Connor Homes' new Shaker Kitchen replicates the utility and grace of the Shaker's precise casework, simple finishes and profiles in a new kitchen line designed to enhance our "Simple Classics" collection of homes. Like the Simple Classics Homes, the Shaker Kitchen is built by the same craftsmen as our Catalog and Custom Homes and uses the same high quality materials. The Shakers understood that if you build something simply there is the collateral benefit that it also costs less to build. The Shaker Kitchen style is also available to all customers as an additional choice for their kitchen, bath vanities and other built-ins throughout the house.
"THE SHAKER KITCHEN"
by Gail Rice
The Shakers, also known as the Believers, first came to America in 1774. They settled in Watervliet (near Albany, New York) and by 1840 had grown to 6,000 "Sisters and Brothers" living lives of quiet industry in communes from Maine to Kentucky.
Shakers are remembered for their unique lifestyle, their dance form of worship (which gave them the name "Shakers") and most of all for the beauty of their handmade, everyday objects. Their guiding philosophy of design was "don't make something if it's not useful; but if it's both necessary and useful, don't hesitate to make it beautiful."*
Shakers believed in order and cleanliness. Their founder, Mother Ann, had pronounced "There is no dirt in heaven" so they designed rooms that were easy to keep clean. A Shaker room usually contained walls of recessed doors and drawers for storage. The less freestanding furniture- the easier it was to sweep the floors. Their cabinetry was beautifully joined and finished with very little ornament. Although Shakers believed that items with utility could also be beautiful, they did not believe in adding beauty for beauty's sake alone. Typically, drawers were simple slab fronts with small wooden pulls and cupboard doors had simple styles and rails with a recessed center panel. The beauty was in the details; the way the cupboard doors fit precisely into their frame, the dovetailed joints of the drawers, the careful mitering of the styles and rails. "Trifles make perfection, but perfection is no trifle"* said the Shakers.
* From Shaker Life, Work and Art by June Sprigg and David Larkin, published 1987 by Stewart, Tabori & Chang, Inc.