Greige kitchen cabinets are trending. White is always a great choice, pale green is a winner, and so is any shade of blue. But one color a lot of people use but don’t know what to call is greige.

Greige is a great color for almost anything but it doesn’t get enough credit. When it comes to kitchen cabinets, greige may be one of the best colors to use. Let’s talk about why by starting with the definition of greige.

What Is Greige?

Image from Vivid Interior Design – Danielle Loven

Greige is a color that is somewhere between grey and beige. It is believed that the name came from both the merging of the two names and the French word grège which means raw silk. This makes sense considering the color of raw silk.

Although the term greige has been around for a long while, the color hasn’t been used for paint, at least in name, for that long. It has become a trending paint color in the kitchen.

How To Paint Greige Kitchen Cabinets

Image from clarityhomes

Painting kitchen cabinets can feel overwhelming. After all, if you mess up, you can ruin the entire look of your kitchen, bringing down the value and overall aesthetic of your home. But learning to paint kitchen cabinets can fix that.

Step 1: Protect Counters And Floors

The first thing you want to do is use tape and liners to protect your cabinets and floors. A cloth drop cloth taped to the floor is a good choice for the floors, but what most people don’t consider is splattering paint.

Sure, you can get by with taping the underside of the countertops, but splattering paint can ruin the tops of them without you noticing. Use a liner or masking paper to take care of this problem and wrap those countertops up!

Step 2: Make A Diagram

Before the next step, you should make a diagram of your cabinets, labeling which cabinet is where and which type of door is in each spot, which direction that the handles are facing, and so on. You’ll understand why soon.

Just know that it doesn’t have to be fancy. A child could make this diagram, so don’t worry about it not looking nice, it just needs to be easy to read. Label each cabinet with numbers on your diagram.

Step 3: Remove Doors And Hardware

Now comes the reason you made the diagram. You need to remove all of the cabinet doors and the hardware from them. When you do, look at your diagram as you take each piece off and write the number somewhere on the door.

A good spot is where the hardware sits because this will be hidden by the hardware. So go ahead and write the numbers one at a time, not taking the next drawer or cabinet off until you have written the previous number.

Step 4: Wash Cabinets

Now, wash each cabinet inside and out along with the doors. This may take a while but it is important because the most common stain or residue on cabinets is grease. Both from cooking and from our hands.

Yes, icky! But that’s not the problem. The problem is that grease doesn’t mix with, well, anything. Water-based products, which the paint used for cabinets often are. So wash them well with dawn and cleaners.

Step 5: Use Wood Filler

After you finish washing the cabinets and doors, you can use wood filler to fill any gaps or holes in them. If there isn’t any then you can still use the wood filler to fill any open grains or wide grains in the wood.

Of course, this is all about preference but it will be easier to paint a flat surface than a porous one. Wood filler can help turn a porous surface into a smooth one that will accept paint better than it would.

Step 6: Sand Cabinets

Now it’s time to sand the cabinets. This doesn’t have to be done well and if you used wood filler, you don’t want to sand it much. Never sand the wood filler away. At this point, you just want to rough it up.

The cabinets, of course. The cabinets should be sanded over the entire surface, doors included. But this is just to give the paint something to hold onto. Otherwise, it may drip and not stick as well as it would otherwise.

Step 7: Prime Cabinets

Before painting, it’s important to prime the cabinets. This not will make the paint look smoother but it will also make the paint look more solid and will avoid a whitewashed or distressed look.

If you want a distressed look, priming is necessary if you want the look to include a certain color for the background. You can also use chalk paint or milk paint which both provide a more distressed look.

Step 8: Paint Cabinets

It’s time to paint the cabinets. This is the part you look forward to the most because it will transform the cabinets that look a little messy right now. But the steps are well worth it.

For painting cabinets, you can use a soft bristle brush or a small roller. Both work out well and most people tend to prefer to use both. So try them both and find out what works for you on what spots.

Step 9: Seal Them!

This is kind of an optional step but it is recommended. Use a good sealer on your cabinets to protect it from stains and scratches. This will ensure they have the longest life that they can have and keep them looking good.

There are many different types of sealers that can work well for cabinets, but in general, one meant for the material of the cabinet is better than one just meant for cabinets. Just be careful with toxic sealers around food.

Greige Kitchen Cabinets Ideas

Image from Vanguard Studio Inc.

Some people are inspired by words, while others need a visual to get their creative juices flowing. That’s why we’ve taken the time to gather some of the best greige kitchen cabinet ideas to inspire those people.

Standard Greige Kitchen Cabinets

Image from Vivid Interior Design – Danielle Loven

This set of kitchen cabinets is standard for greige kitchen cabinets. The one-sided kitchen makes small kitchens look amazing and that is in part because of the perfect color of greige that you see here.

The designers decided to paint the upper and lower cabinets the same color to bring the room together. The island was left with a warm wood tone to bring out the beige in the greige color of the cabinets.

Modern Greige Kitchen Cabinets With Gold

Image from Everyday Lovely

Gold can do amazing things to other colors. In this case, the gold made the design style of this kitchen quite ambiguous. Sometimes, an ambiguous design style is perfect because it means you’ve found something unique.

As for the creamy tone of this greige, it keeps the tones warm while the grey in the greige ensures that things aren’t dated. Yes, this is a very pleasing greige color for any room and any design style you can imagine.

Coastal Greige Kitchen

Image from Krista + Home

Did you know that you don’t need a heavy sandy tone to your greige for it to go well in a coastal kitchen? This kitchen proves that to be true because the greige here favors grey as opposed to sandy beige.

The result is stunning as the silvery tones of the greige bring the room together in all the best ways. Cool beaches are often even more relaxing than warm beaches and the marriage of the two are what makes greige so special.

Pleasing Ranch Greige

Image from You-Neek Designs

Now, this is a gorgeous ranch kitchen. While the pretty blue cabinets and marble countertops play a huge role in this fact, so does the greige of the upper cabinets. Everything here goes well together.

But what most people don’t know or don’t notice is that the cabinets are two different colors. Yep! When designing your own kitchen, you may not even consider doing this but this proves that it can work out.

Greige Wood Grains

Image from Alto Kitchens

Did you know that greige could be a wood grain color? You can get wood grain cabinets that are greige. You may have considered getting grey wood cabinets or beige wood cabinets, as that is a natural wood color.

But have you considered greige wood cabinets? This isn’t a common color for wood grain anything but it is a wonderful color that can go well with almost any kitchen. And who doesn’t love wood cabinets?

Deep Greige Kitchen Cabinets

Image from Bellmont Cabinet Co.

These cabinets are pretty spectacular but of course, it’s not the thing that makes this kitchen rock. The warmth the kitchen radiates proves that you can use grey, in the form of greige, to make a kitchen inviting.

The warm granite and silver appliances are also a good example of how you can blend both tones when using neutral colors. And remember, chrome is always in style if it always brings you joy. So never cancel it out.

Keeping Things Light Greige

Image from Kate Roos Design LLC

Overall, this kitchen seems to have light tones. The floors, the countertops, the crown molding. Everything seems lighter than the other greige kitchens that we’ve seen. But have you looked at the cabinets?

They are medium in color, which is accentuated by the lighter walls that are also a greige tone. It is all about relativity when it comes to painting and decorating. Light is light when against the dark.