Victorian kitchens reflect the exterior of Victorian homes in shades of cream, green, brown and black.
During the Victorian era, kitchens were built "large to deflect the vast amounts of heat generated by coal stoves," and to accommodate "not only food preparation and cooking but also laundry and ironing," according to architectural historian Robert Schweitzer's website, HistoricHouseColors.com. Typical Victorian kitchen colors included off-white, green, brown and black.
Off-white
Off-white walls were common in Victorian-era kitchens. This early period kitchen is practicaly bare, but for a massive fireplace.
Glance at photos of original or restored Victorian-era kitchens and you will find off-white or cream shades on the walls. From pale cream to deeper, antique ivory shades, at least the upper portion of the wall was often coated in this shade. In some cases, even brick was painted off-white. In some Victorian kitchens, a second shade, such as green, might have been the choice to cover the lower half of the wall. Often the two shades were separated by a strip of natural or painted wood. In some kitchens, an off-white wall might be interrupted by a horizontal strip of brown or green trim.
Green
The walls of Victorian-era kitchens were often painted in surprising shades of green.
Green, in shades from moss to emerald, also featured prominently in Victorian kitchens. On walls, the lower half of the wall might be painted green, while the upper wall and ceiling were covered in cream or ivory tones. In kitchens where the walls were painted a single color, doors and window trim might be cloaked in olive green. In addition, baseboards and molding might be covered with a muted, gray-green hue. Early 20th-century holdovers from Victorian design might even feature green patterns in floor tiling.
Brown
Cherry cupboards and oak tabletops are common to Victorian kitchens.
The brown in many Victorian kitchens came from the wood employed in flooring, wall trim or moldings, shelving and furniture. Shelving carved from dark woods, such as chestnut or cherry was not uncommon. Food preparation tables and cupboards might be made of pine, birch or oak. Moldings were often constructed of dark-colored wood which provided a dramatic complement to an ivory wall color.
Black
Cast-iron stoves, whose black color might be obscured by soot, typically featured space to rest a hot pot or kettle.
No discussion of the Victorian kitchen would be complete without reference to the great coal- or wood-burning stoves that dominated the space and were often made of black cast iron. These typically ceiling-high stoves were multifunctional and might boast gray steel stove tops and handles. Some stoves were carefully designed black iron structures set into the wall, like fireplaces, their predecessors. The more elaborate designs included inset mantels to store piping-hot pots or kettles along with a generous stove top area, a door through which to place coal and ovens on either side of the fire.
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