Carefully scaled furniture and smart arrangement schemes are two well-known ways to deal with small floor plans . But color plays an important role in perceived spaciousness too! Using color everywhere can create a quirky and homey aesthetic, but in some cases, the visual busyness can make an already cramped space feel even smaller than it really is. The small apartments showcased here make the best use of their under-50-square-meter layouts by relying on monochromatic palettes for a streamlined appearance, but what makes these spaces unique are the clever pops of energetic color used throughout.
Visualizer:Yana Osipenko
This interior, designed for a young family in Kyiv, features a grayscale color scheme and smart simple furniture. But it doesn’t feel like the typical monochromatic minimalist space. The occasional splash of green makes all the difference. The centerpiece – a moss garden reaching from the floor to the ceiling – gives this home a verdant and youthful attitude very fitting to the client specifications.
Polished brass pendant lamps coordinate with the wood cabinets and cream backsplash in the kitchen. The warm hues also provide a surprisingly pleasant contrast to the textural greenery found throughout the living room.
Unfinished wood mirror frame, shelf, and wall decorations make the white hallway look chic as can be. The recurring natural themes are subtle but add a necessary touch of fragility to an otherwise strong urban home design.
A cube containing the bedroom and office employs a few creative techniques to maximize space and privacy. A sliding door can hide either or both spaces when not in use, allowing the rest of the room to look lighter and more spacious. The mattress is elevated on a white platform with storage underneath.
The bathroom is especially gorgeous! Wood tile clads the far wall and the floor sandwiched by white tile on either side, a clever arrangement that makes the room look more elongated. The freestanding tub is extra compact and makes up for the lost legroom with plenty of depth, backed by a long white planter filled with tranquil grass – the same type tucked into cute spaces throughout the rest of the house.
Visualizer:Francisco Marchisio
Bright and cheery, this yellow interior concept has only has one window, making the application of happy colors so much more important. To prevent the wood from absorbing too much light, the designer chose a slightly reflective satin finish for irresistible sheen. Cool sliding bookshelves hide the bedroom and ensure that not a single inch of square footage goes to waste.
The floorplan demonstrates just how compact this concept really is. Note the generous use of sliding doors and panels to save space – even the bedroom closets slide in and out like large vertical drawers.
Visualizer:Pavel Alekseev
Designed for a young man in Moscow, this studio apartment uses a mostly-grayscale color scheme brought to life by shots of brilliant yellow – and it doesn’t shy away from using bold textures and prints wherever possible.
A ring-shaped pendant light and triangular side table adds a touch of geometric variation to a room based largely on rectangles and lines. The white edges on the glass bedroom panels look amazing when the divider is fanned open.
The dining room continues the yellow theme. Isamu Noguchi’s Cyclone dining table offers a touch of industrial appeal, surrounded by the distinctive Ginger Ale Armchair from Roberto Lazzeroni upholstered with coordinated perfection.
The bedroom faces the sitting room, separated by a glass wall with a sliding privacy curtain. The color scheme in this room is more sensual: royal blue, violet, and coffee.
A compact kitchen unit integrates all the necessary appliances, plus plenty of room for storage. This is also a great angle to view the dramatic transition from dark marbled tile to ash gray wood flooring.
The office breaks the theme of black, white, and yellow with a splash of comforting blue, more comparable to the bedroom than any other room.
The ocean print and subdued colors – combined with a strong textural accent wall – would surely help foster a relaxed and casual home office environment.
Visualizer:Viktor Kanishchev
Clocking in at just under 35 square meters, this small apartment takes advantage of its unique architecture and layout in a few inspiring ways. Parquet flooring and rough brick set the scene – accented with a bright red couch and contrasting steel blue accents. The overstuffed red couch creates a kind of “signature look”, distinctive and casual.
The cantilever pendant lamp looks quite similar to the Agnes line from Lindsey Adelman, an organic branching chandelier with modular construction.
A small office resides on an open sun room. Suspended in the center of the room between the walls, the desk enjoys plenty of space ahead and behind, easily avoiding the small room dilemma that causes many designers to simply push the workspace against a wall. The free and uncluttered atmosphere would certainly help boost concentration.
Rather than opting for a solid kitchen island, a steel-framed table doubles up as a dual-purpose dining table and work surface. This lets more light reach the compact kitchen – a smart choice for a home with sunlight coming from only one direction.
These four interiors rely on bold wood details to breathe life into otherwise minimalistic spaces – and the effect is tremendous! Here, wood isn’t just another building material. Each space cuts down on unnecessary details, using simple decor and subdued color palettes to give the bold wood elements a chance to shine. The results are vibrant, warm, and full of life. Will such extensive use of wood interior decor ever go out of style? It’s unlikely to happen as long as designers continue to find innovative ways to highlight its beauty as these designers have done.
No wood here! The bathroom is purely monochromatic and offers a clean break from the rest of the home. There’s nothing wrong with going for a completely different palette in a room as secluded as the bathroom, and in fact, such a bold change can help reset and reframe the mind – and that’s what a nice long bath is all about, right?
Each feature integrates into the next. A stripe of white continues from under the cubby and across the front of the door. Then, a long and low wall-mounted sideboard wraps around the corner and becomes a windowsill. At the far wall, the sideboard no longer floats as it does along the entertainment console. Here, it sits flush with the structure beneath, perhaps providing the support necessary to serve as secondary seating with a great view.
Visualizer:Visual Workshop 3d
Super simple forms and a bright white palette give this interior a sleek and minimalistic appeal, but the generously applied wood paneling makes it look warm and natural enough to feel like home. Continuous horizontal woodgrain leads the eye around each room until it rests on a neat focal point, like the striped solar shade in the living room.
Built-in shelves add extra storage space at the end of the kitchen island. It would make a great place to store cookbooks, but the dish display definitely looks more stylish and inviting. Even ordinary dishes can look fabulous when with such a thoughtful and precise arrangement.
Sharp contrast defines the kitchen. Color, form, and materials change abruptly for an incredibly striking effect. Wood transitions to glossy white, concrete turns to marble, all wrapped up in a clean modernist package.
Behind the sofa and located just to the right of the dining table, a luxurious wingback chair takes advantage of a subtle fireplace – historically, the wings were intended to shield the face from the heat of the fireplace or to trap it in place for all-encompassing warmth.
Stylish interlocking wood panels echo the arrangement of the sofa. Subtle details like these are one of the most enjoyable things about this design. And the black birds on the dining table? Totally loveable, and a great centerpiece to balance out all the purely geometric forms used throughout the space.
A slatted wood ceiling panel unifies the dining and living areas. In this visualization, it’s easier to see that the floor, ceiling, and cabinetry all feature different styles of wood - and how well they all work together even in a small and open space.
Curves and sharp corners are distributed thoughtfully to create an impressively cohesive look overall. Rich exotic woods heighten the sense of luxury.
Visualizer:Iqosa
A striking portrait grabs the eye for an energizing first impression. Designed by IQOSA, based in Ukraine, this home reveals its soothing nature as the eye starts to soak up all those gorgeous muted neutrals and warm mocha tones.
Architect:LP Architektur
Designed by LP Architektur, this single-family house makes good use of subtle wood paneling on the walls and ceilings – the wood floor blends into the design very smoothly, only slightly differentiated with characteristic knots and lines.
The cat door is seriously adorable, a great choice for such a minimalistic door. To the right, scattered brick cladding is quite different from the rest of the home – a surprising and effective contrast to the woodwork and glossy white treatments.
The dining room looks fabulous with wood accents in all the right places. And check out that amazing ceiling! Taken together, the design is futuristic, fun, and undeniably artistic. The iconic pendant lamps from Tom Dixon were the perfect choice for such a distinctive and geometric motif, their shapely profiles underscored by the choice of swivel bar stools .
A soft touch of lavender makes the bedroom look soft and inviting. The elongated headboard – complete with soothing cove lights – ties back into the overall home design.
Behind the living room, a little glass-walled office allows a working parent to watch the children (or even the television) – they can simply close the curtain when it’s time to buckle down and focus.
Via:Ivan Ivan
The more you explore this home, the more detail it reveals. It starts out with a relatively simple living room brimming with warmth. Horizontal wood panels feature a mix of shorter and longer segments, making it easier for any integrated storage spaces to blend seamlessly and disappear within the woodwork.
Dual purpose: the fireplace continues along the length of the room to serve as a divider for the hallway and an entertainment console for the living area. While many designers would have chosen a glossy finish for the sake of modernism, the matte treatment seems to establish a softer touch more appropriate for the organic wood theme.
The charcoal-colored modern fireplace and countertops are made of a modern composite material called fibreC anthracite, developed by the Austrian concrete company Rieder Group. It’s a blend of glass fiber and concrete – its strength supports a great number of creative applications, and many of the elaborate exterior facades found in contemporary architecture are made of a similar material.
Dark isn’t the first theme that comes to mind when designing a kitchen. Stereotypical assumptions are of white and bright kitchens matched by light wood—something like the color of breakfast pancakes. Have you ever thought otherwise? Perhaps something like a modern dark kitchen?
We’ve got a collection of stunning spaces sure to switch up your vision. This black kitchen design inspiration is the sexiest interior design can muster. All divulging in shades of black, navy, or dark brown, they add what white kitchens cannot—a seductive allure that says sleekness and sophistication at the same time. Take a peek at some brilliant interiors on the darker side to see if a modern luxury black kitchen could be for you.
Modern Dark Kitchen Design Ideas to Inspire Your Next Renovation
1. Make it an All Black Kitchen
Visualizer:Design At Sketch
Almost completely covered in black, a few minor elements shine in chrome and wood in this kitchen interior. We love how the textures do the talking, especially through the matte table under black wood-panelled walls. But having an open approach like this means that every one of your accessories on display—including knives, wine glasses, mugs, cutting boards, teapots, cookie jars, etc.—need to be on point.
2. Add Wooden Elements
Visualizer:Bogdan Tovstyy
This black beauty edges towards wooden elements. We see a speckled floor, a white wall, and a central bench. Rounded black lamps hover over the island, providing functionality and style. If you’re wondering how visual intrigue is added to this modern black kitchen… a huge credit goes to the abstract art!
3. Complement the Black Kitchen with Orange
Source:Vancouver House
A bit of curve rounds out the hard edges—adding some much-needed warmth. This wave-design bench leads up to an orange-hued enclave in this black-and-silver interior. The burnt orange sure makes a design statement (apart from the unique central island).
4. Keep Your Dark Modern Kitchen Simple
Visualizer:Panda Fox Studios
A simplistic look makes this black kitchen a winner. We see the basics: a light floor, a black minimalist island, and sleek cabinetry. But the contrast between light and dark keeps the ambiance interesting, while the large window welcomes plenty of natural light.
5. Make it Dark… Or Not?
Visualizer:Who Cares Design
If you’re eyeing a dark kitchen aesthetic but are hesitant to make the change, this is it. Introducing more light, this black kitchen is hardly dark at all. Black benches, cabinetry, fixtures and stools are intersected by large-panel windows, a white shelving stand and light flooring.
6. Make Use of Asymmetry in the Black Modern Kitchen
Visualizer:Visual Method
This modern black kitchen takes another angle on this kaleidoscopic space, breaking all spatial boundaries. Black and glass alternate in this chic kitchen as the interesting ceiling design keeps the space unconventional. We’ve also got to appreciate the cherry blossoms, doubling as decor even within the interior.
7. Factor in Some Warmth
Source:Modulnova
This warmer-looking kitchen makes a move to brown. It strategically achieves the purpose with the use of wood. This not only introduces natural textures but also makes the ambiance inviting. Talk about a modern style that’s equal parts welcoming!
8. Place a White Island in a Black Modern Kitchen
Visualizer:Jean Regauer
An instant way to brighten up a dark kitchen (we mean, get the best of both worlds)? This kitchen space shows us how by using a white island on a black floor. The backsplash further enhances this dark-and-light effect, while the cowhide rug adds just the right amount of coziness.
9. Make Marble Your Best Friend
Architect:Chamberlain Javens Architects
If you’re looking to create a modern luxury black kitchen, you know what you’ve got to do: Go big on marble! This natural stone adds the luxe factor to any space, especially as a large, central island, as seen in the kitchen above. You can also add it through the backsplash.
10. Make it Mysterious
Visualizer:Tomek Michalski
You can double the visual intrigue in your all black kitchen by adding some mystery. In this kitchen, mood-lighting sets the scene in black and grey, while a marbled bench acts as the hero. The back inlet and flooring create contrast and depth. Taken together, these elements make the space an interesting one.
11. Layer Gray and Gold
Visualizer:Mitaka Dimov
Black kitchens are cool, but what if we layer in gray and add accents of gold? This stunning kitchen space uses gray flooring to add diversity to the otherwise black palette. The thick gold panel is one way that makes the space look incredibly high-end.
12. Add French Style to Black Kitchen Design
Visualizer:Aeroslon
Make your kitchen both modern and French with traditional black cabinetry. In this space, standing armoires act as sinks, and all other displayed items remain black. The stark white clock can surely act as the focal point of the space!
13. Consider Soft Elements
Visualizer:Julia Sultanova
Rough, light wood and low-hanging white lights set this kitchen interior a world apart. You can also notice a layer of light gray cabinetry, adding variation to the otherwise dark color palette. These elements factor in softness to the black kitchen design.
14. Let the Accessories Do the Talking
Photographer:Mikko Ryhänen
In this black-and-wood creation, the accessories take center stage in adorning the interior. We love the houseplant, but the crockery deserves a special mention for doubling as decor. The light oakwood backdrop further warms the space up.
15. Consider a Matte All Black Kitchen
Visualizer:HDR Designer
Neat square panels perfectly line up to emphasize the stark black minimalism that is at play here. We love how the cabinetry is matte black with no hardware, adding a sense of simplicity. The herb planters are a healthy green addition to bring the otherwise simple space.
16. Add Some Stencilling to Black Kitchens
Visualizer:Julia Sultanova
Fine lines and stencilling set this monochromatic space apart. Lined by black magnetic lights, black stencils and glossy white facades, it makes its mark on a light wooden floor.
17. Build a Shape Out of Black
Visualizer:Huso
18. Create a Modern Dark Kitchen with Gradients
Visualizer:Mario Nogueira
If you’re wondering how the intrigue in this space is working… It’s the gradients from black, to charcoal, to light grey. White surrounds in the walls and a monochromatic hanging light. This clever design technique makes sure the space is anything but boring, even if it’s using mere neutrals (minus the stunning orange dining chairs, of course).
19. Leverage Black Textures
Visualizer:Nefeli Kallianou
One instant way to add interest to a black kitchen is with textures, as seen in this metallic matte kitchen. This accounts for decorative presence in the light and bright space, providing character to an otherwise simple room.
20. Work on the Functionality of the Modern Dark Kitchen
Visualizer:İbrahim Ethem KISACIK
This dark modern kitchen makes sure it’s as functional as is stylish. The central island is paired with a black dining table, while all necessary appliances are fixed into the cabinetry. We also see pendant lights and lighting under the hood providing just the right illumination.
21. Create a Modern Classic All Black Kitchen
Visualizer:A&L Interior Design
Folks seeking an inviting all black kitchen can look towards this modern classic space. It merges contemporary elements (through sleek black cabinetry) with traditional ones (as seen in the wooden backsplash) to bring together the best of both worlds.
22. Put Essentials on Display in Your Modern Black Kitchen Interior
Visualizer:Polygon
Yet another kitchen that uses black and wooden elements to create a dark-themed interior. What sets this one apart is the hanging pans. They do offer easy access as the residents cook, but they also double as decor! (Note how the pans also use black and wooden elements to stay coherent with the theme).
23. Add the Industrial Style to the All Black Kitchen
Via:Emotion School
Industrial style lovers, rejoice! This is THE inspiration to set up your favorite interior design style, the dark way. This kitchen uses rustic wood and exposed elements for the ceiling to create an industrial black kitchen interior.
24. Make a Statement with Black Chunky Lamps
Via:HomePicture.in
All eyes on the two chunky lamps hanging in this monochromatic setting. They do add focus but also allow the contrasting white inset to shine. Not to forget the central island, providing plenty of storage space.
25. Make Room for Keepsakes
Visualizer:Maxim Goryachev
There’s nothing like personalizing your space to who YOU are. This kitchen serves the purpose by adding keepsakes and heirlooms. Also, black leaves room for details, so it’s one of the best colors to use if you’re hoping to display knick-knacks.
26. Use Black to Add Intimacy
Visualizer:Helen Bank
Who says dark colors make small spaces feel smaller? We only see black adding luxury to this compact space (with some credit to the white flooring adding brightness). This kitchen—with black marble backsplash—speaks opulence, and for all the right reasons!
27. Enhance Black Kitchen Design with Patterns
Visualizer:Ksenia Lenski
This black kitchen interior makes a design statement with the patterned marble island. Its sleek metallic legs lift it off the floor, creating an illusion of space. Simultaneously, the textured inset makes sure visual interest is added.
28. Don’t Forget a Black and White Rug
Visualizer:Nada Aboelrous
If you’re not in for a complete kitchen renovation, simply painting your cabinets black and adding a black-and-white patterned rug will achieve the purpose! We love how this kitchen keeps sets the base with white and tops it with black.
29. Let the Lighting Make a Statement in the All Black Kitchen
Architect:Artpartner Architects
When everything else is understated, letting the lighting create a statement is a good idea. This matte black kitchen interior uses rod lighting to do the talking. It sticks to the all black kitchen color scheme, though!
30. Tone it Down
Visualizer:Valeria Mosolova
This open floor plan uses dark gray throughout, showing us that black can work in more spaces than the kitchen 😉 It sure makes a design statement for those cooking and dining—or lounging!
31. Consider a Black and Wooden Bar
Visualizer:Amir Emami
This is the ultimate modern luxury black kitchen! After all, what’s better than displaying your favorite collection of beer right behind the black kitchen island? The low-hanging pendant lights also add to the black kitchen design.
32. Add the Gothic Vibe
Visualizer:Sebastian Lorio
This dark-gray kitchen is super simple with its sleek, hardware-less cabinetry. Well, except the far left end. Here, we see a statement piece of art and intriguing layered lighting created a focal point.
33. Stick to the Minimalist Style for Black Kitchens
Visualizer:Miguel A. Ramos
This compact kitchen space follows the simple rule: white walls paired with black cabinetry and an island. Even in this nook, the space is able to make a style statement while providing optimal functionality. The window here gives a contrasting element of light to the otherwise dark modern kitchen.
34. Layer Lighting in the All Black Kitchen
Visualizer:Tatiana Durnescu
We see shades of gray and black coming together to bring this modern dark kitchen to life. What we especially love is the multiple types of lighting, all layered together to bring visual interest to the space.
35. Set the Backdrop For Your Living Space
Visualizer:Sasha Zolotukhin
