Blending Open Kitchen Storage With Closed Cabinets

Open shelves can look beautiful in a kitchen.

In modern kitchens, open storage shelves instead of or in addition to closed cabinets is an attractive and functional option. Kitchen designers love shelves for their display possibilities, convenience and the open feel they give the kitchen. They also like the "mismatched" look of combining shelves with cabinets. To decide whether to use open shelves in your kitchen, consider what you have to store and where it can stay cleanest.

Things You'll Need

• Wooden shelves

Instructions

1. Locate open shelves away from the stove. Since everything near the stove eventually gets coated with cooking grease, which in turn gets covered with dust and dirt, closed storage is a better choice near the stove. Items stay cleaner in closed cabinets.

2. Display attractive, matching items on high display shelves that are inconvenient for daily use. A collection of blue-and-white transferware or picturesque tea tins can make an eye-catching focal point. But items that don't match may simply look like clutter. Choose carefully what you display.

3. Put your most-often-used items on low, easy-to-reach open shelves. Since the convenience of open storage is hard to beat, take advantage of lower shelves to store glasses, plates, or other items you use every day. Frequently used items stay clean on open shelves because they are washed regularly. Locate this shelf near the sink or dishwasher to make putting dishes back a breeze, near the table for easy table-setting, or near the refrigerator, so that grabbing a glass for water or juice is a snap.

4. Decide where to place open shelves in your kitchen based on the quality of your dishware and size and shape of the room. If you have mismatched everyday dishes, you may not want to display them on open shelves, or maybe just one high shelf will meet your needs. If your kitchen is large and a row of upper cabinets would make it feel closed in or top-heavy, you might want an entire wall of open shelving.

5. Cluster open shelves together, if you decide to use them. Contrast their busy look with quieter, closed cabinets in other parts of the kitchen.

Tips & Warnings

• Rows of matching wineglasses and stacks of plates and cups all in white or a single color arranged on shelves are striking and attractive, but mismatched and poorly arranged objects look like clutter. Be careful how you choose and arrange the articles you store on open shelves.

References

• Use What You Have Decorating; Lauri Ward
• The Apartment Book; Carol Spier