There are a variety of materials and finishes for cabinets, and there’s also different styles of doors in existence.
Just like you can mix finishes and colors for your kitchen cabinets, you can also mix different door styles to imbibe a culture into your space.
Here’s how to mix cabinet door styles
Cabinet doors come in different styles from panels to accents, and you can mix them in the kitchen to achieve an interesting look. One of the popular ways to do so is by mixing a slab cabinet door with a shaker style cabinet. The slab doors should be installed on the upper cabinets whereas the shaker doors should be installed on the base cabinets.
What are the different cabinet door styles?
If we’re talking about mixing cabinet doors, it’s important to have a discussion regarding the options available out there in the first place.
So what are the options?
Flat panel
A flat panel door is basically a door that has an inset in the middle. The inside is flat as the name suggests and can come in a variation where it is layered on the edges to give a more detailed look.
Raised Panel
For the raised panel door, instead of having an inset, we’re having a raised panel. This raised panel gives it a kind of bump on the surface for a more “puffed up” look.
Mullion and Accent
Mullion and accent doors basically have vertical, horizontal, slanted or even curved panels, bars, struts, or even rods in the middle where a typical inset for a flat panel or a raised panel would normally be, and that breaks the middle into several compartments creating an accent.
To put things in a more incisive way, mullion and accent doors are simply decorated doors and are nothing like the “flat” finishes of the raised, flat panel or shaker cabinets. They have much more “emphasis” on them.
Slab
A slab door is basically a door that has no inset or raised panel on it. It’s simply a smooth door with no protrusion whatsoever. Slabs are typically tied with a minimalist or clean and simple look.
Shaker
A shaker cabinet is more or so like an umbrella term for panel doors. Shaker cabinets include flat panel doors, raised panel doors and everything in between.
How do you mix cabinet door styles?
As mentioned earlier, it’s possible to mix cabinet door styles to arrive at a beautiful scenery in the kitchen.
You can be mixing cabinet doors for a variety of reasons, from sheer desire to experiment, or a compulsion to do so because you had no options.
Whichever the case may be, below is the general rule of thumb (though flexible) to follow in order to successfully mix cabinets in the kitchen.
Mix shaker doors with slab
We have defined what shaker and slab cabinet doors are. You can mix these two successfully in the kitchen, and by successfully, it’s meant that you can have a very clean transition between the two cabinet doors.
For that transition to work however, you need to be smart about positioning the doors in the kitchen. So how do you ensure that?
It’s simple, install the slab doors on the upper cabinets and the shaker style doors on the base cabinets.
Don’t go crazy alternating slab and shaker doors on the upper and base cabinets because with the wrong shaker, and then e wrong color combination, you’ll mess up the kitchen’s look.
When choosing shaker doors for experiments like this, it’s good to go for those that are not complicated i.e. the flat panel or traditional raised panel door.
Just in case it doesn’t look good, it’s easier to bear the pain with a less complicated door compared to shouty ones that would constantly remind you of how offensive the kitchen scenery is.
Mullion and accents with a flat panel door
Another great combination is to use an accent with a flat panel door or even a raised panel door.
As usual, use the more complicated door on the base cabinet and the simpler one on the upper cabinets. The reason for this is to impose a continuing sensual gratification when looking from upper to base cabinets.
It’s easier on the senses to go from simple to complex as opposed to from complex to simple.
The first glance in a kitchen scenery is the upper cabinet, so by taking people from slab to accent, subconsciously, we make it easy for them to appreciate the kitchen even more.
Raised panel and flat panel
You can even pair the two brothers from the shaker family together.
Pair the raised panel doors with a flat one. As usual, install the flat panel door on the upper cabinets and have the raised panel installed on the base cabinet.
With this pairing also, you can actually be a little more adventurous and alternate doors between cabinets both on upper and lower, but make sure to use doors of similar colors otherwise it’s very easy to mess up.
Make the island door different
Another way to mix cabinet doors in the kitchen is by choosing a different door for the island.
Because an island serves as a “break” for the continuing pattern across the kitchen, and also as a focal point by itself, you can use any type of door on it regardless of the type of door you used on the upper or base cabinets.
When mixing cabinets, pay attention to the type of material, and also the finish
We have discussed the types of doors and how you can mix them in the kitchen. But it doesn’t just stop there.
A quick way to mess up your door mixing experiment in the kitchen is by not paying attention to the variance in the material type as well as the finish of the two doors.
When you choose materials, go for those that complement. Wood, naturally, is not so complimentary of another type of wood, because of the variation in tones of the various species of wood as well as within areas of a single species of wood.
You want to avoid going for two different wood materials for both door styles as they can easily clash, especially when the flooring is made of wood too.
It’s better to opt for the same type of wood, or stain or paint the cabinets instead.
For finishes, some just don’t go well together, for instance, a high gloss finish of textured white (on the upper cabinet) and a natural wood tone finish (on the base cabinet).
They might not blend well together as opposed to when you have a glossy finish on both the top and bottom, but with different door styles.
The gloss and wood finish might look like you ran out of materials and had no option but to use what was available.
Another finish to be very wary of is the distress finish in cabinets which makes them look distressed or worn out.
If you’re changing door styles, the last thing you ever want is anything that would aggravate the variance you’re already bringing to the table.
A good rule of thumb is to always go for the same type of material and also the same type of finish when mixing different door styles.
You can also check out inspirations online for the different ways people achieve mixed door styles even while using different materials as well as finishes.
Do doors need to match the cabinet?
Doors should definitely match cabinets in terms of finish, especially paint finish. Using a different color on the cabinet’s skeleton and on the door is an easy way to highlight an inconsistency in the kitchen.
And this would typically be more pronounced on upper cabinets than on base cabinets.
Should all the cabinets in your house match?
In terms of material, cabinets don’t really have to match. Just be careful in picking out materials as some, especially
wood, can clash seriously with another wood or even a different finish like the textured white finished in satin.
For color, cabinets don’t have to match too. You can achieve a two tone display with a variety of colors that would look absolutely gorgeous in your kitchen.
You can do a two tone with black and various shades of red, with green and black, with red and white, navy blue and white, etc. the options are endless.
When it comes to size, you might find the need to put a shorter cabinet instead of the standard cabinet size for some application, like the microwave beside the refrigerator or on a seperate area of the wall.
Feel free to do so, as that is one of the easy ways to break up the uniformity of a cabinetry and make the kitchen look more interesting.
Can you mix painted and stained cabinets?
Absolutely you can mix painted cabinets and stained cabinets. Just be wise in the choice of color as picking the wrong colors can cause a serious clash to happen in the kitchen.
There are numerous examples and ideas of the two tone kitchen cabinetry (which even includes the island).
Some examples include:
- White upper and lower with a navy blue island
- White upper and navy blue base cabinets
- Upper painted red with base stained black.
- Shades of green paint on upper with a transparent stain in wood on base cabinets etc.
Can you mix old and new kitchen cabinets?
At one point, you might find that one of your cabinets is completely dead, and you’ll have to replace it.
In such a case, you can actually detach the cabinet from the rest of the cabinetry and replace it with a new one. That’ll be you matching up a new cabinet with an old one.
In case you get tired of your old cabinets too, you can always detach them from the cabinetry and attach a new one.
Just make sure that the cabinets are fitting back into the space as sleekly as before by having them produced in the same dimensions and of the same finish.
This will prevent your new cabinet from serving as a focal point that is not needed.