I think the colour used on these cabinets is great. This is a colour which is unlikely to unsettle anyone who sees it and is teamed with very neutral walls and furnishings. This room looks modern, with a little retro or Scandinavian twist.I believe that if you really love a particular colour, why not use it as a colour block on cabinets. Just keep the main elements in the room neutral and the accent colours to a minimum, like the orange accent used here.

I had black stone bench tops at our old house. My kids would sit up at the bench whenever I was in the kitchen, so I was constantly cleaning off the little hand prints they left behind which seemed to be more obvious when light would hit the bench top, but it was easy to clean overall. Just moved into a house with a white corian bench top around the kitchen sink and stove area and it shows everything, every splash, bit of dust, tiny speck of whatever, everything. Makes me miss the black stone!

Hi Sandra, what a beautiful room you can make, I would love your fire place, my thoughts would be to go the lighter colours including painting you panelling, as a few others above have suggested keep the trim and wall colour similar, big floor rug as suggested also. Our sitting room is 4x4 metres, when we first moved in, I painted it quite a dark pink shade and had way too much dark furniture from our downsize that I thought I could not live without. After two years of trying to make myself like it, I finally heavily culled furniture and changed paint colour to a very light grey tone. It probably isn't my perfect colour choice but heaps better, I also purchased some lighter profile furniture, I sit in this room so often now, I just love it, it has gone from a room I tried not to look at, to a room I really like being in. I will put a couple of before and after in for looking at darker colours to lighter colours from very similar angles

FINALLY after too long, have completed one of the upper cedar wall replacements (& the most needed)... still debating colours. Altho I was set on the cedarshield natural cedar oil product, everyone is pushing paint due to longevity... because we missmatched old with new boards on verandah section, don’t think cedarshield would bring out same colour evenly unless a lot of time trying to ‘clean’ the old boards top layer. SO, back to colours. Thoughts? Light and beachy/modern is attractive but don’t think it’d suit the simple timber cottage look it has had for so long. Thinking dark trim with lighter weatherboards?