Kitchen Wall Paint: Colors, Sheen and Scrubbability

Paint is the least expensive finish in a kitchen and the only one you can change in a weekend, which is why it should be chosen last and fitted to everything else. Two decisions matter more than the exact color: the sheen, which decides how the walls clean and how many flaws they show, and the undertone, which decides whether the walls sit with the cabinets or fight them.

How much wall is there?

Stand in the kitchen and look for painted wall. In a typical kitchen with upper cabinets and a full backsplash, it comes down to a strip above the cabinets or a soffit, the wall around a window, a short return beside the refrigerator and whatever wall the eating area has. The ceiling is often the largest painted surface in the room.

That has two consequences. A wall color has less influence on the room than a cabinet or counter color, so it is a supporting choice. And because it appears in small, separated patches, a subtle color can vanish completely, while a strong one reads as a set of accents. Kitchens with open shelving or few upper cabinets are the exception: there the wall is a main surface and deserves the same care as the cabinets. The order of decisions is set out in how to choose a kitchen color scheme.

Sheen levels and where each belongs

Sheen is how much light the dried paint reflects. More sheen means a tighter, smoother film that releases grease and wipes clean more easily. It also means every dent, patch and roller mark in the wall is picked out by light.

Sheen names are not standardized between manufacturers. The one line drawn in federal rules is between flat and everything else: the EPA's architectural coatings rule (40 CFR 59.401) defines a flat coating as one that registers a gloss of less than 15 on an 85-degree meter or less than 5 on a 60-degree meter, measured by ASTM D523, and a nonflat coating as anything at or above those readings. Eggshell, satin and semi-gloss are makers' own names inside the nonflat group, so one brand's eggshell can be shinier than another's satin. If you are comparing products, look at the gloss readings on the technical data sheets, or paint a sample board of each.

Washable and scrubbable

Kitchen walls collect airborne grease, steam and fingerprints, so the paint has to survive cleaning. Two different properties are involved. Washability is how easily a stain comes off. Scrub resistance is how much rubbing the film takes before it wears through; paint makers measure it with standardized laboratory scrub tests. Neither word on a label is a guarantee, so compare data sheets within a brand's range.

• Higher grades in a product line generally have more and better binder, and they wash better at the same sheen.
• Premium washable mattes exist for people who want a low sheen. A standard flat is a poor choice beside a range.
• Clean with a soft cloth and mild dish soap in water. Abrasive pads leave shiny patches, most visibly on dark colors and low sheens.
• Paint is not a backsplash. Behind the sink and range, tile or slab does the job; see kitchen backsplashes and wall finishes.

Ceilings and trim

Use flat on the ceiling. Kitchen ceilings are lit at a shallow angle by pendants and under-cabinet light spilling upward, and any sheen shows every drywall joint. A ceiling paint with some washability is worth having above a range.

Trim is normally semi-gloss, for durability and so it reads as a separate element from the wall. The difficulty in a kitchen is that trim sits right next to cabinets. Cabinets are finished in a factory or shop coating, not wall paint, and a store-mixed trim paint in "the same white" seldom matches in color or sheen. Either have the trim color matched to an actual cabinet door, or choose a trim white that is clearly different from the cabinets. Whites are covered in white kitchens.

Coordinating walls with cabinets

Light reflectance value (LRV) is the manufacturer's measure of how much light a color reflects, on a scale where higher numbers are lighter. It is the quickest way to compare depth between colors. The examples below are Benjamin Moore colors with the LRV each one's own color page lists. They are illustrations of depth and undertone, not recommendations, and every one should be sampled in your kitchen.

Vancouver's gray daylight pulls colors cooler and duller than they look on a chip. How to allow for that is explained in choosing kitchen colors for Pacific Northwest light.

What a low-VOC label does and does not tell you

VOCs, volatile organic compounds, are the solvents and other carbon-based chemicals that evaporate from paint as it dries. The EPA limits the VOC content of architectural paints sold in the United States: under 40 CFR Part 59, Subpart D, the national limit is 250 grams per liter for flat coatings and 380 grams per liter for nonflat coatings. Three points about what those numbers mean:

• The rule is about outdoor air. The EPA says it regulates VOCs outdoors mainly because of their ability to form photochemical smog, and that no federally enforceable standards have been set for VOCs in non-industrial indoor settings.
• The content figure leaves things out. The federal limit is calculated excluding water, exempt compounds and colorant added to tint bases. Tinting a base to a deep color can add VOCs that the base's label does not count, and compounds exempt from the smog rules can still be emitted indoors.
• "Low-VOC" and "zero-VOC" are not standardized terms. The EPA notes that VOC labels and certification programs may not assess all the VOCs a product emits, and that the lack of common requirements makes labels hard for consumers to interpret.

In practice: ask for the VOC content of the tinted paint, not the base; look for a third-party emissions certification, and find out what it tests; and ventilate. The EPA's advice is to increase ventilation when using products that emit VOCs and to follow label instructions. Keep windows open and the range hood running during painting and while the paint cures.

Preparation and timing

Kitchen walls must be degreased before painting, since paint does not bond to cooking residue. Stains, patches and new drywall need the right primer. In a remodel, walls are usually primed and given a first coat before cabinets go in, and the final coat follows the backsplash, so that cabinet installation and tile work do not mark finished paint. JDI Construction schedules painting as part of the project and confirms colors and sheens with you before paint is ordered. To talk through a project, contact us or see our Vancouver kitchen remodeling page.