If you have (or you’re planning) a traditional Shaker style kitchen, you certainly haven’t made a bad choice. When done well, they are a timeless investment and if you decide to change your colour scheme in a few years, you can easily update the look with a fresh coat of paint. So that’s all wonderful, but what are your options if you’re looking for an alternative kitchen or an unusual detail that doesn’t fit with the shaker aesthetic that has dominated our homes for a while?
From stainless steel fit for a nineties loft apartment to honey-hued tones reminiscent of a mid-century Californian bungalow, keep scrolling for some of our favourite design ideas to make your kitchen stand out from the crowd.
Think outside the yoghurt pot with eco-conscious materials
If you’re driven by sustainability, consider including a material such as cork, which can work fantastically as a backsplash instead of kitchen tiles. Cork is a natural and renewable material, it’s affordable and it can also help with acoustics and insulation, what’s not to like? It doesn’t have to be dull to look at, either, take a lead from designer Beata Heuman’s cork wall and choose sheets of patterned cork which have an interesting terrazzo or marbled look to them. If you do choose cork as a backsplash or even as flooring, just be aware that it isn’t naturally waterproof, so you’ll need to seal it first with a coat of water-insoluble polyurethane.
Another eco-conscious option is to create a kitchen worktop from recycled plastics. Brands such as Smile Plastics and Surface Matter use would-be waste materials and turn them into custom surfaces. The plastics they use – including discarded chopping boards, plastic bottles and cosmetics containers – help to determine the colour and pattern of the finished material and there are some wild combinations available. In surfaces created from old yoghurt pots (breakfast time coming full circle!), you’ll get charming flecks of silver from the foil lids. Just note that these surfaces do require a little extra care to avoid damaging or warping them.
Make a statement with your worktop
If recycled plastic surfaces aren’t to your taste but you’re hoping to make a statement with your kitchen work surface, you can still make a relatively plain and simple kitchen look like the bee’s knees with an interesting worktop that can withstand family life and actual cooking. Marble looks striking – especially when it’s heavily veined – but it can mark easily so you need to be careful with liquid and hot pans. Wood is warm and lovely but it too needs regular upkeep to prevent water damage or heat rings.
How about trying something like hardwearing polished (and sealed) concrete? Even with signs of use it will continue to look good. Slate is a great thwack of punchy colour for a work surface and it’s hardwearing and heat resistant, copper is an excellent choice too – especially when contrasted with a solid colour on the units below. The beauty of using a material such as copper is the way it ages and develops a patina over time, so it will look incredible when it’s brand new but even better as it accrues signs of use.
Crenellate your cabinets
Three's a trend and we've seen a few more examples than that of designers adding turrets, towers and finials to kitchens of late. In her designs for the cabinetry above, Rachel Chudley took inspiration from old Austrian pieces to reflect the owner’s heritage, reinterpreting traditional details such as turrets and finials in a fresh, fun way. It adds visual interest to the sleek design here and stops it from feeling too modern.
Channel the nineties loft look with a stainless steel kitchen
Shiny stainless steel kitchens reminiscent of Eighties and Nineties loft apartments feel incredibly appealing again. As cool as they are in small doses, a whole room of wall-to-wall stainless steel could end up feeling a bit like an industrial restaurant kitchen, so don’t go too heavy on the metal unless that’s a look you’re intentionally going for.
Steel kitchens bounce light around a room really effectively, they add a contemporary edge to a space and they’re satisfyingly easy to wipe-clean, but combine metal elements with other contrasting tones and materials for the most interesting look. For example, try kitchen islands and sink units (the kind of style that always looks great on display in The Conran Shop) atop a wooden floor, a gleaming stainless steel worktop above textural wooden units, or freestanding steel open shelving to give a nod to the look.
Create something unique with reclaimed materials
If you want an alternative to a Shaker kitchen but you’re not looking for anything contemporary either, learn from the masters at design practices such as Retrouvius and Berdoulat and repurpose old cabinets or reclaimed wood such as hardwearing and warm-toned iroko to create your perfect kitchen units. The end look will not only be hugely characterful, it will be unique to you. Plus, it’s always nice to make your morning toast and feel thrilled in the knowledge that the drawer you just opened used to belong in a pharmacy or on a ship.
You can also experiment with details such as adding mirrored panels to cupboard doors where they’re safe from bar stool kicks and food prep. Or mix and match with entirely different materials on a central island versus the main units. If you’re concerned about creating a look that’s too rustic or ‘ye olde shoppe’, complement your reclaimed units with a new work surface made from a sleek-looking material such as brushed steel, granite, polished concrete or travertine. Maria Speake at Retrouvius will often combine old and new by inlaying modern laminate doors with strips of old drawer fronts reclaimed from schools, factories and museums – she proves that you can be really creative to find combinations of things that look good together and materials or tones don’t have to match perfectly. It’s also worth noting that your repurposed kitchen doesn’t have to be fitted, entire elements can be modular or freestanding pieces, which makes them even more flexible in the future.
Update your cupboard doors, taps and touch points
If you already have a Shaker style kitchen but it’s not your kitchen-for-life (i.e it’s IKEA rather than British Standard), don’t feel guilty about updating it. It’s easy to make changes that will steer the general aesthetic in a new direction without needing to replace the whole kitchen. Companies such as Naked, Reform, Custom Fronts and Superfront offer replacement kitchen cupboard doors in an impressive range of materials and colours to fit IKEA carcasses, plus you could update touchpoints such as drawer handles and taps. They’re relatively small details but it’s surprising how much difference a handle makes when you change a brass cup-style to a wrought iron knob or a lucite bar.
Go naked with your wood
Just because you don’t fancy a traditional panelled Shaker style kitchen painted in a glorious green or earthy red doesn’t mean you have to swerve wood altogether, in fact, by leaning into the natural tone or grain of ‘naked’ wood, you can create a really welcoming space that feels anything but clinical. Plywood is a stylish choice for a flat or a more modern house with boxy interior architecture – it’s an easy way to add a Scandinavian feel in a lighter birch or you could stain it for more of a mid-century California look. Really clean and simple flat wooden cabinet fronts (when well made) are a chic backdrop for virtually any other decor, colours or materials in your kitchen, so they’re an excellent blank canvas. If you’re going full cottagecore; vertical or horizontal wooden panelling is another great option for more of a rustic or cosy feel.
