There’s a reason Shaker cabinets never really go out of fashion. Here’s how to get that perfect Modern Shaker balance of traditional craft and contemporary style...
At Naked Kitchens we can build the bespoke kitchen of your dreams: just for you, for the look you love and the way you live. The only limit is your imagination, so our Kitchen Style Inspiration series is designed to get your creative juices flowing and spark some ideas.
Next up, the ever popular Modern Shaker style, which takes the familiar framework of classic Shaker cabinetry and evolves it with clean proportions, confident colour, thoughtful detailing and layouts designed for contemporary homes.
What defines a Modern Shaker kitchen?
Modern Shaker is all about balance. It keeps the defining features of traditional Shaker, such framed doors and honest materials, but pares away anything that feels overly rustic or fussy. The result is a style that works just as well in a London townhouse or modern extension as it does in a period home.
Key characteristics include:
- Simple framed doors with crisp, well-judged proportions
- Confident use of colour - often bolder than classic creams and whites, and including deep colours
- Contemporary handles and hardware
- A strong emphasis on function, flow and everyday practicality
It’s not an overly showy style, but it feels very confident.
A brief history: Shaker principles – and the idea of the classic kitchen
The Shaker style takes its name from the Shakers themselves – an 18th- and 19th-century religious movement that believed in simplicity, both in worship and everyday life. Everything they made, including their kitchens, was designed to be honest, useful and built to last.
Those values gave us the framed, well-balanced cabinet doors we still recognise instantly as “Shaker” – a look that later became closely associated with both humble farmhouses and grand country houses, as well as with generations of skilled cabinetmakers refining their craft. Over time, Shaker came to embody a certain ideal of what a kitchen should be: well made, dependable, and designed for daily use rather than display.
Modern Shaker builds on that heritage by retaining the principles while adapting their expression for contemporary homes and lifestyles.
(You can read about the Shakers and the origins of the style in more depth in our guide to What is a Shaker kitchen?)
How to introduce Modern Shaker into your own kitchen
One of the great strengths of this style is its flexibility. Many of the most successful Modern Shaker kitchens don’t follow a rigid formula – they borrow, combine and adapt elements to suit the space and the people who use it.
Here are some of the most effective ways to do that.
1. Start with colour – and be confident
Modern Shaker really comes into its own with colour. Deep greens and rich blues as well as earthy neutrals all work beautifully with framed doors, giving them depth and presence.
You might:
- use colour to zone the space (for example, use a different colour for an island versus the wall cabinetry)
- combine two or three closely related tones
- offset darker cabinetry with lighter worktops, walls or flooring
The simplicity of Shaker doors means they can carry colour with ease.
2. Update the hardware
Handles make a surprisingly big difference. Replacing traditional wooden knobs with long brass pulls or discreet cup handles instantly nudges a Shaker kitchen into more contemporary territory, without losing its essential character.
3. Mix Shaker with other door and shelf styles
Another way of going ‘Modern’ with Shaker is to mix and match the in-frame doors with frameless styles. It works particularly well when combined with plainer slab or V-groove doors.
You can also mix in open shelving or glazed cabinets rather than have uniform Shaker style throughout the room.
4. Let the layout do some of the modernising
Very contemporary layouts – generous islands, broken-plan zoning, unfitted-style elements – pair beautifully with Shaker cabinetry. A modern layout helps bridge the gap between traditional craftsmanship and modern living.
5. Keep the detailing crisp
Modern Shaker benefits from restraint elsewhere, such as using clean-edged worktops and pared-back splashbacks, and simple lighting rather than lots of ornament. This contrast is often what stops a Shaker kitchen tipping into overtly “country” territory.
Why we love Modern Shaker
For us, Modern Shaker embodies what good kitchen design should be: useful, adaptable, beautifully made – and designed for real life.
Part of its appeal is emotional as much as aesthetic. Shaker carries a sense of history and tradition – echoes of farmhouse kitchens old skills quietly perfected over generations. Even when interpreted in bold colours or contemporary layouts, that underlying integrity remains.
Browse our portfolio to see how Modern Shaker ideas can be interpreted in very different ways.
Inspired? Whatever your style, we can build the dream kitchen uniquely tailored to what you love and the way you live. Get started today.
See also:
Contemporary Shaker kitchens – how a traditional cabinet style can look very modern
Kitchen style inspiration: Rustic Farmhouse kitchens
Choosing colours for your kitchen – an expert guide
-800x600.webp "Kitchen Worktop Ideas: Materials, Styles & Expert Guide")
