What Color Cabinets Go With Black Stainless Appliances
See what color cabinets go with black stainless steel appliances, including different designs, ideal shades, paint combinations, and matching tips.
Black stainless steel appliances are a big trend in kitchen designs today. And in all honesty, we don’t see why not! They elevate the look of a room and instantly add a feeling of class and sophistication.
You probably have a black stainless steel fridge, dishwasher, stove, and other equipment ready. What you need to do next is work around your sleek set of appliances to find the best matching cabinetry.
Thankfully, matching cabinets with kitchen appliances is actually quite easy. Black stainless steel appliances are currently a trend because they look sleek and solid. They can easily turn an otherwise dull design into a space filled with modern elements.
If you have them and you’re stumped on how to design around them, we’ve researched the best ways for you to match your kitchen cabinets with them.
In this article, we’ll go through a variety of hues, color complements, and attractive color schemes that go well with your black stainless steel appliances.
What Are the Best Cabinet Colors for Black Appliances?
Black stainless steel cabinets are expected to pair well with a variety of kitchen cabinet colors. However, cabinets are the other dominant part of the kitchen besides your appliances, so choosing the best color is something to consider greatly.
Some factors that can help you choose are your taste or style, the color of your walls, the color of your floor, windows and lighting, other furniture in the room, or the size of your space.
Usually, two or more of these factors will hint at an appropriate cabinet color.
Having said that, there are still colors that stand out enough to either be a long-time design trend or many people’s favorite. Hopefully, these shades will give you an idea of what to go for.
Natural Wood
Natural wood cabinets normally have lighter shades in terms of color. These types of cabinets are easy to work with as they can work with virtually any style of appliance out there.
They go well when paired with black stainless steel appliances in particular because natural wood doesn’t typically make the overall look of the kitchen come off as overwhelming or overpowering.
Natural wood cabinets are great for letting your kitchen’s dark stainless steel appliances stand out, and its reflective attributes are highlighted even more.
The light color of the natural wood sets a pretty good contrast or balance with the starkness of the black stainless steel elements in your kitchen design.
Light Wood
It’s sometimes tricky to blend natural wood finish with stainless steel. Ordinary stainless steel with dark cabinetry does not look so appealing.
However, the reverse is quite the opposite. Kitchens appear more balanced, from light wood cabinets to black steel appliances.
Dark Oak
Dark-shaded wood types like dark oak also look great with black stainless steel appliances.
Even if the cabinets are darker than the typical lighter or natural-colored woods, the appliances still strike an impressive contrast, making your kitchen look modern and sleek. If you currently have light-colored oak, you can easily stain them with a darker one to update them.
If you want a cozier kitchen amid your sleek equipment, you may opt for darker hues of brown. Dark oak cabinets match the deep tones to bring out the sheen of your appliances without overdoing it. It has a natural warmth that softens steel appliances’ modernistic quality.
An extra thing to mention is that if you’re staining your oak cabinets to a darker shade, be sure to update the hardware to dark-colored ones as well so as not to clash with the overall color scheme of your kitchen area. This will further bring the depth out of the dark shades of your dark oak.
Black
Black kitchen cabinets with black appliances are the ultimate contemporary style. With similar tones throughout, your kitchen will look seamless and almost dramatic, that it will get you compliments every time.
You can vary your countertops and backsplash with a pop color if you want a little contrast.
Gray
Gray is never a dated color as the ultimate neutral; gray is a perfect middle ground if you find an all-black kitchen too much but don’t want to commit to maintaining white either.
It offers the same contemporary quality and can incorporate a variety of textures and colors for accents, too. If solid gray is too plain, you can look into gray wood laminates that simulate natural wood grains.
Blue
If you’re looking for a fun solid color, shades of blue go perfectly well with a black stainless steel finish. You can choose cornflower, spruce, indigo, teal, blue-green, or cobalt blue.
Specify white marble countertops and an off-white wall, and you’ll create a modish yet laid-back vibe for your kitchen.
Deep Red
If you want a kitchen that can stand out and make a statement, having deep red cabinets paired with black stainless steel appliances is a stylish option.
If you want to go the extra mile, you can even update your kitchen countertops and have the appliances installed as well.
There are a lot of looks and styles that you can play up with deep red cabinets. You can put a rustic spin on it by distressing the wood a bit, making the cabinets look a little weathered, and adding a little personality and farmhouse vibe.
However, if you aren’t into the rustic look, you can keep it clean and smooth to make the kitchen look more modern. Whatever your preferences, your dark stainless steel appliances will look good with them either way.
Yellow
Black and yellow are also great colors to have together. Yellow cabinets can make your kitchen look sunny and bask in light, while the black stainless steel cabinets balance them off and mute the brightness a little bit.
If you want a somewhat rustic look, go for a muted or pale yellow color for your cabinets. But if you would like to go for a modern or contemporary kitchen, go with a darker shade of yellow, or even something that resembles mustard.
This pairing can really bring out the best in your dark stainless steel appliances, making them the focal points of the kitchen.
White
There’s just no way around it, black-and-white are a match made in heaven. White is a clean and neutral color that also brings in some degree of luminescence that can really make your darker stainless steel appliances shine and stand out.
If you want to make the design cohesive and have a more vintage and bygone-era design, you can even update your flooring to black-and-white colors.
Kitchen Color Schemes With Black Stainless Steel Appliances
Black stainless steel is a versatile color and material combined. If you do an image search, you’ll find it paired with every color and finish imaginable. That’s because it really just blends that well with anything.
Nonetheless, you can still choose a combination that best reflects your personal preference for your kitchen.
Here are a few color scheme ideas:
Dark and Elegant
One of the reasons to choose black appliances is their resistance to fingerprints and ease of maintenance. So it makes sense if you also want the benefit of that feature.
Espresso brown, dark walnut, and dark cherry stains are not easily soiled shades. You can also go with a monochromatic look by using black again or a variety of gray.
Moreover, matching your dark appliances with dark-painted cabinets creates a cohesive and modernistic atmosphere in your kitchen.
All Natural With Wood
If an all-dark kitchen seems too overpowering for you, you can try a lighter and more natural color scheme. Matte black appliances paired with pale-colored wood stains make a balanced design.
Try lighter (or natural) stains of pine and white oak. This way, you’ll have your modern appliances without losing a homey feeling in your kitchen.
Medium to darker-toned wood paired with black stainless steel is popular for industrial chic design themes, especially if you add pop colors as accents. Look into exposed brick and raw textures in warm colors like yellow and orange.
Interesting Contrasts
A high-contrast room looks more invigorating, especially if you want to make a statement with your kitchen. You can pair your black stainless appliances with ruby-red cabinetry and neutral-toned accessories.
If you’re introducing your contemporary appliances to a farmhouse kitchen, you can easily tame the contrast with soft turquoise and wood accents.
Mixing In Other Metals
If you mix other metals to your color scheme, between two and three is a good number – and that already includes your stainless steel appliances.
Mixing matte black-toned cabinetry with brushed nickel has been trending for a decade. Brass, copper, and rose gold are good options, too.
Kitchen With White Cabinets And Black Appliances
It is a well-known fact in the design industry that black goes well with any other color. But even non-designers know that one of the best color combinations is black-and-white.
Black appliances with white cabinets are just another showcase of this classic monochromatic color scheme. White and off-whites pair naturally with black stainless steel because the contrasting colors bring out the best in each other.
Both colors pop out, and the whole space feels more lively.
According to Architectural Digest, the black-and-white kitchen style became popular in New York City, where designers had to work on smaller flats.
These spaces often have open floor plans to maximize the area, exposing kitchens. Thus, kitchens became one of the key focal points in homes.
The black-and-white kitchen style is the perfect solution to this design dilemma. It looks clean, spacious, and more balanced, and even becomes a highlight on a small space.
Black Steel Appliances With Dark Cabinets
Technically speaking, black stainless steel appliances can fit into just about any style.
But when you consider pairing it with dark cabinets, it can really fit in well with it as the dark appliances stand in contrast with the dark wood of the cabinets.
The combination easily ends up with the look of an impressive and elegantly styled kitchen.
Black Cabinets With Black Stainless Steel Appliances
Black on black isn’t necessarily a bad thing. On the contrary, it can make for really interesting aesthetics. If you’re worried about how it would make your kitchen look monochromatic and dull, one way to avoid that would be to have a play on textures.
Black stainless steel appliances are shiny. Pairing them with black cabinets can work if you ensure that the texture is either distressed or matte.
An extra word of caution though, this is not recommended if you’re working with a small kitchen space as black-on-black could make the area look congested and claustrophobic.
If you have a kitchen with ample enough space though, it could really cozy up the area and can work extremely well.
Does Black Stainless Steel Go With Oak Cabinets?
Absolutely yes. Black stainless steel appliances pair extremely well with oak cabinets because they’re usually natural color woods and they provide a contrast that can make the space look interesting and add a degree of dimensionality to it.
Can You Mix Black And Stainless Steel Appliances?
There’s no absolute rule going around about the requirement of having perfectly matched appliances, so the answer to this is yes.
It is perfectly acceptable to mix and match your appliances, especially if you’re currently transitioning or if replacing everything that doesn’t match would strain your budget.
A cost-friendly way to make them more cohesive would be to perhaps update the handles and the other accents of your stainless steel kitchenware and appliances to black.
The kitchen is oftentimes considered the most used and busiest space in the home because it gets a lot of foot traffic and is central to storing and producing food for the family and the rest of the household to share.
This is why many homeowners go out of their way to show off their kitchens in the best ways possible.
Coordinating the color of the kitchen cabinets with the color of the kitchen appliances is a great way to update the kitchen space and create an attractive atmosphere. See more related content in our article about how to update kitchen cabinets on this page.
