Kitchen Trends and Colour Tastes

Instead of focusing on one colour in this episode, we wanted to get our teeth into some of the key kitchen colour trends for this year and beyond. In order to help you improve your own experiences with food, as well as with your friends and family.

Food is one of the biggest drivers in the way we describe colour. To unlock what a colour looks like, we consider how it tastes. It’s an immersive experience, where we explore all the senses.

Take the new Dulux Heritage range for example. Within this unique collection of timeless, luxurious colours are a few shades that are food related. You can explore the mouth-watering range of colours, here.

One of our favourites (shown in the image above) is Cherry Truffle. An incredibly velvety, rich and indulgent chocolate brown. Or there’s Ash White, an exquisite, light grey, which Steph has in her kitchen.

Kitchens give you lots to play with when decorating. There are walls, cabinets, worktops, appliances and so many more facets to think about. In other words, you have lots of opportunities to experiment with colour.

More and more homeowners are making braver colour choices in their kitchens, particularly with jewel tones and on their cabinets! Moving away from whites and neutrals, navy blues are proving to be a popular choice at the moment. Inky-hued kitchen cabinets are an especially trendy look and really enhance a space.

And it’s no surprise that we’re filling our kitchens with rich, luscious greens. They add both a sense of freshness and sophistication to a space. The botanical trend is also one to watch, with its use of punchy greens.

Remember, you can try the two-tone technique to ease you into these kitchen colour trends. For example, painting only your lower cabinets in a dark shade will allow you to be bold, without the colour being too overbearing.

Steph’s made brave colour choices in her multifunctional kitchen. With grey as her base colour, she’s used citrus yellow to inject flourishes of colour into the space. Colour blocking allows her to zone off certain areas within her busy, open-plan room. We touched upon zoning in Series 2, Episode 2. If you want to know more about the colour yellow, listen to the Series 1 finale.

One of the top 2021 interior trends for kitchens is Japandi. Put simply, it's the coming together of Japanese and Scandinavian interiors. Japandi revolves around simplicity and minimalism. It’s all about creating calming, comforting spaces that function well.

You can read more about the trend in Dulux’s Colour lookbook: 5 interior design trends to try in 2021. Or to explore other kitchen colour trends, go here.

This is the part of the podcast where our own doctor of decorating, Marianne, prescribes the antidote for your DIY ailments.

Alexis from Wallingford asks Dr Dulux: “how can I update my kitchen without renovating? What are the best products to use?”

An easy way to switch things up is to add colour to your kitchen cabinets. Here’s how to paint kitchen cabinets:

Prep your surfaces
You must thoroughly clean the surfaces you’re painting, so they’re ready for you to apply a primer. Give them a good scrub and rinse them off. You must make sure the surfaces are dry before you do anything else.

Discover more top tips for prepping, here.

Apply your primer
For kitchen cabinets, we recommend using Dulux Primer for Difficult Surfaces. Use a brush to get around the fiddly bits and a small radiator roller for the flat surfaces. Allow to dry and then give it a light sand and brush off any dust.

Learn more about types of paint brushes, here.

Add your colour
We recommend using Dulux Quick Dry Satinwood to add colour to your kitchen cabinets. Apply two coats in the colour of your choice and allow to dry off. It really is as simple as that!

Top tip: Save time by leaving the doors on, so you can paint inside and outside the cabinet.

Watch this handy video on how to paint kitchen cabinets.

Tom from Manchester asks Dr Dulux: “is kitchen paint really worth the additional cost?”

With paint you really do get what you pay for. So, if you want something to last for years, you should invest in a paint that’s specifically designed for the job.

If you’re painting your kitchen, you need a paint that can handle all sorts of stains and spills, from water marks to grease splatter.

Dulux Easycare Kitchen is designed specifically for the busiest room in your home.

Not only does it have a lovely matt finish, it’s a wipeable, grease-resistant paint. This means it can easily repel everyday cooking mishaps to leave your kitchen looking great for longer.

Learn more about types of paint and where they go, here.

We couldn’t have chosen a better guest for an episode about tasting colours. Professor Charles Spence is both the author of Sense Hacking and a Professor at Oxford University in the Department of Experimental Psychology.

His teaching and research revolve around the senses. Discovering how we see and hear and touch and taste and smell, and how they all connect. Through neuroscience inspired multi-sensory design, he’s been able to apply insights to the real world and help design better experiences and products environments for different industries.

What we wanted to know was: does colour affect taste? Can colour affect the experiences we have in our kitchens? And what exactly is sense hacking?

Lucky for us, and our listeners, Charles answered all our questions and more. With tips on how to improve your kitchen set-up to avoid distractions, which can lead to overeating. He even revealed the paint colours that can make wine and coffee taste sweeter – what more could we ask for in lockdown?

After his interesting facts about tasting colours, we asked Professor Charles Spence for a #FeelGoodColour story. He reveals why he always wears bright red trousers. Is he sense hacking? Or is it just a coincidence? You’ll just have to tune in to find out!    

Why not now? Head to your favourite podcast platform and search ‘Dulux Let’s Colour’, or click here to listen to Series 2: Episode 3.

Remember to subscribe, and if you do have a few minutes to spare, please leave us a review. We always love hearing from our lovely listeners.

Until next time!