Annual report · 2026 edition
The Denver
Kitchen & Cabinet Report
What Denver 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
12,000+
cabinet searches by Denver homeowners in the past year
Shaker
the most popular style this year
Search interest
What your neighbors are searching
Interest level, 0–100 · 100 = the city's top cabinet topic
Denver homeowners ran 12,000+ 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.
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.
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
Rising nationwide
Housing stock
What Denver kitchens are made of
Denver is every era at once: 1910s bungalows, mid-century ranches, 90s suburbs at the edges, and new builds downtown. No single cabinet story covers it, which is exactly why its search interest dwarfs every suburb on this list, at roughly five times the typical city we track.
When Denver was built
median home: 1975 · oak decades (80s–00s): 24%
Share of homes by decade built (US Census ACS). Gold bars: the golden-oak decades.
"Denver has no one kitchen era. It has all of them, searching at once."
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.
| # | 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?
Share of cabinet-update searches pointing at refinishing/painting rather than replacement.
Pro or DIY?
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 Denver 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.
Census tracts, median year built (ACS). Gray areas: no residential data.
The market
The homes behind the kitchens
A kitchen refresh is maintenance on Denver'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
$533k
10-year trend · +1% over 5 years · Zillow Home Value Index, 2026-07
47 days
how fast Denver homes go pending — and the kitchen is what buyers photograph first
49%
of Denver homes are owner-occupied — and owners are who renovate
The Denver palette
Mile High Mix
Bungalow cream, city charcoal, park green, and a navy that works from Wash Park to the Highlands.
These aren't official paint names, and that's deliberate. They're the four directions we'd point a Denver 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
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.
10–20%
typical indoor humidity in a Front Range winter, far below what wood likes
5,281 ft
Denver's elevation (USGS) — roughly 21% 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 Denver asks
What cabinet colors are Denver homeowners choosing right now?
Shaker profiles 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 newer builder-grade cabinets in Denver?
Usually, yes. Newer paint-grade and MDF doors take a finish beautifully, and painting is how a builder-beige kitchen becomes the kitchen you'd have chosen. The boxes are fine; it's the color that's generic.
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.
Ready to fall in love with your kitchen again?
Free, no-pressure estimates for homeowners across the north Denver metro. We try to get back to you within 1 business day, but don't be surprised if we reach out right away!