Open shelves in your kitchen

Open shelves seem to be a growing trend in kitchens. Despite the desire for clarity and minimalistic space in modern kitchens, open shelves manage to escape this trend.

Open shelves add an offhand, casual note to an otherwise sterile kichen and keep essentials within easy reach at the same time.

Open shelves are not easy to manage though. Here are a few tips to keep them tidy:

Group like things together.

Do not try to mix your dishes with food items and baking supplies all on one shelf. It just makes things too complicated and the result will likely be disastrous. Pick ONE category to work with per shelf.

Use the open shelves to store attractive things.

Let’s consider the idea of open shelving for dishes. I happen to have all different shades of white dishes that cannot look messy if they tried. They look magazine ready not because I fuss around with them every day, but because they all are all white. I do not worry about perfection in how they are arranged, I like the look of naturally piled dishes. No special stacking techniques are needed. I just group them: dinner plates, salad or dessert plates, bowls, serving dishes and mugs.

Use open shelves for things that can’t look messy like baking pans or things that can be confined to baskets or canisters. As you can see in the above photo (shownyesterday in our pantry post too!), I use stainless flour/sugar bins (glass or clear would work well too), baskets that hold small baking items like vanilla, chocolate chips, cupcake papers, etc. and I have shelves with metal baking tins that don’t get messy.

This concept will work as long as your dishes coordinate in some way and you like the look of them. It doesn’t matter if they are blue and white, red, yellow, patterned, a rainbow of colors, clear or whatever, just make sure theycoordinate with your room and that you like seeing them all together out in the open.
If you have any odd ball pieces that don’t look right or don’t fit, put them in a closed cabinet.

Bright colors: If you try to bring color into your kitchen but don’t want to paint the whole wall? Just paint the open shelving with a bright bold color – even a softer contrasting color to the rest of the space will lend interest to the environment.

Lighting under the shelves: get shelves made from a translucent material such as frosted glass and use lighting below to light your display. Glass stemware or collectibles look great with under lighting.

Sliding panels: If you like the look of open shelving but want to hide some of the contents, consider sliding translucent panels. You can still see the shelving behind, but the dishes and other stuff aren’t on display.

Small spaces like openness: you need storage in a small space, but cabinets make the area feel closed in? Use open shelving to hold items that regularly would be placed on the counter.

Display collectibles: If you have antiques, collectibles you’d like to display, open shelving is just great. It puts your items to front and center – your items won’t get lost in a cabinet. For additional drama, place taller items in the back and shorter items in the front.

Open shelving is a great concept for homes that love the display and the convenience. If you choose open shelving, always remember that now your contents are out in the open. Be wary if your home accumulates a lot of dust as it will settle in your dishes.

Whatever you choose, open shelving is a great concept you can vary a million ways!

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