Undeniably Shaker: The Three Items Characteristic of Shaker Style

    Shaker furniture, homes and décor vary greatly from region to region. A Shaker building in the Northeast will look very different from one in the South, which can make implementing the Shaker style a bit difficult. But despite the massive differences present in architecture and some furniture, there are three things that are undeniably Shaker: pegs, oval boxes and Shaker styled chairs.
    Shaker pegs might be the most notable characteristic of Shaker style. Unlike the chairs or oval boxes that could be mistaken as a member of another similar style, Shaker pegs stand out as being very different. Placed on the walls at roughly head or shoulder height, Shaker pegs run around practically every room in a Shaker home and provide ample storage space for practically anything you could imagine.
    "Well, they hung up clothes," the Interpretation and Education Manager at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, Susan Hughes, said. "They hung up bonnets and hats. They hung chairs."
    At which point, I looked in shock and said, "Chairs?"
    "If you're sweeping the floor, do you want to have to move all of the chairs back and forth," Hughes said. "No you pick them up, you hang them on the peg, pick them up and put them back down."
    Those pegs served a very practical purpose: they kept Shaker homes neater and easier to clean. Don't we all want that? But that wasn't all the pegs did.  
   "You'll see pegs also being used as a visual mark I guess on the wall," Hughes said. "These are incredibly high ceilings. These rooms are very tall. That peg line breaks up that big white expanse of space. It gives your eye a place to focus. Along with the chair rail, the peg rail helps to break up that long white space."
    Shaker pegs work beautifully in kitchens with high ceilings. You can hang pots, pan, spoons and other kitchen tools from them while making the big room feel a bit cozier. Shaker pegs are also a great idea in potting sheds where having tools in any easy to reach spot comes in handy. But what if you have lots of open shelving? Shaker boxes are what you need.
    "When we talk about Shaker icons, I think the oval box has to be one of those," Hughes said. "The shakers didn't invent these. These were pantry boxes used by almost everybody in the 19th century to store things like flowers, nails, sewing equipment. But the Shakers brought it to a fine art. They are very much signature Shaker."
    Those Shaker oval boxes can be used to store just about anything, and will make your shelves look much prettier because small or unattractive items can be neatly stored inside your boxes. But why were the boxes oval? It seems like an inefficient use of space. A square box of the same length would hold more and use the space on a shelf much better; however, as I learned from Hughes, oval boxes were easier to make.
    "There were square boxes, but in a square box, ever wall of a square box has to be nailed together," Hughes said. "This is one continuous piece of wood, wrapped around and then bound to itself. You don't have to over-build it. It's very simple. It's very functional."
    Pretty smart. The Shakers were all about function, and the oval boxes simply serve as another example of the Shakers use of utilitarian items. But perhaps the best example of the Shakers' practical nature is the Shaker chair. After all, it's what most people consider Shaker.
  "Sister Mildred Barker who was a Shaker who lived until the 1990s said she was afraid she'd be remembered as a chair or a table, because that's what people know about the Shakers," Hughes said. "I would say that the Shaker chair is probably one of the signature items of the Shakers, but each community made its chairs a little bit differently - because different hands are making them. The little finials - the post on the top of the ladder are very characteristic in each different community."
    The typical Shaker chair consists of a ladder-back and has no cushions on the seat. So if you want to have the ultimate Shaker styled home, find yourself a nice Shaker chair you like, hang it on a few Shaker pegs and store a few balls of yarn in your new oval boxes. Suddenly, you should feel a tad more Shaker. At least your home will look it.