Modern Kitchen Cabinets: Top Style Components

If you’re interested in a modern-looking kitchen rather than the popular traditional styles, you have more choices than you might at first think. Here’s a runthrough of the style components that tend to add up to “modern” kitchen cabinets. Pick the combo that suits your family and your kitchen!

Doors and Drawers

Door and drawer styles are as clean and streamlined as possible. The ultimate in clean style is a slab door with invisible hardware, but simple frames such as shaker can also work. Nix the fancy mouldings and fussy hardware.

How about finishes? Those slab doors look great in high gloss polyester finishes, in white, black or colors, but can also be a great place to showcase exotic hardwood veneers (sustainable sources, please!) or laminate versions of same. Metal finishes – stainless steel or brushed aluminum, for example – are also a modern look, along with powder-coated metal in a range of colors.

Glass is a wonderful door material for upper cabinets (I have seen it on lowers too, but I’d always be worried about the effects of a flying child, pet, or adult shoe). Textured glass in many patterns is especially cool looking, often with a narrow metal frame. The heavier the texturing or sandblasting, the harder it is to see the cabinet contents in detail, and the more minimalist the look. Interior lighting is almost essential with glass doors of any kind.

Cabinet Hardware

When it comes to hardware, the simpler the better. In the 80′s the integrated wood or metal pulls which extended completely across a door or drawer were very popular. I’ve seen these again lately on modern cabinets, but even less obtrusive: reduced to a thin line along the edge of the door. A “trough” along the door or drawer edge can also work, as can invisible catches which allow you to open the door by giving a little push: the door then bounces open. This is great for opening doors or drawers when you have full or messy hands! Other streamlined hardware includes bar pulls and curved pulls made from plain or brushed metal.

Cabinet Construction and Shapes

First, the construction style is almost always frameless. Frameless cabinets give you a cleaner line than framed, and contribute to the modern “minimalist” look. Frameless cabinets also have practical advantages such as more accessible storage space for drawers and pullouts (no frame to get in the way) and super-adjustable hinges.

“Euro style” is a modern cabinet style which usually combines frameless construction, slab doors, single-color finishes (often glossy), and streamlined or invisible hardware.

Another component of a modern look is different levels for cabinets and counters, both wall and base. Raising a base cabinet to bring a dishwasher up to a convenient level, for instance, gives a surface on top which is too high to use as a work counter but may make a good microwave location or display shelf. Upper cabinets can be different heights themselves, or installed at different heights giving an uneven line at the top or bottom.

Traditional upper cabinets almost always have a vertical look to them, with doors that are taller than they are wide. Some modern upper cabinets are oriented horizontally, often with doors that lift up rather than hinging outwards. You’ll want to try these out at a showroom before deciding to use them, to see if they work for you given your height and reach.

Finally, the trendy “furniture look” of non-built-in cabinets which look as though they have been collected over the years, is also available in a modern version with matching but standalone units in modern styles and finishes.