15 Colorado Cooking and Dining Spaces to Inspire Your Next Kitchen Upgrade

In both cooking and kitchen design, flavor is key, and we’ve found plenty to suit every taste.

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Updating your kitchen’s design scheme? We found style inspiration from 15 kitchens and dining spaces around the Front Range so you don’t have to.

Below, designers share their hard-earned tips on everything from materials to color to lighting to help guide you on your own kitchen reno.

Borrowing design wisdom from previous generations can yield timeless results.

Enter this Morrison kitchen and you may feel you’ve teleported to Europe. “I started with reclaimed vintage French oak flooring by [South Carolina–based supplier] Vintage Elements,” says designer Dion Williams, who also applied the material to floating shelving and a custom range hood. Adding to the sense of authenticity are intentionally imperfect terra-cotta tiles from Tabarka Studio and walls of Ascona fieldstone, from Telluride Stone, topped with a thick mortar wash known as the German schmear finish. “The result gave us that historic farmhouse look we were hoping for,” Williams says.

If Grace Kelly were to design a Colorado kitchen, it might look something like this fresh yet classic space in the Country Club neighborhood. “The cabinet insets are a natural cane,” says CKY Design principal Megan Hudacky. “This material became popular in the late 1800s, when furniture designers started using it in their chair designs. It has a lightness that breaks up the monotony of the white cabinets.” Adding to the allure is a dramatically veined marble slab backsplash that complements a light fixture designed by Ralph Lauren for Circa Lighting. “The channeled glass and brass are a throwback to the art deco era,” Hudacky says of its materials, which, like the rest of the room, are as striking as they are refined.

Deep, rich hues provide the ultimate exclamation point.

The owners of this Denver kitchen had a simple directive: “Bring personality to a very vanilla space,” says Miranda Cullen, founder and principal of Littleton design firm Inside Stories. Out went the banal white cabinets and countertops, and in came sumptuous jewel tones. Cabinets painted Benjamin Moore’s Gentleman’s Gray are “the perfect bold neutral to ground the space,” Cullen says, while the custom range hood in black metal and brass answers the clients’ call for boldness.

Once a dated den of granite countertops and chocolate-colored cabinetry, this Cory Merrill cookspace is now very much of the moment, thanks to a makeover by Atelier Interior Design. “The cabinets are a dark, forest green color—that was where the design began,” says designer Katie Schroder, who lightened the mood with patterned and pink backsplash tiles. Adding even more interest are Cambria quartz countertops with green veining that sparkles in the glow of a pendant by Tracy Glover Studio. “The client’s style leaned clean and modern, and this light was the perfect piece to tie in that aesthetic,” Schroder says.

Handsome timber touches are as sharp and hard-wearing as a chef’s knife.

With its silver maple cabinets by Tharp Custom Cabinetry, concrete-finish quartz countertops, and glazed ceramic tile backsplash in tuxedo black, this sleek Erie cookspace makes natural finishes feel downright chic. “I love to mix metals,” says designer Gala Stude, who partnered with Courtney Seavall to select the room’s shimmering accents. “I always try to keep it to just two—in this case, it’s brass and stainless steel.” A second sink, dishwasher, beverage cooler, and other functional elements are tucked away in a back kitchen, giving gleaming pendant lights and counter stools plenty of room to shine.

That old yarn about the cobbler with no shoes doesn’t apply to designer Julie Doman, who outfitted her own Hilltop kitchen as artfully as possible. “Because it’s open to the main living area, I wanted it to be a clean design that hid all of the appliances—and I needed a large pantry to hide smaller countertop appliances,” she says. Vonmod millwork with a rich walnut finish and solid walnut cabinet pulls provides a seamless, midcentury-inspired style that’s emphasized by sleek, black granite counters and the absence of light fixtures. “I tend to avoid hanging pendants over the kitchen island,” Doman says. “And these cabinets are so beautiful, I didn’t want to block the view.”

Skip the all-white kitchen in favor of soulful neutrals.

“We wanted to achieve something that felt contemporary and clean but with a multitude of layers,” says Bri Rutledge, lead interior designer at Chalet Colorado, of this Observatory Park project. For the floors, she chose white-oak planks finished with one coat of white lye and another of Bona NaturalSeal to nix any orange tones. For the countertops, she specified contrasting slabs of Carrara marble and soapstone. And to fill the room’s uppermost plane, she hung pendants from Normann Copenhagen, which “add a sense of crisp simplicity.”

For this kitchen revamp in the Roaring Fork Valley, designer Karen White made durability elegant by employing Neolith counters, porcelain tile flooring that looks like reclaimed wood planks, and cabinets by Ellis Design, which are painted in Sherwin-Williams’ Retreat, a muted green that “blends with the beautiful sweeping views and greenery outside,” White says. Our favorite element: the subtle LED strip lighting—a detail dreamed up by HLB Lighting Design—that casts a soft glow under the floating rift-cut white-oak shelves.

All hail the versatile dining nook, a cozy space for morning coffees, afternoon homework sessions, and easy evening meals. These Denver nooks are serving up a mix of space-saving functionality and effortless style.