Your layout for you kitchen looks really good and would fit well with the mixture of black and white cabinetry. With the lament bench top, we would suggest melamine (entry level cabinetry) or acrylic bench top, which can come in high gloss feature or matt. The matt surface would go lovely with your choice of bench top, and acrylic is also a affordable cabinetry material.

Below are some examples of how Reno4u has incorporated both black and white cabinetry together, without making it to dominantly dark. We feel as if these examples would be perfect for your layout, and depending on if you want more black cabinetry or white you can go either way.

This design above is an example with more black than white, can be made matt or gloss with different handles/splash back and wallpaper.

With a u shaped kitchen similar to yours, however from the pictures you provided your style may include different design below the island bench.

Another kitchen designed by us which shows more white than black, with a bar built in which may suit your design better.

We hope this helps you, please feel free to call us on 03 423 9067 and we can provide a free quote for materials and kitchen design, and help you finalise your design further. :)

Hello Laura, Great idea having two colours for your cabinetry. One idea is to have overhead/tall cabinets one colour and base cabinets another colour, like this:

This is a kitchen for a commercial building, but it give you the idea and is a similar layout to yours.

I know you're thinking of a white splashback, but this is what a black splashback with white cabinetry can look like, just for ideas:

Here's an award-winning kitchen that used multiple colours. See how they used different colours and different angles to create a really amazing design:

Hope these ideas might help you out. Were you thinking of gloss or matte doors and panels?

Thankyou Panelform, we've been thinking long and hard about this aspect of our build as i was a chef for 7 years pre kids. Now we have kids I spend all of my time in the kitchen at home!

We are really leaning towards matte black cabinets and draws on the back wall and maybe painting the bulkhead the same matte black to help define the kitchen space. I was then wanting to go for gloss white cabinets and draws on the island bench. I really wanted to play with ply for a splashback, as we have a void behind our bench due to a very deep fridge, so i wanted to have shelves with panels like these, but made of ply. problem is it cant go behind the stove as it wont meet standards because its flammable. So hoping we can use white glass behind the stove, then white panels to cover shelves (would use glass the whole way, but its very expensive!)

Im worried mixing colours will be too "out there" or strange. There are so many decisions with a house build and to be honest its getting very over whelming. I am usually very set on my decisions, but my head seems to be going around in circles!

This is a pretty old post, but I am just strolling around the comment section for some advise.

henry, roofingrepairswellington.kiwi