This Butter Yellow and Pastel Kitchen Is the Color Inspiration I've Been Searching for — It's a Bold but Soft Decorating Scheme

Butter yellow has officially been declared the color of the summer, and this kitchen clearly got the memo.

Even beyond the current obsession, there is something undeniably joyful about this sunny shade, adding a touch of levity and zest to life. Whether via a linen beach set or your kitchen cabinets, this color is guaranteed to bring a smile to anyone's face. It's why it is such a great choice to use in your home design, especially in a space in which you'll spend a lot of your time, like the kitchen.

Pair this sunshine shade with a collection of other, equally joyful pastel tones, and you've got yourself a modern kitchen design that is nothing short of an instant dopamine hit.

This Maker's kitchen design teaches us how to make pastels feel grown up, taking them far away from their sickly sweet potential, and into a new sleek, sophisticated setting.

The Inspiration

The interior design style of a home can always tell you a lot about the person who lives within it, and that is certainly the case with this colorful kitchen.

"She had such a colorful and bold sense of style and just chose colors that she loved and made her feel good," explains Lizzie Spinks, head of design at Makers.

The clients' main focuses with this design were color and simplicity. "[They] wanted a kitchen that was modern, colorful, and stylish," Lizzie notes. "They loved the look of the sleek kitchen and wanted it to be easy to clean."

While seamless, sleek kitchens can often feel slightly sterile or cold, in this design, the soft pastel shades give the colorful kitchen a fluffy warmth, softening the otherwise minimalist style.

"She had a clear vision for the palette," says Lizzie, "and our role was to help refine the options so they worked beautifully together. When a client comes to us with such a focused brief, the design process is a pleasure."

The Design

The team at Makers worked closely alongside both the client and the architects to develop a design that met the brief while pushing the boundaries. The client described her ideal kitchen to Lizzie as "colorful and simplistic", and asked the team to design "a kitchen that had ample storage and bespoke elements for dog food storage, whilst retaining a sleek look."

Creating a sleek look while including as much kitchen storage as possible can be a delicate balancing act, and is not always the easiest to achieve. However, Lizzie quickly realized that the solution to this issue lay in the removal of any handles and hardware, creating a cohesive, uninterrupted look.

"It became clear as the design developed that a handleless design was key to ensuring the cabinetry remained streamlined and minimalist," notes Lizzie.

This minimalist approach stretched beyond the cabinetry, though. Even the kitchen appliances maintain the same seamless look, perfectly illustrated through the practically invisible Bora Pure cooktop and extractor.

The highlight of the design, the cabinets and shelves, are adorned in the delightfully sunny Mylands Golden Square, and accompanied by pistachio green and rosy pink accent features.

In order for this pastel color scheme to work, though, the other elements of the design had to be intentionally understated. Like, for example, the creamy white quartz stone used for the worktops and backsplash. Not only is quartz an impressively durable and long-lasting stone, but it also has a smooth, subtle look that allows other features to rise to the foreground.

The Layout

"The main challenge here was working within the space," shares Lizzie.

While the color part of the brief was easy enough to bring to life, fulfilling the client's kitchen storage goals presented some more difficulty.

"The room layout was quite difficult and didn’t lend itself to an easy kitchen design," Lizzie explains, "Because of this, we worked closely with the architect and made changes to the plan to ensure the kitchen was functional."

These changes ultimately resulted in a kitchen that is equal parts functional and beautiful, with every inch of space utilized to the best of its ability. Making the most of the naturally high ceilings in this room, the team opted for floor-to-ceiling cabinetry, a great way to bring in more storage without sacrificing any floor space.

"The sliding ladder helped us to get the most out of the relatively small space," says Lizzie, "We decided to bring the cabinets all the way to the ceiling, still accessible with the use of the ladder."

The clever addition of a sliding ladder helps to boost the functionality of the storage, while also adding an extra design feature. The rustic look of the wooden ladder helps to counteract the smooth, polished appearance of the rest of the kitchen, resulting in a more nuanced finish.

But this kitchen was not designed to be used in a purely functional manner; it was as important for the client that this room also held a social function, acting as a space for guests to gather round in. For this, Makers designed a custom seating area in the corner of the room. A bespoke, built-in bench covered in floral motifs and a ribbed oak table bring another layer of personality into this kitchen design, adding a slightly retro feel to the room. And, ever the creative thinkers, the bench also doubled up as yet another storage opportunity, with a concealed trunk space beneath the seat. Further showing that not a single element of this design was left unconsidered.

Get The Look

If this colorful, pastel kitchen design has got your heart beating faster, don't worry, there's plenty more where that came from. Our love for colorful kitchen ideas knows no bounds, but we must admit, we have a special space in our heart for yellow kitchens at the moment.