John- First of all...LOL! You are so funny :)

Now, as to the upper cabinets. I think most of your items would look nice on open shelves, or maybe a combination of open shelves with a kind of hutch for your beverage prep...and maybe some pegs or hooks for the cups and mugs.

What is your style? If you're not going to have your unicorn, I mean :)

It seems like you have a European feel going...at least with the beverage center. Are you more modern or laid back country...or maybe traditional? Any of these would work with your open shelves. It really just depends on what makes you comfortable.

Note...I could never have open cabinets, since I don't have dishes that pretty. Too many nieces and nephews plastic cups, mismatched plates and bowls, not to mention plastic containers. It's a beautiful look, but I'll be keeping my uppers. I would love a plate rack and some pegs/hooks for cups and mugs, though...and a big hutch for my nicer dishes :)

Why not try true open shelves and if that fails, you can add some cabs. It sounds like you want it but fear it at the same time.
The sides and backs add expense and constrictions that open shelving does not. You know you want it.....

Take the plunge and be a wild man, lol....

I can't imagine all the disparate items of functional, stocked baking center looking cohesive in open cabinets. (Cohesiveness is not everyone's goal, but your post indicates that the lack of it may bother you.) Many of those food items do better stored in the dark, anyway. And do you really think you'd decant, say, the molasses?

Could you dedicate drawers below for those items better tucked out of sight?

ROFL!

I think it *is* possible to achieve what you want, with the possible exception of the unicorn.

The following pic is a floating shelf, which I understand you are talking about something a little different, but the problem is still the same: lots of little things=clutter. So they did what you suggest, took everything out of its commercial packaging and put into attractive jars, etc. They use a little portable shelf (in this case, wire) to help organize. And they have an attractive wood box on the shelf, which I imagine might hold very small items. I think the key is to not overstuff the shelves. Also, make each shelf fit what you plan to store there, so as to avoid a lot of wasted space or having to stack a lot of things on top of each other.

Never thought open shelves were a great idea in earthquake country. Can't recall whether you are in EQ country though. I know, I know, if it's a biggie, everything breaks anyway, but, if you have lots of tremblors, it can be an unnecessary pita. Please, do not ask me how I know this (says she, who left an alluvial zone following a 6.7 in 1994--for good). Also, if you live in an a very dusty area, it isn't so great. I limit my open area to a pot rack and am careful to rotate my pan usage so that nothing has a chance to accumulate dust. It works well.

Kitchendetective is right about the earthquakes. The stockpots should be fine, but the decorative glass jars could be a merry mess. In my old kitchen, my baking staples were on open shelves (in clear acrylic canisters), but we didn't have anything much above 4.0. Plus, they keep better out of the light, so you might want to consider decorative tins instead of glass jars.

As to the rest, if you have sides, tops and bottoms, you can always add doors later, right? But I'm wondering if something like a honeycomb shade wouldn't do you. Those close up very flat, so could hide behind a strip of molding or frame, and when you don't want to look at what's there, could be lowered. And it's just a quick pull to disappear them again.

In my own kitchen, I put in a couple of open shelves for my large wooden bowls, etc., up high. They're decorative. They have an openness that helps make the space look more friendly and interesting. But the working stuff is behind doors. It really is no biggie to open a door to get at things. The important part is knowing exactly what's behind the door. So I guess if you have gnomes (family members, friends, help) who constantly put stuff in different places, it might be really useful to have everything in the open, but if you can organize and remember where your stuff is, opening and closing the door(s) really isn't such a big deal.

I think there is great beauty in well used, functional things out in the open - like the gorgeous unfitted kitchens all over Europe - provided there is some overall thought to appearances like you mention.

Using neat containers like in the photo red_ear provided above (which I love!) makes it interesting and personal and lovely, I think.

I went from open shelving in my old kitchen to all glass uppers in my new one -- and I love it all. I love dishes (and pitchers, and platters, etc..) and would rather see them than cab fronts - but that is just me. Friends don't think I have cheap plastic bowls from Target in my uppers, I do - they are just white so they play nicely with old ironstone.

If the materials and items are authentic (french press, tin tea bins, glass jars, etc) and there is not much plastic - I think it will be fabulous. And it will look like you and your style - which is better than generic cabinet fronts in my opinion. :)

The photo linked above is lovely, but probably belongs in fairy land. Living in the real world, my house accumulates dust. I clean my range, and the next afternoon the sunlight streams across the dusty prairie of stainless steel. It's irritating enough dusting the venthood and the coffeemaker, I would not want to add 5 small appliances, 43 jars, and the contents of my dishware cabinet to the list. I imagine those bowls have to be wiped out every time they're used.

Additionally I have teens that eat like very HUNGRY unicorns, and decanting stuff I use daily sounds like a giant pain. That little jar of pasta on the photo above? Pretty, but not enough for a meal. That would make "putting away groceries" take even longer, and pretty soon the pretty jar system would be kaput.

If you visit Muir Beach I will guess that you live in the SF Bay Area. If that is the case, then I am going to remind you that you do live in earthquake country. If you can lay your hands on a magical unicorn, then please send me one as well. I love open shelf look, but I am opting for cabinet doors. About 1/2 of my upper doors will have glass, so perhaps you can see if that look will satisfy you. I also have to admit that I hate to dust, and at this point in our remodel I am REALLY tired of dust.

I have open shelving that I use for my regular pots/pans, large bowls plus regular dishes. I don't have the array of items you want to put in your 2nd area but I definitely have a mix. I found that bigger is better on shelving. Lots of little things (no matter how cute the container) should probably go inside something bigger (a nice basket, metal tin etc.)

BTW--I love my open shelves. Mine are wire metal shelves that span across windows..really strange I know and a lot people thought I was nuts..but I like them. Hubby is OCD so he rearranges everything constantly..make sure all the pan handles are angled the exact same way. It's kind of funny but it does keep my open shelves looking tidy.

Agree with the poster who suggested trying regular open shelves first. I actually did that in my pre-remodel kitchen just to see if I could stand it before committing.

Good luck.

will it look bad to have one bank of uppers open, but doors on the other bank?

I firmly believe that symmetry is overrated in kitchens. Symmetry's great if you can use it, sight lines matter more, and function matters most. Better to have all the schmutzy stuff behind doors and the lovely vessels out in the open than to have it all out in the open.

First, I don't think one bank of open uppers and another of door'd uppers will look bad. I think it will look just fine.

The questions I have for you, though, are: Are you the type that organizes his underwear door so all the white socks are together, all the brown, all the black, etc.
PLUS are your shoes organized by color,
Ditto for your closet...are all the white shirts together, the blue, etc.?
Are your dishes, utensils (turners & ladles nested neatly), silverware (forks & spoons neatly place in their respective sections, serving spoons sorted by slotted/closed and size), etc. organized along similar lines?
Is your pantry (or wherever you currently store your food) neatly organized all the time?
If yes to the above, do you do this organizing automatically at the time you put them away?
And...do you consistently over time do these things? (I.e., don't just do then for a few weeks or months, but rather, year-after-year?)

If you answered "yes" to all of the above, then you will probably do fine w/open shelves.

If not, I would think twice (or thrice) about it. Yes, you could have some open shelves/cabinets housing the things that are the easiest to keep organized, look the best, and that get used often enough they don't get dusty/dirty.

HTH!

A 9" open cabinet/box mounted below the doored cabinets to look like one single unit has made life comfortable. Not having to open the cabinet door for the most used items is quick, easy and quiet. I chose all white cups, mugs, bowls, plates along with glassware. The unique, aka, not white, but still loved, goes behind closed doors. Maybe a combination will work for you too.

What about standard cupboards without doors? Make them blatantly utilitarian, with repositional shelves, but you could do something interesting, such as paint the little edges that face into the room to make it interesting and this would override some of the visual power of any particular item stored on the shelves. Or put color on the back wall behind the items. If you hate it, you can order doors.
OR...put in translucent sliding glass panels across the front of the upper cabs, a very MCM concept.

Here's a photo I saw recently that starts to illustrate what I'm talking about, from Pratt & Larson tile co., although the cabs themselves are not particularly in your face, since this is for display:

Buehl- I think I answered "no" to almost all of your questions...which is why I know open shelves are not for me :)

Artmeetsscience- That sounds very interesting. Do you have any pictures? I might be able to stay that organized! LOL

I don't think it would look bad either. I would think if you lived in earthquake territory, you wouldn't be considering open shelving. I have two hutches, one has semi-open dish storage (chicken wire doors) and a double plate rack. My pantry has shelves that hold glass containers of rice, sugar, flour, oatmeal, granola bars, walnuts, etc. I love seeing the containers lined up on the shelves. I hope you're able to catch a unicorn.

I think you will enjoy this link:

Here is a link that might be useful: salie house china room

Allison, I promise you, earthquakes aren't that big a deterrent. Doors do help, but plenty of people in California (I believe Johnliu is in San Francisco area) have open shelves. Wood houses (stud and stucco) with rolling foundations help. Museum putty (nee "earthquake putty) helps, but only for things that don't get a lot of use. Things walk. Things fall. Cupboards open and close. Latches vibrate open. Depends on the size of the quake.

I'd still rather have earthquakes than tornadoes or hurricanes. :)

We're mixing open shelving and cabinets with doors in different cabinet runs. Hopefully it won't look strange---we'll see very soon! But the ones with doors were planned specifically to hide the "not pretty to look at" things like our staple foods and baking supplies (since we don't have a pantry). The shelves are currently planned for dishes, with books if the dishes get dusty or are otherwise frustrating to store there. (There's a backup dish cabinet designated, which will probably house infrequently used dishes anyway to avoid dust/grease issues.)

And we're just a hop, skip and a jump from the Hayward fault in the SF Bay Area, but that didn't factor into our decision on open shelves. It's really not a huge issue---although it's probably slightly better to have shelves with an edge than true floating shelves, to avoid anything scooting off. For small earthquakes (which we have often), the issue is really vibrations, which are a problem inside and out of cabinets (but we've never had anything on either a shelf or in a cabinet fall out/break with the small quakes). I do put shelf liner under things to prevent "walking," though no clue if it really works (but it's cheap and easy, so hey).

With big quakes like Loma Prieta, the problem is the wave that can ripple through. Things can fall off a shelf at that point. Things may well also fall out of a cabinet unless your doors have physical latches. (A standard knob or pull won't keep a door closed.) And even if you have latches, you may still have a cabinetful of broken dishes. There's an argument that containment is better, but for us, having broken dishes in a cabinet versus on the counter or potentially on the floor really wasn't enough to sway anything one way or the other. (We don't have heavy enough dishes or high enough shelves to cause much physical damage to other things/beings.) It's such an outlier event that it's not worth planning a kitchen around---if there's an event big enough to ripple our little wood frame house on bedrock with a bolted foundation and plenty of shearwall, we have far, far bigger issues than the shattered dishes. :)

DD1 went to college in downtown SF and has been in the area, for the most part, 8 years now. Lived downtown 4 1/2 years, spent a year in the LA area, and has been in Marin over 2 years. She's yet to feel an earthquake. Although when she first moved to SF, she didn't know about Fleet Week. She was living in Lower Nob Hill and thought they were being attacked when she heard the jets buzz Union Square. Blue Angels. lol

I was going to suggest a shelf with a slight lip, but that would get on my nerves, so didn't.

No.

You have too much crap.

Speaking as someone who once had all-glass uppers, and actually loved seeing tins of baking powder in a real, working kitchen:

You have too much crap.

It's all great to imagine yourself getting your shipment of Penzey's and counting out your peppercorns and grinding your fennel seeds for pork roasts before you ladle each into cream-colored Provencal jars, but frankly, most of your stuff is going to get shoved into supermarket packages and Ziplock bags because while you're putting away your groceries, you'll suddenly realize your scallops aren't caramelizing properly and you have to rush to find out why your daughter is screaming in Albanian into her cell phone.

Get a pantry.

I'm with marcolo. Want a preview? Remove your upper cabinet doors and live with it awhile.

My DIL and I are painting her cabinets and the doors are all at my house--she has 3 under 4 years old. The place looks like a Shop Rite/Tupperware/Walmart carnival with everything exposed.

I have pictures but they'd just scare you.

I think you've seen pics of my kitchen, but I have everyday dishes out in the open, glassware and coffee equipment in a wood cabinet with glass doors and glass shelves, small appliances in a painted cabinet with painted shelves and glass doors, and baking supplies/snacks/spices in drawers. The rest of the dry staples are in a glass door pantry. It's probably cluttered looking but I wanted everything exposed and at hand. All business and sleeves rolled up. I thought about painting the inside of my pantries a different color, but they are so full that you barely see the interior walls. I'll link to the pics if you haven't seen.

Here is a link that might be useful: kitchen album

Histokitchen, I love your look.

One thought for a lot of disparate small items that get used at the same time are large baskets or tins like histokitch has behind the glass doors. You don't need to transfer packaging, just put the original in the appropriate one. Pull the whole thing out when its time for coffee-tea.

There's also something to be said for longer shelves being more effective for storing what you're listing. I'm thinking big pots don't fit well in small wall depth cabinets - tend to have a lot of waste space between items and the cabinet sides - and the waste is a temptation to clutter with other types of small stuff. The smaller the cabinet, the more this is an issue.

I'm a little ocd about storage; I don't know how I'd feel about all those pot handles sticking out the front of a cabinet. I'm unsure about stacks of pots and trying to get out the correct one without beating the cabinet to death over time.

Because of what plllog said, maybe look at mixing in some dark blue glass or white ceramic canisters.

Lastly, somehow when I see you in my mind, I see a long double row of shelves filled with gear with hanging hooks underneath for tools or small pots or even small electrics.

Perhaps it could work if you place a gallery around the unicorn.

What Marcolo said.

I practice the black art, as you call it, John, and I have way too much baking crap to use open shelves. It would just look like a messy pile of little cans and boxes all jumbled together.

If you must have shelves, then buy cabinet boxes with adjustable shelving so you can concede and put doors on them in 6 months when you're tired of looking at the mess.

I wonder if you'd accept something like a 15" tall wall cabinet with doors, then an 11" deep open shelf about 12-15" under it and maybe a 6" wide shelf under neath that - just enough to fit the Bialetti thing and other small things. Or just one shelf if your height or ceiling height don't permit the other.

The 15" tall cabinets are just big enough to have a single adjustable shelf inside and to put stuff on top if you'd like to.

ROTFL, KD!!!

I like B'more's plan. That would allow you to put all the big, not so messy looking things and the things you really want to grab quick on the shelves and still have doors to hide the clutter.

Thank you all for these thoughtful responses. I know it is a pretty busy time, what with our national gorge-o-thon about to start.

Lavender, the kitchen is not planned with any particular style. The uppers will mimic the house's original cabinetry, implying simple white-painted boxes with a specific crown trim. I will try to leave some blank space under picture rails, to permit a rotating display of appropriate pictures. Jimi smoking a cigarette for rockin' stirfry, Elizabeth Taylor aka rhome on baking days, Catherine Deneuve for langourous braises.

I got a "D" on buehl's test :-( Being OCD about knives and cookware but merely normal tidy about everything else doesn't get one too far on her brutal list of questions.

Even with my shameful grade, I think I can keep a row of retro Italian espresso gadgets looking elegant. Maybe some copper tins or lacquer boxes with tea, and a few silver teaspoons too. But I'm afraid - there's Fear returning - that big tubs of newt tails and boxes of unicorn kibble might be harder to prettify. I suppose I've been seduced by the images on the Cooking Channel, where Laura Calder pours stock and spoons flour from clear glass jars arranged just-so on her countertop. (She has a unicorn too.)

So I'm starting to drift in one of two directions.

First, the ''messes look better behind glass'' solution in histokitch's pantry. It is true, everything does look more organized behind glass, and if it doesn't, then easy enough to swap frosted panes for clear.

Second, the ''part open and part closed'' solution that bmo and others mentioned. That might work really well - the open shelf could be sort of a logical connection to the other upper that is all open shelving, while the doors on the rest could visually connect to the pantry cabinets.

Oh, I'm not real worried about earthquakes. We live in Portland OR now, so no more semi-regular tremblors. Just the overdue Big One, which will wipe out every homeowner in the city since no-one has earthquake insurance or seismic foundations.

Well, I started this inquiry feeling defiant

But I'm not giving in an inch to fear

and determined

I feel like letting my freak flag fly

Now, I may be feeling less freaky but more realistic,

And I'm not feeling up to par
It increases my paranoia
Like looking into a mirror and seeing a police car

Crosby Stills Nash & Young, ''Almost Cut My Hair''

When I look in the mirror, I now see a man with at least one upper door and no unicorn. Who needs a haircut.

Stir-frying -

{{!gwi}}

Braising -

Baking -

Cooking Thanksgiving in a small kitchen w/ three other people -

Can't get no satisfaction?

Hey, you, get off of my cloud?

Let it Bleed?

I love reading this thread and see histokitch's kitchen again. Even her before pics are nice, lol.

I love the line about all business and sleeves rolled up.

If you plan in advance, the shelves can serve their purpose in a kitchen alongside many hidden items as well. Even if I did an all open kitchen with open shelves on the lower part, I'd put curtains to hide some of it. No one is saying to have a naked kitchen, just a topless one, lol.

The Mick pic is ''Sympathy For The Devil'', most fitting I thought.

dianolo - No one is saying to have a naked kitchen, just a topless one, lol..

You mean like [image deleted] :-)

psst, john...
i can get you a unicorn...

I'm with marcolo. Too much crap. An open shelf with beautiful, perfectly matched, perfectly spaced, and constantly dusted serving pieces is display worthy, but pantry goods, pots, appliances, and little odds and ends hanging out is clutter. You can dress them up in fancy jars and organizers from the Container Store or Martha Stewart but it's still lipstick on a pig (my mom's way before Sarah P's)that makes a kitchen looks like a grocery store or kitchy old apothecary. I agree that anything looks better behind glass, but why show that stuff? An open shelf is better than a bank of cabinets without doors, because the latter looks like....well,.. cabinets with missing doors. And if you got a D on buehl's test don't even think of it!

I was very amused by this thread... thanks!

I'm beginning to think open shelves are just a ploy by John to scare would-be sous chefs, guests, and other various hangers-on out of his kitchen.

Great thread.

Take a careful look at Trailrunner's big kitchen. Open bottoms, visible pots. Open tops-white dishes. And she really cooks and bakes. I think you share kitchen sensibilities. You'd like to be gainfully employed in a restaurant kitchen, I think, and Trailrunner has helped her chef son and chef dil in their commercial restaurant.

I like the previously mentioned baskets containing little stuff-and just pull the basket forward.

For me personally, I am so clutter averse ( I live in a cluttered, tiny, warehouse)that I'd be happy if my cooking room could not be identified as a kitchen.

My recollection is a pic of Johnliu's family (wife's bday I think?) and his daughter holding a cat? Am I dreaming that? Anyway, I am surprised no one brought up the pet hair issue and open shelves. We with pets know that the hair is always floating around, sometimes it hovers in the air near the ceiling, eventually to float down ever so gently and settle somewhere...like in that lovely bowl on your open shelving. Perhaps it is even Great-Grandma's bowl, pulled out once a year ever so preciously by her daughter, your grandma. Don't get me started as to how I know this.

Due to other things getting in the way, we've had no doors on our uppers all summer.

And you know what? I love it! I love seeing the color of the different items, love seeing what I've got in stock. I don't see a mess at all!

However, DH does not feel the same way about it. He sees a mess, he hates it wand can't wait until the doors are on.

Maybe it's because it's my stuff, and I think the jumble is fine, but then I measure the fun I have in the kitchen by the size of the mess when I'm done.

I go up to his reloading room, and see the open shelves of all his junk - and I think it looks like a mess and should be behind doors, and he loves it and loves looking at his stock and what he has on hand. . .

John, we took the doors off one wall cabinet and love it. That's where the microwave, glasses, and cookbooks live -- all things we want to grab without bothering to open a door. Here, on the far right, above the ridiculously-placed tulips:

I do feel one has to have a relative perspective on these things. Most folks who dislike open cabinets do so because it looks cluttered/dirty/dusty in their eyes. But it really is practical for some purposes. In terms of dirt, I don't notice any more dust there than elsewhere in the kitchen. We store our glasses upside-down, as god intended, so there's no worry about open surfaces. And we have cats.

And there are always those neat-o stainless grid shelves, which would solve the dust issue.

When I think of you, Johnliu, I really don't think of furbelows and polished blank surfaces, of someone who's going to be running white gloves over shelves and tsk-tsking. No, I think of phrases like "sluicing down", "mise-en-scene" and "fortress of clattery, efficient solitude."

I think shelves would fit into your vision very well, if they're judiciously planned and used for just the right sort of at-hand storage.

We are installing one unit of open shelves adjacent to the dining room for everyday dishes. My idea was to have it kind of simulate a china cabinet/hutch sort of thing.

My cabinet maker made it 13' deep because he says dishes are bigger these days. My dishes are only 10 1/2' deep but I may need new ones as these are getting a little shabby to be exposed on a shelf.

It looks to me like the shelves protrude into the room too much and actually I don't mind if the dishes extend over the edge a bit anyway, I think.

In the picture, the open shelf unit is resting on a box as we were trying to decide what was the best height for it to be.

How deep is everybody making their open shelves?

Here is a link that might be useful: open shelving cabinet

I'm doing a mix of open and closed wall storage, mostly open. Most stuff will be stored in drawers. I think it will take a while to figure out what goes on the shelves and what does not, and it will change over time.

In the black art, er, baking area, there will be some open shelves with a lot of drawers underneath. In the prep area, I will keep some of my pans on the shelves, the rest of the pans and other stuff in drawers. I plan to keep every day dishes on shelves.

I also have an area where I am going to alternate horizontal wall cabinets with open space that I will use to store things.

I've had open shelves in the past (There was that entirely open plywood shelves and countertops + wedgwood range kitchen in grad school - extremely functional.) I like them a lot, especially with the flexibility to change my mind about what goes on them.