# The Brighton Kitchen & Cabinet Report 2026 > What Brighton homeowners are searching, choosing, and asking about their kitchens this year — local search data, trending colors, and honest answers. Canonical page: https://cabinetpainters.org/reports/brighton/ Annual report · 2026 edition # The Brighton Kitchen & Cabinet Report What Brighton homeowners are searching, choosing, and asking about their kitchens this year, drawn from local search data and the homes we see across the north metro. +500% growth in "near me" cabinet searches this year 2,200+ cabinet searches by Brighton homeowners in the past year Whites the most popular style this year Search interest ## What your neighbors are searching Interest level, 0–100 · 100 = the city's top cabinet topic Brighton homeowners ran 2,200+ searches across the cabinet topics we track in the past year. Style questions now outweigh service questions across the north metro, a sign that homeowners research the look before the project. The mix matters as much as the volume. When style searches outrun service searches, people are still in the dreaming stage, comparing white against green and saving photos, and that stage can last months. It's also the stage where the right information changes what a kitchen becomes. cabinet painting 100/100 white kitchen cabinets 50/100 shaker cabinets 50/100 cabinet refinishing 50/100 two-tone kitchens 50/100 Interest level is relative, not a search count, scored the way Google Trends does it: 100 is the city's most-searched cabinet topic. Seasonality ## The cabinet calendar Interest in cabinet painting nearly doubles from late winter to its June peak across Colorado. If you're planning a spring refresh, you're planning it alongside most of the state. Colorado Nationwide Sep Nov Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Google Trends interest (0–100), "cabinet painting", past 12 months. The nation peaks in April; Colorado's season builds later, peaking in June. There's a practical read in that curve. Calendars fill in the same order the chart fills, so a June inquiry joins the longest line of the year, while a fall or winter project gets the same finish with less waiting. The kitchen is simply done before the season everyone else is still planning around. +66% growth in national cabinet-painting interest this past year (Google Trends) 8× how much faster "near me" cabinet searches are rising in Colorado (+500%) than nationally (+60%) Rising in Colorado +500%kitchen cabinet painting near me+120%cabinet painting denver+100%cabinet painting services+60%kitchen cabinet painting Rising nationwide +300%cabinet painting kit+60%kitchen cabinet painting near me+50%cabinet painting company+50%cabinet painting service Housing stock ## The golden-oak inheritance Brighton grew fastest in the 90s and 2000s, so its kitchens skew toward builder-grade oak and early paint-grade doors. Both paint beautifully, and both are why repaint interest here tracks right with the metro. When Brighton was built median home: 1999 · oak decades (80s–00s): 44% 5 <40s 2 1940s 7 1950s 6 1960s 11 1970s 7 1980s 12 1990s 25 2000s 19 2010s 5 2020s Share of homes by decade built (US Census ACS). Gold bars: the golden-oak decades. > "Builder-grade was the starting point. It does not have to be the ending point." The north-metro classic: dated wood to a painted finish with brass hardware. Style index ## This year's style leaderboard Every cabinet style Coloradans search, ranked, with the direction each one is moving. Whites hold the crown, greens keep climbing, and cream is the quiet comeback story. Read it as two bars per style: green for Colorado, gold for the rest of the country. Most styles track the national mood closely, and the places where they split are the interesting part. A color that over-performs here tends to show up in local kitchens a year or two before the national lists catch it. ChartData table Colorado Nationwide 1Warm whites ▲ +9% 2Greens ▲ +7% 3Black & charcoal ▲ +12% 4Two-tone ▼ -12% 5Sage ▲ +13% 6Grays → -2% 7Navy → +4% 8Cream ▲ +53% | # | Style | Colorado | Nationwide | CO vs US | Momentum | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | Warm whites | 100 | 100 | 0 | ▲ +9% | | 2 | Greens | 81 | 67 | +14 | ▲ +7% | | 3 | Black & charcoal | 67 | 67 | 0 | ▲ +12% | | 4 | Two-tone | 54 | 45 | +9 | ▼ -12% | | 5 | Sage | 44 | 45 | \-1 | ▲ +13% | | 6 | Grays | 29 | 30 | \-1 | → -2% | | 7 | Navy | 15 | 16 | \-1 | → +4% | | 8 | Cream | 15 | 13 | +2 | ▲ +53% | Colorado vs nationwide search interest (100 = that region's top style); arrow = year-over-year US momentum. Where Colorado breaks from the country: greens and two-tone out-search their national numbers here. Colorado stands out Colorado is the #9 state in the country for two-tone cabinet interest Out of 48 states with enough data — and even as two-tone cools nationally, Colorado keeps searching for it. Paint vs replace ## How Colorado decides Two things stand out when you compare Colorado's cabinet searches to the country's: this state leans harder toward keeping and refinishing its cabinets, and it looks for professional help at a higher rate. Refinish or replace? Colorado90% lean refinish/paint Nationwide81% Share of cabinet-update searches pointing at refinishing/painting rather than replacement. Pro or DIY? Colorado41% search for a pro Nationwide30% Share of paint-related searches looking for professional help vs how-to content. Neither number surprises anyone who spends time in kitchens here. The housing stock is young enough that the boxes are usually worth keeping, and busy households would rather hire out the week of disruption than live inside it. If that describes you, you're in Colorado's majority twice over. Neighborhood map ## Your neighborhood's kitchen era Every neighborhood, shaded by when its homes were built (each area's median). Find yours: the gold zones are the golden-oak decades, where cabinet transformations concentrate. The pattern follows the city's growth rings. Deep green marks the oldest streets, the gold band is the wave that filled Brighton with oak kitchens between the 80s and the 2000s, and the pale edges are the newest builds, where the doors are paint-grade from the factory. Wherever your block falls, the kitchen behind your front door probably matches its color here. before 1970 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s+ Census tracts, median year built (ACS). Gray areas: no residential data. The market ## The homes behind the kitchens A kitchen refresh is maintenance on Brighton's biggest household asset. Here's what that asset looks like right now. None of this is an argument to remodel for the market's sake. It's context. In a town where the typical home carries this much value and sells this quickly, the kitchen does more work than any other room, both while you live there and on the weekend you sell. Typical home value $497k 10-year trend · +7% over 5 years · Zillow Home Value Index, 2026-07 40 days how fast Brighton homes go pending — and the kitchen is what buyers photograph first 71% of Brighton homes are owner-occupied — and owners are who renovate The Brighton palette ## Prairie Gold Dry-grass greige and harvest cream with a sage cool-down — farm-country colors grown up. These aren't official paint names, and that's deliberate. They're the four directions we'd point a Brighton kitchen in first, matched to the light and landscape the room actually sits in. Hold them against the leaderboard above and you'll notice plenty of overlap. Color lab ## Try this year's colors on a kitchen The trending styles, hands-on. Tap a swatch to repaint the kitchen, or switch to Uppers and Lowers and build the two-tone combinations the north metro keeps searching for. It's an illustration rather than a render, but it answers the question photos can't: what do these colors do next to each other? Deep Forest lowers + Warm Cream upperstwo-tone All cabinetsUppersLowers Warm Cream#1 searchedSoft GreigeSage MeadowDeep ForestrisingMidnight NavyCharcoal Black Illustration, not a color-accurate render. Ask about real painted samples at your estimate. Climate ## The dry-air effect Colorado's low humidity moves cabinet wood more than most national advice accounts for. Hairline lines at panel joints are the most common finish question we hear in winter, and they behave differently here than in humid states. seasonal hairlinepanel edge, Jan–Mar Dry winters shrink the floating center panel; the fine line at its edge is movement, not failing paint. 10–20% typical indoor humidity in a Front Range winter, far below what wood likes 5,027 ft Brighton's elevation (USGS) — roughly 20% stronger UV than sea level, hard on sun-facing finishes Jan–Mar when panel-joint hairline questions peak, closing again as humidity returns Q&A ## What Brighton asks What cabinet colors are Brighton homeowners choosing right now?+ Warm whites lead local searches, and greens keep climbing across the north metro, with cream the quiet riser of the year. The most-requested combination pairs a warm white or cream up top with a deep forest or navy below. Is painting worth it for the golden oak common in Brighton?+ Oak is the best painting candidate there is, and it's what most kitchens from the 80s through the 2000s already own. The one choice to make is whether the grain shows through the finish or gets smoothed flat. Both are current looks. Why do painted cabinets get fine lines at the joints in winter?+ Colorado's dry winter air shrinks the wood panel inside each door, and the hairline that appears at the panel edge is the wood moving, not the paint failing. It closes back up as humidity returns. When do most people book cabinet painting?+ Interest across Colorado roughly doubles from late winter to its June peak, so spring booking is the crowded season. A fall or winter repaint gets the same result with more scheduling room. ![](https://cabinetpainters.org/_astro/kitchen-teal-island.Bc6245Gw_1felfS.webp) ## Ready to fall in love with your kitchen again? Free, no-pressure estimates for homeowners across the north Denver metro. 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