How about curtains for the front? I have seen that done for closets.

or maybe sliding privacy glass doors?

If it were me, I would look into canvas storage boxes for things like sippy cups, spices, etc (West Elm had some great ones on sale) - and I would do all the storage boxes in the same color to bring some harmony and calm some of the visual clutter. A few fun pieces (large bowls or pitchers) mixed in would pull the eye. I really like the idea of curtains, too - maybe linen or something neutral like that. Even just one set of cabinets with a curtain would provide a good place to stash stuff. Could you post a picture to help people better visualize the layout?

My kitchen starts next week, but I did research how to deal with open shelving during the design process. Unfortunately, I've lost my links, but here are my notes and ideas:

First step is to categorize, like with like or color with color, so it doesn't look random.

Things like sippy cups can be hidden in baskets. Thrift stores often have tons of donated baskets cheap, or try a place like Micheals or World Market. Baskets don't have to match exactly, but keep them in the same color family. A basket should hold items of a single type or function as well.

Your spices could be repackaged in matching containers if they are not all the same brand. (Buy a consistent brand of spices for same color packaging in the future.) I'd also put them on a lazy susan so some can hide in the back of the shelf but still be accessible. A quick source for spice containers might be IKEA.

I have Corelle, too. It's going in a dish drawer. They stack so small and efficiently it's easy to make it fit in a small space. Maybe move it to the old sippy cup drawers? Fewer items look better than crowded shelves, so hide the Corelle, and display serving dishes or mixing bowls instead. Look around your kitchen and see what you can move around - what do you have not "too much" of and that might look pretty on display?

I did find one article that may be helpful:

Here is a link that might be useful: Open shelving tips

A photo would help. I actually like my sippys in a drawer - the kids can reach them, but if it takes too much space that is no good. Maybe having them take up so much space might be an incentive to get rid of some of them (have you ever tasted water in a sippy - yuck :) and get some cute short non-toxic plastic cups that you can stack and take up less space in a drawer or look cute on a shelf. Sippys, a necessary evil if you don't want to mop your floors every hour.

I have kept spices in baskets, I actually prefer that to behind a cabinet door because I can just pull the basket down and look through. When I had time (ha) I put little white stickers on the top of the spices and wrote what they were so they could stand up. Later (with kids and no time) I had them on their side so just had to sift through which is no harder than pushing aside on a shelf or lazy susan to find the garlic powder.

Some things that you think might look ugly may just be fine and simple like corelle.

There is a great current thread on anit-upperitis that may provide some inspiration.

Here is a link that might be useful: Thread on no upper cabinets

How about bi-fold doors that are hinged in the middle as well on the end, so they can fold up and swing past the hood.

what about those doors that open up?

muspic - no room for a door to swing up either, it would hit on the same spot.

lazygardens - bifold cabinet doors? They make bifold cabinet doors? Of course they do, that's basically what's on a corner cabinet isn't it. I'll have to think about that and take some measurements. Great idea!

dianalo - again, they make sliding cabinet doors? That's a great idea too. Since all the uppers are fairly wide I bet it'd work pretty well too.

I don't think I could bring myself to do curtains. Personal anti-curtain fetish.

In the near term, I will be trying to arrange my cabinets better and look for some baskets. Very helpful site on arranging that was posted. I did see the anti-upperitis thread, but frankly the pics I saw scared me simply because they looked so great! My stuff doesn't look so great, so it made me even more negative about my situation, know what I mean? I read more of it tonight and see some more real-life looking kitchens that give me more hope.

I'll try to post some pics tomorrow. Thanks for the help so far!

Why don't you just use it as an opportunity to upgrade and throw in some color. I have open shelving, and over the course of the past year or so, I have replaced most of my dishes and glassware. You can buy melamine dishes and plastic cups in fun colors. Or if your existing dishes are white, do a bold paint behind them to make them stand out.

As for you food/spices, I found candle jars online for all of my spices that didn't cost much and then labeled them with colorful labels. All my food got put into either cracker jars from Target or ball canning jars (I found some cute lids online - also at a candle store - so I didn't have to use the two part lids). I love having everything out and handy.
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Does is need to be used for practical things or can it be decorative. If so you could put old vintage books with leather backing and gold trim or what about your dictionaries. We have 3 or 4 of them stack one beside the other in our kitchen because we tend to use them regularly.

Wow rexem, that looks great!

danielle - it pretty much just needs to be practical because I don't feel like I have enough storage as it is. But it might be that I'm just not settled into this new arrangement well enough because there SHOULD be enough room considering how tiny my last kitchen was.

But here's a link to my pictures so you can see my kitchen. Looking at the pics, I think that the coffee cup shelves and the spice cabinet are what bother me the most. The other 2 are better just because there's not as many colors.

Here is a link that might be useful: Jena's kitchen