Galaxy Pistachio Green Decorative End Panel Cabinets

In a two-tone kitchen the colour change has to happen somewhere, and the good places are at the end of a whole object: the end of an island, the end of a peninsula, the end of a run where it meets a wall or a doorway. The bad places are in the middle of a run, where one green box sits beside a white one with nothing between them, or around a corner, where a green base run turns and continues in white. Those read as mistakes because there is no edge for the eye to accept the change at.

An end panel gives the change an edge. It stands proud of the box with a frame and a recessed field, built like the doors, and it makes the end of a run look like the end of a piece of furniture. That is why, in a two-tone plan, the rule is simple: every place the green stops and the room carries on, there should be a finished end in green, and the next colour should start on the other side of a gap, a wall, an appliance or a walkway, not directly against it.

The most common layouts with this sage each give a clear answer. A green island in a light kitchen has green ends on both sides, and the perimeter is untouched. Green lowers under light uppers put the change on a horizontal line, the counter, so the run ends need green panels at base height and light skins or panels at wall height. A green tall run beside a light base run is the awkward one: the change lands on the side of the tall cabinet, and that side wants a full-height finished face in green rather than a thin covering, because it is at eye level and in plain view. More layout options are in green kitchen cabinets: sage, pistachio and moss.

The panel is the headline part, but an end that looks finished needs three or four smaller pieces as well, and they are the ones that get left off. Here is the full parts list for the three ends most kitchens have, at displayed prices.

Two notes on that table. The toe kick cap, at $7.80, closes the end grain where the kick meets the panel, and it is the part most often missing from finished kitchens; its absence shows up as a raw notch at ankle height. And the scribe molding is there because the panel should never be the part cut to a crooked wall. Scribe or a filler takes the irregularity, and the panel stays square. The kick lengths themselves, GPG TK8 at $55.90 for eight feet, are on the toe kick page.

Where an end is only ever seen edge-on, the cheaper route is a flat skin: GPG SK BASE at $62.40, compared on the cabinet skin page. The framed panel is for ends people face, and in a two-tone room those are exactly the ends at the colour boundary.

Some ends are better finished with a small cabinet than with a flat face. The collection has several parts built for exactly that, and they are worth considering at any end people walk past.

• Open end units for the upper run. GPG OER630 and OEL630, right and left, are 6-inch open shelving ends at $364.00 for 30-inch uppers, rising to $455.00 at 42 inches. They soften the corner of a run with a few inches of display instead of a hard painted edge.
• Angled wall ends. GPG WAE1230 is a 12-inch angled end at $279.50, up to GPG WAE1242 at $364.00. The angle turns the end of a run of uppers away from a doorway so it does not present a square corner at head height.
• A shallow base on an island end. The 12-inch-deep base boxes, GPG B12FD-12D at $321.75 or GPG B21FD-12D at $390.00, can face outward from the end of an island to hold cookbooks or serving pieces where a panel would hold nothing. Whether one fits depends on the island’s depth and overhang, so it is a design question to settle on the drawing.

None of these is cheap next to a $149.50 panel. They are for ends that people pass or sit near every day, where a few inches of storage or display is worth having. In a two-tone kitchen they carry the boundary as well as a panel does, provided the working end is in the same green as the run it finishes. Open units put their inside on show, so ask us how the interior of an open end is finished before you commit to one beside a painted run. The wall cabinet page and base cabinet page carry the full sizes.

In an open plan, the island end is often the first square of green anyone sees from the living room or the front door. It is lit differently from the kitchen, too, usually by whatever window is behind the sofa rather than by the task lighting over the counter, and that changes how the colour reads. A muted sage like this one leans greyer in cool, indirect light and greener in warm light, which is general colour behaviour rather than anything specific to this paint. Judge it from a door sample held at the island’s position at the time of day you use the room; it costs $25.00.

Two practical points follow. First, the island end with seating is the end that gets kicked, so stools need the overhang and knee space to have been drawn properly, and the island clearance guide has the numbers. Second, the island end is where hardware and top are seen together most. A brass or black pull on the end-facing drawer ties the end panel to the rest of the island; a white or warm-white stone or a butcher-block top above the green end completes it.

List every end in the kitchen where a run stops and the room continues, and mark which colour each run is. That list is the end-panel order and the colour plan at the same time. Add the finished floor height at each end, because the panel stands on it, and a photo of anything around the end that might crowd it.

Send that with your measurements for a free 3D design and the designer will return every end drawn in its finish, with the kit parts listed. Everything ships with the Galaxy order, pre-assembled, in seven days to three weeks. The panel is here, the rest of the trim is on the decorative accessories page, and the whole finish is on the collection. The differences between panels, skins, scribe and fillers are set out in the end panels guide.