Our Essential Kitchen Guide
Check out the guide with all the important information you need to start a kitchen project
Shaker style kitchens are timeless, and very popular in cities like Melbourne where there are so many older homes particularly suited to this classic look.
But the truth is that a shaker kitchen works in just about any kitchen design – from modern and contemporary to the more traditional Hamptons or provincial you’d normally associate with these wonderful looking cabinet doors.
Elegance, simplicity and versatility are key to the enduring success of shaker cabinets, which were first popularised by an obscure religious sect in the late 1700s.
More than two centuries on the look might remain largely the same, but advances in technology have transformed the variety of finishes and colours.
A shaker style kitchen is typically one that has cabinets and doors with recessed panels – a framed profile sometimes referred to as “rail and stile”.
The shaker door was traditionally made with a 5-piece door front, two rails, two stiles and a central panel. It was strong and there was little wasted timber.
It’s a style that’s unpretentious and repetitive, and continues to be highly sought-after in a variety of designs.
See what we mean by looking at the examples of Rosemount projects on this page.
The “shaker” name comes not from the style itself, but the people who came up with it.
The United Society of Believers were a Manchester-based religious group who broke away from the Quakers in the late 1700s and migrated to America. They were commonly known as Shakers because of the way they moved and danced during religious ceremonies.
The Shakers were also master craftspeople who hand-crafted their furniture from solid timber. But they kept the designs simple because they regarded additional decoration, ornamentation and even veneer as “deceitful”.
While today’s shaker designs maintain that minimalist spirit, you can add your own flourish in a host of ways.
The clean lines in the framed centrepiece of the cabinetry remain the bedrock of shaker style cabinets, but today’s shaker door has come a long way from the original handmade timber style.
Most shaker doors are now made from Machine Grade Moisture Resistant EO MDF and the profile routed in. The door can be vinyl wrapped and painted to the desired colour.
Variations of the traditional shaker design include:
Shaker style doors are popular in a range of kitchen designs. It’s what you’ll usually find in a Hampton style kitchen.
Because it doesn’t seem to date, it works equally well in coastal, country, chic, and contemporary kitchens.
To dress it up you can can add some fluted columns and mantels to give a more provincial feel.
That’s what our customers did below. This kitchen uses a shaker door, but they have added a mantel for the rangehood and decorative posts on the island. They also added small glass front doors on the overhead cabinetry.
Shaker kitchens are extremely versatile. A number of different finishes can be used,
and depending on the choice, that alone can produce a completely different style.
For instance, the vibe of a white 2 Pack shaker door in a satin finish is completely different to a kitchen with black thermolaminated shaker doors.
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Keep it simple, like the original designers intended, or dress up and accessorise to create the kitchen you really want.
As we mentioned earlier, elements like fluted columns, corbels and mantels can create a more decorative provincial feel in a shaker kitchen.
Shaker Cabinets – Handles and Knobs:
You can also make a great statement with your choice of knobs or handles on a shaker cabinet.
There are so many options these days, although colour contrasting metal knobs or shell handles remain very popular.
Shaker Kitchen Splashbacks
In the kitchen above, a beautiful Calacatta marble splashback works perfectly with this painted shaker kitchen. Cabinetry colour: Deluxe lexicon quarter strength, satin finish.
Shaker Kitchen Benchtops
In the kitchen above, the back run bench is Caesarstone – colour Snow – teamed with a statement island benchtop in Bianco Carrara marble with a decorative edge profile.
Three materials are typically used for shaker cabinets:
These days 2 Pack and Thermolaminated are the most popular options.
Polytec – a quality and trusted Australian company – is the main supplier of both and provide a number of shaker styles.
Thermolaminated shaker doors can have a variety of finishes that suit many different styles:
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Simplicity is often the reason a design becomes “classic”. Think of the black dress that’s in every leading designer’s collection or a chair by Hans Wegner.
It’s the same with shaker style kitchens, which epitomise the phrase “timeless classic” in our business more than any other kitchen design.
Shaker style kitchens have long been – and always will be – a great choice in a renovation project.
The best way to get your dream kitchen is always to seek the advice of experienced Melbourne kitchen designers, who can make great suggestions and head off any potential pitfalls.
If you’d like any help – or answers to questions – don’t hesitate to get in touch or pop into one of our showrooms.
Considering your own project? Check out our Essential Kitchen Guide
Explore Your Kitchen Renovation Options
By Design | By Style | By Finish | By Components
See our Kitchen Photo Galleries
Explore Your Kitchen Renovation Options
By Design | By Style | By Finish | By Components
See our Kitchen Photo Galleries
People love the kitchen, and are blown away with the transformation. And for me it’s not just beautiful, every part is so functional.
Rosemount is a premium product and they should be very proud of the results they produce. Our neighbours walked in and just went ‘wow’. And that wow factor is the difference.
Rosemount made this an easy and mostly seamless undertaking for us and the results are significantly better than we anticipated. To say we are delighted with our new kitchen is a gross understatement. It is just sensational.
A complete kitchen renovation was performed with as little disruption as possible to our household. Having had plenty of work done around the house over the years, I recognise and appreciate quality work, and Rosemount provide that in abundance. They’re also terrific people to deal with.
Rosemount’s service was outstanding from start to finish. We love our new kitchen and couldn’t be happier with the experience we had. I would highly recommend Rosemount without hesitation.
We have referred loads of people to Rosemount. They weren’t the cheapest company but for me it’s about the quality of the product. You get what you pay for.
I just love this kitchen. It’s worked out perfectly. We had a builder working on the rest of the house and he couldn’t believe how well the kitchen was made and put in, and the after sales service from Rosemount was fantastic.
Our decision to contract Rosemount resulted in a high end result, within budget and on time. The company’s wonderful team had the expertise, experience and dedication to guide the project from start to finish making the renovation a great experience and not a burden.
Check out the guide with all the important information you need to start a kitchen project
We renovate kitchens and bathrooms in Melbourne and beyond. Call us to schedule or discuss your project.