Since 1981, Vanway Kitchen + Bath has designed and planned beautiful kitchens for homes across northern BC. While each kitchen has its own unique qualities, it’ll likely fall into one of three styles: traditional, contemporary, or transitional. Knowing the three most common styles can help you understand the differences between designs. This can help you narrow down your preferences when looking for inspiration online.
Traditional Kitchens
A traditional kitchen features solid wood doors with raised panels and detailed crown moulding. Often, the wood itself is a feature of the kitchen and may be stained a rich colour to show it off to maximum effect. Additional architectural details like pillars and corbels may be present.
The kitchen below is an example of a traditional kitchen. Made from cherry wood, it has raised panels and detailed moulding by the ceiling. We’ve put together an album of additional traditional kitchens for you to see on Facebook, which you can view here.
Contemporary Kitchens
A contemporary kitchen features minimalist slab doors with a sleek, modern appearance. Rather than relying on natural woods, they may use synthetic materials like laminates, glass, and metal. The emphasis is on straight lines, geometric shapes, and bold accents. Contemporary kitchens are most likely to feature bright colours and metallics.
The kitchen below is an example of a contemporary kitchen. The doors are slab doors and there is no moulding anywhere. The minimalist handles are typical of contemporary kitchens, too. For more ideas, view our album of contemporary kitchens on Facebook.
Transitional Kitchens
A transitional kitchen blends traditional and contemporary styles together. The cabinet doors typically have minimal moulding. Our best-selling Shaker cabinets are an excellent example of this! Crown moulding, if present, has simple clean lines. The colour palette of a transitional kitchen is often neutral. Most of the kitchens in our inspiration gallery are transitional kitchens, as this is our most popular style of kitchen.
The kitchen below is an example of a transitional kitchen. It has Shaker style doors and very plain moulding. You can also see more transitional kitchens in our Facebook album.
