Diane Keaton’s colorful kitchen is a brave choice for 2024

Color is an integral part of every kitchen; it can capture your personality and set the tone for the rest of the home. In actress Diane Keaton’s Bel Air kitchen, a colorful approach to pattern and color pays dividends.

Creating a vibrant kitchen color palette is different from approaching a more neutral scheme. When going bold you have to start with the color you want to showcase and then balance it out with complementary colors that are more soothing. In this case, interior designer Stephen Shadley set about collecting hundreds of vintage California tiles from swap meets, vendors, stores, and eBay to replace the existing brown tiles.

In her previous home, Keaton had steered away from vibrant colors, relying instead on bold blacks, whites, and browns to emphasize the strong architecture and graphic elements of the home.

Finally, paired with equally vibrant pieces of pottery, vintage textiles, and plates, the colorful kitchen joyfully paid homage to California’s Mexican culture and life.

The trend for kitchens to be open spaces incorporating some form of living zone encourages decor with playful and fun attributes. Even in small kitchens, small touches of pattern and bold hues such as brightly-colored vases, extravagant floral displays, and decorative tiles can often be enough to inject a winning personality into the space.

For those ready to make a more lasting commitment in the kitchen, there are entire ranges adorned with patterns. Italian kitchen manufacturers such as Pedini and Scavolini offer collections featuring doors that are clad in pattern-etched glass, botanical motifs, and graffiti-style prints.

The current interior design trend for kitchen tiles meanwhile is for Moroccan-influenced encaustic tiles, or Talavera tiles, also known as hand-painted Mexican tile, for a truly one-of-a-kind finish. ‘Kitchens can be quite hectic places, so if you are adding large volumes of pattern, try to balance it with an equal amount of plain,’ cautions Bernard Otulakowski of Siematic.

When planning your color palette, start by considering the room’s size, design and flooring. Large kitchens can take brave color choices. ‘Be bold, but not frantic, with color,’ says designer and hotelier Kit Kemp. ‘For example, too much red is enervating and needs to be toned with, say, a custard cream. If you prefer less color, pick an emphasis shade.’

Work with the scale of the room and play with the design until the balance is right – you don’t want too many tricks in the room. Curate colors and patterns before you start so you can prioritize for maximum impact.