While shaker-style cabinets are a mainstay of rustic farmhouse kitchens, don’t think that your options are limited! The sleek, clean lines of shaker cabinets mean they can fit right into a modern and contemporary kitchen as well. With the right decor and accents, you can create stylish contemporary kitchens using shaker-style cabinets.
What is Contemporary Kitchen Style?
Contemporary kitchens are characterized by sleek, minimalist design. While still functional, they reduce decor and highlight clean lines and neutral colors.
How to Make Your Shaker Cabinets Look More Contemporary
To give your kitchen cabinets a contemporary look and feel, start with the color. Contemporary kitchens often come in neutral shades and colors like beige, cream, white, and grey, with the occasional shot of color in an accent piece. For your cabinets, you might want to paint them in a cool-toned grey, navy blue, or even black.
You can also experiment with the finish on your cabinets. A shiny, lacquered cabinet can look particularly sleek, especially when painted in a blue-toned grey or white.
An all-white kitchen, with lacquered cabinets, white countertops, and gold or brass-toned pulls, is an effortless way to create a chic and modern space.
You’ll also want to keep your cabinet hardware as simple as possible. Look for sleek, minimal pieces without intricate detailing or beveled edges. Simple gold bar pulls are a popular option, as are brass knobs in simple shapes like circles and octagons.
If you have a kitchen island, you can cover it with a different style of cabinets. Wood cabinets on an island can offset a white cabinet or vice versa. You can pull in a stool with a pop of color, like turquoise or red, to create visual interest.
Contemporary Kitchens Details
Creating a contemporary kitchen requires combining many pieces to create a coherent look. Look for these items to complete the look along with your shaker kitchen cabinets.
Countertops
Choosing the right countertop that compliments the rest of your kitchen is important. For a sleek, ultra-modern look, you can opt for white marble or granite countertops. These especially pair well with darker-colored shaker kitchen cabinets, like black or dark grey, to create a visually interesting contrast.
You could also opt for unexpected materials in your contemporary kitchen, like stainless steel or wood. These countertops have sleek lines and are perfect for warming up or cooling down a kitchen, depending on the look you’re going for.
Pair a wooden countertop with grey cabinets and exposed brick for a contemporary, loft-inspired vibe, while stainless steel counters look chic above black cabinets with silver hardware.
Backsplash
When selecting the backsplash for your contemporary kitchen, you have many choices. You can opt for a simple, understated backsplash that keeps the focus elsewhere or choose something that creates a bold look to enhance your kitchen.
You can also choose how much wall you wish to cover with tiles. Depending on the look you have in mind for your kitchen, your backsplash could cover the entire area above your countertops or only a small portion of the wall.
Simple subway tile can cover the entire wall and help your kitchen look clean and sleek, while a bolder pattern tile might look more effective and less overpowering if contained in one area. You can opt for a colored ceramic tile backsplash to add interest to the kitchen.
For example, a kitchen with grey shaker cabinets and natural wood counters can benefit from warm-toned pattern tile to give the space more life.
Flooring
When it comes to flooring, you should play it safe and stick with simple options. Subtle flooring blends better in contemporary kitchen styles as it makes the space look simple and chic.
Slate grey tiles or white marble floors can tie the room together and leave the room open for more pops of visual interest in other areas, like countertop decor.
Natural wood floors are another option for contemporary kitchens. Dark solid woods create a warm and luxurious look that can elevate your kitchen’s look and feel, while light wood is a timeless design feature that enlarges and brightens the room.
Lighting
When choosing lighting for your kitchen, consider general lighting, accent lighting, and task lighting. Depending on your kitchen’s needs, these can be ceiling lights, wall lamps, track lighting, or cabinet lighting.
Pendant lights are a popular choice in contemporary kitchens, particularly when installed over dining tables or kitchen islands. Silver, black, or white pendants are sleek and simple, but a glass or copper pendant can create visual interest while keeping lines clean.
You can also include LED backlights, under-cabinet lighting, or ceiling pot lights to add additional light sources without diminishing the clean lines of your contemporary kitchen.
