Choosing Kitchen Colors for Pacific Northwest Light

A color is not a fixed thing. It is the light in the room, reflected. That matters more in Vancouver than in most places, because for long stretches of the year our daylight comes through cloud. A kitchen photographed in bright southern sun and the same finishes installed here in January can look like two different rooms. This page explains what our light does to color and how to choose for it.

What overcast light does to color

Direct sunlight is strong, directional and relatively warm. Light from an overcast sky is the opposite on all three counts:

• It is cooler. Cloud scatters the light, and what reaches the window has a bluer balance than direct sun. Every color in the room is pulled slightly toward blue-gray.
• It is diffuse. It comes from the whole sky, so there are no hard shadows or bright patches. Surfaces look even and a little flat, and molded details on cabinet doors show less.
• There is less of it. Darker colors lose their color and read closer to black, and pale colors lose their brightness and read as gray.

Winter adds to this. Days are short at our latitude and the sun stays low, so for several months many kitchens see only a few hours of weak daylight and run on electric light the rest of the time. We are not quoting cloud-cover figures here; the practical point is that you should choose colors for a gray day, since a color that works on a gray day also works on a sunny one, and the reverse is not true.

Which way the kitchen faces

A kitchen with windows on two sides is easier, because the two kinds of light balance each other. A kitchen with no window of its own, borrowing light from the next room, should be treated as north-facing and planned around its electric lighting.

Why whites go gray or blue here

White paint is the clearest example. A white with a cool undertone contains a trace of gray or blue. In warm sun that trace is cancelled and the wall looks crisp. Under an overcast sky, the light itself is already cool, so the undertone is reinforced and the wall looks pale gray or faintly blue. Because the light is also weaker, the corners and the wall under the upper cabinets fall into a soft shadow that reads as dingy.

A white with a little yellow in it behaves the other way. Cool light takes the yellow down, and the result looks like a clean, neutral white. The same paint in a sun-filled south room might look creamy. That is why a white that seems too warm on the chip is often right on the wall in this region. Choosing whites across cabinets, counters and tile is covered in white kitchens.

Light reflectance value (LRV)

Paint manufacturers publish a light reflectance value for each color. Benjamin Moore defines LRV as a measurement that expresses the percentage of light reflected from a surface, on a scale from 0 (absolute black) to 100 (pure white). It tells you how much of the available light a color sends back into the room. It does not tell you the undertone, which is why two whites with nearly the same number can look quite different here.

The third column draws on the manufacturer's own descriptions. The last column is our expectation from how undertones respond to cool light, not a measurement, and your room may differ. These are examples to explain the idea, not recommendations. Use them to calibrate your eye: look up the LRV of any color you are considering, and expect anything below the mid 60s to look distinctly mid-toned in a kitchen with modest daylight.

Beyond white: colors that hold up

• Grays. A gray with blue in it is the color most often regretted here, because our light makes it colder still. Grays with beige or green in them stay comfortable.
• Greens. Muted greens with gray in them suit the region's light and tend to look natural against the view outside. Very yellow greens can turn acidic.
• Blues. Deep navy holds its color well. Pale, clear blues can look cold on a gray morning, so pair them with warm wood or brass.
• Wood. Natural and stained wood adds the warmth the daylight lacks. See wood kitchens.
• Dark colors. Charcoal, deep green and black lose their color in low light and read as plain dark. Give them light surfaces nearby and good lighting.

How each family behaves on cabinets is covered in kitchen cabinet colors.

Electric light matters as much as daylight

From late autumn to early spring, many households cook dinner after dark, so the colors you live with are the ones your fixtures produce. Two properties of a light source decide this: its color temperature (how warm or cool the light is) and its color rendering (how accurately it shows colors). Warm-white light adds back the yellow that overcast daylight takes away, while a cool-white source repeats the gray-day effect at night. Mixed color temperatures in one room make the same cabinet look like two colors.

Decide the lighting before the final color sign-off, and view samples under it. The numbers and what to ask for are in under-cabinet and recessed lighting, and the overall plan is in kitchen lighting.

How to test samples across a day

1. Get large samples. For paint, brush two coats on a white board at least the size of a sheet of letter paper, leaving a white border. For cabinets, ask for a finished sample door.
2. Do not paint patches on the existing wall. The old color around the patch changes how you see the new one.
3. Place each sample where it will be used. Stand the cabinet sample upright against the base cabinets. Hold the wall sample under the upper cabinets and again near the window.
4. Put the fixed materials next to it: the countertop piece, the tile and a flooring plank.
5. Look four times: early morning, midday, late afternoon and after dark with the lights on. Note which candidate is acceptable at all four.
6. Look on a gray day and a clear day before you commit, even if that means waiting a week.
7. Compare candidates side by side, then alone. Side by side shows the undertone. Alone shows what you will live with.

Where to go next

Once you know how your light behaves, how to choose a kitchen color scheme gives the order in which to pick materials. JDI Construction reviews selections with you in your own kitchen as part of the design process. To talk through a plan, visit our Vancouver kitchen remodeling page.