How to bring the Shaker Kitchen bang up to date, the Ledbury Studio way

What we now call Shaker-style kitchens started life in the early 1980s, when Charlie Smallbone launched the Original Hand Painted kitchen. Its single panel door in a frame with a hand-painted finish became synonymous with the simplicity and functionality of 18th century Shaker furniture. Since then, Shaker-style kitchens have become the characteristic of country-style kitchens and one looks much like another. As such, when Charlie founded Ledbury Studio, he was determined to evolve the story once again and to redefine Shaker furniture in a contemporary way, to suit today’s kitchens.

“Design shouldn’t stand still, as its very essence is to present something new and offer an alternative way of seeing things. I believe in staying open to new ideas and constantly evolving,” explains Charlie. “With the Shaker kitchen I took all the traditional elements and then added contemporary touches, such as variations on the frame and panel sizes of the doors, adding an oversized contemporary cornice and modern cast handles in aged and patinated brass. The result is our Ledbury Shaker range.” Here are three beautiful examples.

1. Bruton kitchen

The Shaker-style evolution: Slim down the width of the door framing, add reeded cupboards and mix with aged and patinated zinc.

The result: The slimmed-down framing creates a contemporary feel, while the ribbed glass wall cabinets bring an element of lightness and texture that breaks up uniformity and enhances visual interest. In response to the client’s request for a neutral palette, the furniture is painted in Ash White, in stark contrast to the coffee making station and tall refrigeration cupboards, which are clad in in aged and patinated sheets of zinc. And again to bring this Shaker design bang up to date, instead of the usual small round knob handles there are tactile aged-brass ones, plus brass kick-plates and fixtures throughout.

2. Hampshire kitchen

The Shaker-style evolution: Add stainless steel into the mix to provide contrast to the minimal framing on the doors.

The result: Designed as part of a renovation of a country house, the Hampshire kitchen is a scheme that perfectly balances rustic simplicity with contemporary sophistication. At the heart of the kitchen sits a stainless-steel island, conceived as both a showpiece and a hardworking hub. It houses a Lacanche range cooker, has custom-cast stainless steel and brass handles and limestone worktop edged in stainless steel. As a contrast, allowing the island to take centre stage, Charlie designed the surrounding cabinetry in the Ledbury Studio Shaker style, using minimal framing to the single-panel hand-painted doors.

3. Muswell Hill kitchen

The Shaker-style evolution: Add an over-sized contemporary cornice and brass detailing.

The result: The brief for the Muswell Hill design was to maximise every inch of storage space by pushing the cupboards as high as they could go. Charlie therefore designed the cupboards almost to the ceiling, introducing a large contemporary cornice with a lighting recess in between the cornice and the cabinets. This Shaker-style hand-painted kitchen achieves its contemporary resonance with the introduction of Ledbury Studio’s signature metals. Charlie added aged brass to the edge of the cooker hood and also used it for the plate rack’s supporting brackets, the hanging rails mounted on the splashbacks and the cupboard handles.