If you’re looking for a new kitchen, then you may be thinking, what kitchen suits your personality and home best? By answering the following questions, you can easily decipher which kitchen style is best for your home. Erika Palmer, Administration Director at KNB, expert installers and designers of bathrooms and fitted kitchens in Newark and Nottingham, covers how to determine what style of kitchen to choose.
The Different Types of Kitchens
There are three main styles of kitchen:
- Traditional, which is all about rustic fittings, ceramic style ovens, and copper details.
- Shaker kitchens, which are all about minimalism, and utility over beauty.
- Modern kitchens, which pride themselves on techy, sleek designs reflective of futurism architecture.
How to Determine Which Kitchen Type Suits You Best
1. Look at the space you have available
Depending on the space available to you will affect the type of kitchen you might want to consider. A shaker kitchen will suit a smaller kitchen, as the minimalist design won’t make the room feel overcrowded and will instead focus on utility over design.
In a larger, potentially higher ceilinged room, a traditional or modern kitchen could work just as well, as these can incorporate different design features to draw attention to different focal points in the room.
Traditional kitchens will often have bulkier appliances, so you’ll need a room with plenty of depth to make this work. A square room can be a great choice for a traditional kitchen style.
Modern kitchens work well in rooms where there is a need for something slicker and seamless, and function and smooth design are a key focus.
2. Decide what the predominant use of your kitchen is
Perhaps you want your kitchen to be a hosting space, where people spend a lot of time together, or maybe you want a space where you can refine your cooking skills, or even a room that connects your house, lending into an open plan living feel. Whatever you want your kitchen to be, different types of kitchens will all lend themselves well to different purposes.
A shaker kitchen, for example, would be better for refining cooking skills, as your kitchen will be filled with useful, functional fittings. There’s also less chance of your kitchen staining, or being hard to clean, as the simple features make it easier to wipe down.
Traditional kitchens are great for hosting and meeting in, as the cosy feel of the wood combined with warming coppers, all bring together a welcoming environment.
Then finally, modern kitchens are great for connecting contemporary, open plan homes together as the features and cupboards blend in with other key rooms in the home. Open plan homes need to be on a design parity, where everything marries up together. Modern design kitchens can really help with this.
3. Choose your colour scheme
If you’re someone who wants bold, shiny colours, then a shaker or traditional kitchen will not be the one for you. Think bright colours, contrasting palettes, or even more industrial colours like battleship greys. All of these work with the more interesting style of a modern kitchen.
However, if you’re a fan of traditional metals mixed with natural colours like greens and light blues, then a traditional kitchen is perfect. These colours really complement the wood, or wood effect, look that a traditional kitchen has, as well as complementing the general feel of the home.
In shaker kitchens, it’s all about functionality. Light creams or greys that are easy to wipe down, paired with simple dovetail carpeting. These all combine to create the perfect shaker kitchen, with function over fashion.
