I have the slab (flat) drawers - am very happy with the clean and simple lines, and feels more contemporary and streamlined, although the kitchen itself is not a contemporary style.

For some reason, when I see kitchens with shaker doors and slab drawers it's jarring to my eye. I think mamabear is right that maybe slab doors are more contemporary, but it also looks like the cab maker forgot to put the stiles and rails on. Unfinished is the word. Or maybe they look cheap to me. I know they aren't and I'm not trying to insinuate that you are.

I don't like things matchy-matchy usually, except my shaker doors and drawers!

I've always had them match on all our kitchens before and was shocked that it was an upgrade at the cabinet company our builder deals with. Then I saw a showroom kitchen that had the slab drawers (thanks for teaching me proper terminology :)) and thought it looked great.

Then lately I was thinking I should upgrade them to match the shaker cabinets as maybe Breezygirl said to make them more "finished" so I started looking at all my favorite kitchens and noticed all sorts of drawers finished differently with the shaker drawers, slab, different top drawer and stiles and rails (see I'm catching on ;)) on the lower drawers and began to wonder what was most contemporary. Lol

I think the shaker style drawer is fine for a fairly deep drawer, but for a shallow drawer they look odd to me, too busy, and like there is not enough room for a pull/knob/handle(especially on the beaded shaker, like ours). We went with the slab doors, and while our kitchen is not contemporary style, it is a neater look to my eyes.

I tend to think the slab drawers are more contemporary, too...that said, we totally mixed ours up. Our wide drawers are slab on top, shaker style on bottom with the same size stiles and rails as the doors. Our frameless four-drawer drawers are slab on top (all drawers are slab on top so they match) and then the three lower ones are all the same size with narrower rails than the doors so that we had a good amount of space for the handles. Then the framed inset drawers are all slab, big and small, since they're framed by rails and stiles in the cabinet base. So you can do it any which way, depending on the look you're going for.

My drawers are a mix. Shallow drawers are slab and deep ones match the shaker uppers. I have an espresso stain on mine and I have to tell you, the crevasses are schmutz traps. Because the cabs are dark, they show every bit of dust and dirt, much like a dark floor does. Slabs on all the lowers would have eliminated this problem.

We have modified shaker doors and put slab drawer fronts on all our drawers, regardless of size. Cabinets are espresso stained cherry and we were going for a more contemporary look. Not all of our cabinet doors have been installed yet, and no appliances yet, either. So, I don't think a photo will of my space will do you much good. But soon...I hope.

I also like the clean lines of the slab drawers. If you had a really wide and deep drawer (say 36" wide or so), it may be better with the shaker front, but for normal drawers, I think it starts looking busy.
What Amy said would also matter to me.

I went with drawers in the shaker style. My feeling was that given that I was going with as many drawers as possible I felt it would look jarring to have large slab drawers next to shaker style doors.

We also are going for a contemporary look with our shaker style cabinets. I think a few things affect whether shaker looks traditional/craftsman-ish or contemporary:

1. I think generally slab drawers look more contemporary. Having said that, we went with shaker fronts for the large drawers and slabs for the small drawer bases, to provide balance in our particular plan (we have a lot of large drawers).

2. The size offset/depth of the panel. I don't see people discussing this very much when they describe their cabinets. We will have a 1/8 inch offset as opposed to the more typical and more traditional 1/4 inch offset. I think the more shallow panel looks more contemporary as it approximates a slab look more (but still keeps the panel interest).

3. Color of stain. To me, a dark stained wood (expresso, cordovan) in a shaker style looks more contemporary than the natural wood/natural stain look. (I think this could be just me, though) ;-)

4. And of course, the hardware you choose, as well as countertops, backsplash, etc., makes all the difference in the overall look!

In our last kitchen we had shaker cabinets and did all the drawers in shaker. I felt it gave it a slightly more traditional look. In this kitchen we are going for more modern and decided to do all the drawers in slabs. I think it gives the drawers a clean modern look. Once all the pulls are on I think it will add the right touch to the slabs. Here are two in-progress pics.

We are getting shaker doors and slab drawers. It seemed most appropriate because that's what was here originally and what will complement the woodwork in the other parts of the house. I don't know about it being a particularly contemporary look--it was done in this house in the 1920's. Choice of wood/grain/stain/hardware an inset vs. overlay can easily cause such a basic cabinet style to lean traditional or contemporary as you might wish.

I have been wondering the same thing, however I now am leaning to all slab fronts. If I went with Shaker, I would have done so on the cabinet doors and larger drawers. Slab fronts on the smaller drawers. All Shaker looks a little busy for me, but I like more contemporary. Also, as someone else posted, consider your hardware. Good luck making the decision. :))

I think this is a matter of personal preference. We had spec'd shaker drawers and the cabinetmaker did slab for the top row for exactly the reasons the GW'ers stated above (because it was a shallower drawer) - but suddenly I had this long line of slab drawers and it just did not jibe with the rest of the kitchen (they looked unfinished just like breezygirl said) so we changed them (ack - $$$) and I am really happy with the result. But my neighbor liked it better the other way - so I think it depends on how it feels to your own eye and how the drawers will relate to each other in the kitchen.

There is a scale problem if "shaker" frames are wide and the drawer is small. The panel part looks odd--out of scale. My cabinetmaker has a workaround that he offers--a way to narrow the dimensions on two parallel sides. Nevertheless, we had sufficient squishing of the dimensions because of breadboard stealing from vertical dimension that we just decided to make all of ours slabs. It was the right decision.

Often it's just the "shaker" at lazy susan corners that violates the horizontal slab pattern as it does in photo. No cheap way around that.

Because I went with a bit of a different shaker style with a bottom wider piece, we decided on slab drawers. There just wasn't a lot of real estate there for the inset and i figured it was one less place to collect dust.

I'm not sure what style I'm trying to be ;) Maybe transitional? This is an old house so I didnt' want contemporary but I also didn't want too fussy.

Thank you to everyone for the great responses, I appreciate all the information so much.

Also a big thanks to ptyles, pps, forantha,and marcydc, for taking the time to post photos, your kitchens are just gorgeous. Wow

I had been told before about what Amy said about the crevasses getting dirty and dusty with espresso. I forgot about that so thanks again.

Kiffgirl, sounds like you have a beautiful kitchen in progress and can't wait to see finished pics when it's done. :)

Sharonite, I think your right about the stain and hardware making a difference in changing the style or look.

Thank for the good luck wishes psfw, now just to decide what to go with as I think all the different drawers and door combinations look great! :)