Historic Virginia Paint Colors

I’ve decided I want my kitchen to have the color green in it.  (If you know me well, this is hardly a surprise because green’s always been my favorite color.)  I feel like green is a good color for a kitchen because it is fresh but has the ability to be both energizing and relaxing.

In researching good paint colors, I came across this article in Houzz by Jennifer Ott and I love how she describes how we associate green: “with nature, renewal, and youthfulness.”  That’s exactly what David and I are trying to do with our farmhouse– we want to renovate it to be natural but feel young.  Jennifer’s article totally reaffirmed by vision for green in the kitchen.

So now comes the tricky part– what to paint green?  And what shade of green?  I have always loved Benjamin Moore paints and I am just about their Williamsburg collection: Benjamin Moore actually took the time to figure out how paint colors looked in colonial Williamsburg and recreated them for modern paint colors today!  (Side note: other paint companies have done research to determine older paint shades and recreate them.)  I feel like choosing a color from Williamsburg, Virginia will suit our 1850s Virginia farmhouse… it feels kind of like insurance that the color will be appropriate.  I’m not sure if I’ll do the whole house like this but the kitchen is our first room and I want to at least try out historically accurate paint and see if it works!  Here are the Williamsburg colors Benjamin Moore came up with:

Choices, choices!  There are so many pretty colors!

I like that they arrange their colors in a spectrum.  It helps me immediately identify which greens have a lot of blue or yellow in them.  My favorite shade of green is probably the bottom one in the green column, but I don’t think that’s very natural looking, and I’m aiming for something a bit more natural for a kitchen.  If you go to the actual website, you can click on each green and see a bigger swatch of it.  So here are some of my favorites:

After perusing Pinterest, Houzz, Google Images, and countless magazines, I think green would look best in a kitchen as an accent instead of the main color for the cabinets.  While I want the vibe in the kitchen to be young, I think the traditional farmhouse look would require some shade of white for the cabinets.  I am particularly smitten with this white in the same collection:Isn’t it so luxurious?!  I know you’re never supposed to choose a paint based off its name, but “Capitol White” seems so fitting in tying together David’s and my past life working and living in the DC area.  (Before I do any real painting, I’ll be sure to get samples and try it out with the lighting in my own kitchen of course, but this at least helps narrow down all the possibilities!)

I’m pretty sure I’ll paint the cabinets Capitol White– assuming it works well– and I’ll install a beadboard backsplash that will be my accent green.  Which green do you like?  Help me decide which ones to sample!

Thanks,

Lynne