It’s been a little more than a year since I renovated our kitchen, replacing ill-placed cabinets with open shelving. When I posted the finished renovation, I received so many questions and comments about the kitchen shelves:
“How will you keep them clean?”
“There will be grease and dust all over them.”
“I wouldn’t want all my stuff on display.”
All relevant concerns; all things that can happen with open kitchen shelves like these. So, one year later, did those concerns become reality? What’s the verdict?
I’m going to take the main questions in turn.
“How will you keep them clean?”
Verdict: Not really a problem at all.
On the lower shelves, I keep all the things we use regularly: plates and cereal bowls, glasses, the breadbox. Because we use them regularly, the dust doesn’t really settle too much on those shelves. If I notice any dust there, I just wipe them down – usually before I unload the dishwasher and put those things back on the shelves. I just wipe them off with a damp dish towel.
For the upper shelves, where I keep the stuff we use less frequently, I wipe down the shelves every two weeks to every month. When I do wipe them down, they aren’t that dusty. Normal course kind of dust.
“There will be grease and dust all over them.”
This comment was one of the main comments I got when my kitchen was featured on Apartment Therapy HERE.
This didn’t really happen. I don’t do a lot of frying or heavy sautéing in our kitchen, so there’s not a lot of oil flying around.
Plus, I’m kind of a neat freak and I clean up right after I cook. So there’s no chance of any oil or yuck sticking around long after dinner’s been done.
“I wouldn’t want all my stuff on display.”
I get this. Closed doors provide a clean look, hiding everything behind them. So, the verdict on this question is mixed.
On the one hand, I like that my dishes, cookbooks, and flour and sugar containers are out on display. They are nice-looking and the cookbooks provide little pops of color. Plus, they’re out and handy when I need them.
On the other hand, however, I would like the, ahem, less attractive stuff behind closed doors. For example, our drinking glasses are a mismatched collection, with some plastic and some glass, some adult-size and some kid-size. I could live without seeing those out every day.
Overall Verdict?
I really like the open kitchen shelves. They solved the problem of the cabinets being hung too high and I like some things being out and easily accessible. I like the bright, open, industrial look of them, too.
But, to be honest, if we do a full renovation of our kitchen, I’d like to add back in wall cabinets. I’d like to keep some of the shelving, but I would also like wall cabinets to hide the stuff I don’t really need to look at every day.
To read about the kitchen renovation (started three days before Christmas!), click HERE.
To read about the plan and process of taking down the cabinets, click HERE.
To get the full source list and breakdown of costs, click HERE.
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