I'm referring to the ones my bowls and mixer is on. The food shelf is all that previously stood in that empty corner and so now everything is smooshed in there.I hate our cupboards. They are pieces of junk, need a paint job, need hardware and well, need to be replaced as the shelves in the upper cupboard are all bowing in the middle. Also, when you open the cupboard that is second from the right, it hits the light that hangs in front of it.
After I hung those shelves yesterday I just fell in love with the way they looked. I like the industrial feel. I like seeing my cooking and baking items. It makes me want to run in there and pull everything off and start cooking up a storm.
So, I started having a thought-- what if the cupboards in the above photo were taken down and replaced with open shelves, like the ones I already hung? We could make MUCH better use of that space.
I've started to peruse the interwebs, looking for pictures of peoples who have done this with their kitchens, but the pictures mostly are either completely monochromatic (like ALL white) or extremely sparse and modern or are open shelves just displaying a few special pieces. But what about real-life kitchens? We have nicer dishes, due to a recent wedding, but we still have a few random things, as would any family.
I also read reports saying that open shelving makes your dishes very dirty. One thing is that these cupboards are away from the stove, so that would help with splatters. But what about dust? I can't help but think that we truly use our dishes SO often (I'm a stay-at-home mama, after all) that most things won't really be sitting there long enough to get dirty!
Honestly, the bottom line is a money thing. We want/need to do something different, so what is going to be the right choice?
ETA: as I was browsing some more online tonight I found a blog who has a kitchen I LOVE. The blog is called Nest Decorating and HERE is the post about the kitchen. LOVE.
You can use a plate rack to keep the dust to a minimum.
ReplyDeleteSay you center the said plate rack on the biggest wall. Then, with open shelving above, below and all around it, you can stratigecly place your (non-monochromatic) baking dishes, mixing bowls, kitchen aide, etc. to look like it's an intentional design. I recommend you keep *some* of the cabinest close for the stuff that will always look cluttered no matter what you do.
In this link you can see how they incorperated open and closed shelving in a corner like yours. (wait, i can't paste a link here? I'll email it to you.)
Good luck!
tif
holy cow I can't believe all of my misspellings.
ReplyDeleteSybil, we removed the doors from our crappy overhead cabinets in our house in Seattle. Seven years open concept kitchen, and yes the dishes do get dirtier but really it wasn't a problem. As you pointed out, only the dishes that were seldom used got dirty, so you would have to wash them before you used them once a year or two. Check out the elfa kitchens at The Container Store. Love, love, LOVE elfa. And, you know, IKEA has some great looking, affordable kitchens as well.
ReplyDeleteThe house is looking terrific!
Thanks Tif and Noel!
ReplyDeleteI edited my post to include a link to a kitchen I really love. Tif-- your link was great, I loved that kitchen as well, but I think to do that wouldn't be the cheaper DIY project that I'm looking for for this one.
I wish we could get away with removing our doors, but the saggy shelves wouldn't be too easy on the eyes! lol