a huge field of options to a few good choices, before the sample patches take over your walls.
Picking colors now and want a second opinion? Our designers, including Kayla East, our principal designer, will think it through with you in a design consultation. Tell us about the room.
If the paint is part of a bigger remodel, book a free walk-through: a designer and a builder walk the house with you and give you an honest estimate, with no charge and no obligation.
And if you’re just looking for ideas, browse our portfolio to see paint, tile and cabinets together in finished rooms.
Pick something you love. Live in it for a while. That’s how you end up with a home that feels like you.
