These blue kitchen cabinets began as oak, with framed doors and curved silver handles above a dark, patterned floor. The finished room looks different at first glance, but its fitted cupboards are still easy to trace back to the original kitchen.
In the makeover shared by @themobilespray, the existing cabinetry was spray painted Farrow & Ball Stiffkey Blue. New handles, pale countertops, and wood-look flooring complete the change. The photographs show how those choices work together, from the recessed appliance tower to the rounded cupboards at the far end of the room.
The Oak Kitchen Already Had Its Storage in Place
Before the work, oak cupboards ran around the sink and cooking area, with another bank on the opposite side. The sink sat beneath a window, the cooktop had drawers below it, and a separate tall unit housed the microwave and ovens. A narrow wine rack used the space beside the cooking area.
The doors already had recessed panels, and the cabinetry fitted around the room’s corners and openings. On the opposite side, a curved peninsula carried the storage beyond the straight wall. Those fitted details gave the kitchen its shape before any new colour arrived.
Black, speckled countertops ran above the oak, with dark upstands at the walls and a dark double-bowl sink below the window. The mottled floor added another pattern. Light from the windows and skylights reached the room, but the lower half was dominated by wood grain, black surfaces, and patterned tiles.
The Doors Came Off Before the Respray
The preparation photographs show the kitchen midway through the job, with the fronts removed and the cabinet openings covered in plastic. Appliances and countertops were protected too, while taped paper covered the floor. The fixed cabinet frames remained in place.
That distinction matters when looking at a respray. Detached doors are only part of the visible cabinetry. The end panels, exposed frames, and strips beneath the cupboards also need to belong to the finished colour scheme. Here, the protection follows the cabinet runs around the room, including the curved section, rather than stopping at the main cooking area.
For anyone considering a similar project, Farrow & Ball’s cabinet-painting guidance starts with cleaning, light sanding, and a suitable primer before the topcoats. The right preparation depends on the existing surface and coating. Removing the fronts also gives access to their edges and the frames behind them, which would be harder to reach with the doors hanging in place.
Stiffkey Blue Changes With the Light
Once the cabinets are reassembled, their original door frames become part of a blue scheme. You can still pick out the recessed panels, drawer divisions, and edges of the cupboards. Paint changes their appearance without erasing the construction that was already there. In close views, the oak grain is still visible beneath the blue, especially across the wider panels.
Stiffkey Blue, No. 281, is a navy shade that Farrow & Ball says appears bluer in well-lit spaces. These photographs show that variation. Cabinets near the windows read brighter, while the appliance tower and shaded parts of the room look closer to navy. Daylight from the skylights falls across the upper cupboards, making their framed fronts easier to distinguish.
The gold-coloured handles also change how the doors read. Their slender bars are more linear than the original curved silver pulls, giving each cupboard a small, repeated highlight. Against the blue, the hardware is easy to see without adding another large surface or pattern. The same colour continues down to the plinths and around the curved end cupboards.
The Surrounding Finishes Make the Blue Work
The countertops now have a pale background and grey veining, with matching upstands along the walls. Their lighter colour separates the upper and lower cabinet runs. It also keeps the sink area from blending into the cupboards below it, as the dark countertop and sink did before.
A white sink and gold-coloured faucet carry that contrast across the window wall. Around the cooktop, the dark splash panel remains, but it occupies a smaller part of the view now that the neighbouring counters are light. The stainless-steel extractor and oven fronts provide another finish without requiring a new appliance arrangement.
Underfoot, wood-look planks replace the mottled tiles. They bring a wood tone back into the room on a surface that runs horizontally, rather than surrounding the work area with oak doors. The floor’s long lines are easier to follow than the earlier tile pattern.
The timber door beside the appliance tower is still unpainted, as are the skylight frames. These touches of wood connect with the new floor, giving the room a mix of painted cabinetry and wood tones rather than blue on every surface.
The rounded peninsula shows the combination particularly clearly: blue cupboards below, a pale counter above, and the new floor running alongside it. Its curved shape still connects the kitchen to the adjoining space. Changing the finishes gave that existing feature a place in the new scheme without losing the storage built into it.
