Paint colour for cold kitchen with tricky tiles

[Lovemycat2023]

I have a small kitchen with matt white cupboards. It always feels cold and so I’m looking to paint with a colour to get in some warmth. I’m usually good with colours but really struggling here!

Tiles are a pale aqua (photo attached). I’ve tried testers in pale pink (looks cold), a mushroom type colour (looks so wrong) and pale apricot / peach which looked too yellow.

Anyone have any suggestions?

You are probably going to need a more intense colour to give warmth maybe a terracotta shade would work

I agree with PP. I have the patterned tiles below and these are the colours they go with including white and aqua. You could go with any of the brown/orangey tones.

Or even burgundy

I hadn’t even thought of a more intense shade - just going lighter and lighter! I love the Beijing amber tile above! I’m going to find some more testers now. Thanks all!

Depends on how many cupboards you have and how big the space is. You don't want to overwhelm with colour if you have lots of cupboards in a relatively small room. Can you give us more pics?

I think the aqua and white are very non descript 'colours' so a bit bold on the walls will work well.

Peach could work?

Yes I would go with a deep fire colour too. Terracotta, burgundy, ochre etc.

I prefer bold, saturated colours, so I'd go for ochre or terracotta.

We previously had a kitchen with light blue base cabinets (F&B Oval Room Blue) and wall cupboards/walls that were cream (C&R Pale Oak) and felt the space was a bit cold. We added a bright red Bertazzoni range (and other red touches) which did improve things, but I wouldn't recommend it as it felt a bit 1980s 😆

I don’t have very many cupboards high on the walls - I deliberately kept them not tall (half height) as I don’t like the feeling of being hemmed in by them.

I’m now looking at these colours (dulux) and will report back

Aubergine

Frenchic do a nice colour called Honeycomb. It's a bit warmer than those you have above (they feel a bit too pink to me), more like an orangey mustard, similar to the tiles you liked above. You could order a sample sheet. Or maybe get a dulux one mixed. It's worth it to get the right colour.

Interesting! I have had someone else suggest something similar (maybe a bit kore
muted)

Red earth by farrow and ball is a beautiful warm clay red but not too dark - almost looks pink in the bright sunlight. I adore it, very warm and cozy colour, not sure if it would work in your room but worth getting a sample. A lot of the paint companies have a visualiser tool on their website now where you can see the colour in your room - although I think they are always lighter on there than in the flesh!

You definitely need warmth. The terracotta might work, or another suggestion would be various sorts of warm sand/gold types of colour -- look at things like F and B Biscuit, Sand, Cane etc. Would be a warming, gentle contrast with the blue tiles.