Visually, I think that would work.

I would invest in a very good/efficient hood fan though.

And, hopefully, your stove isn't directly under the shelves.

We have some open shelving that were are replacing with cabinets. Everything on the shelf gets very dusty and dingy. Also my shelves are hideous!

But I think open shelving can be absolutely beautiful though. As raehelen pointed out, it helps to have a good hood fan (I currently do not). I also have kids running in and out all day bringing in dust and rattling all the china.

I am linking a Kitchens Forum thread with extensive discussion of open shelving in a kitchen which you might find interesting. Although you are only talking about 3 open shelves, and the linked thread is discussing open shelving on a larger scale.

Here is a link that might be useful: Thread about Open Shelving

So you like dusting? If so, then you'll be in heaven.

Also, the strong horizontal lines of the open shelving will actually make the space seen longer rather than wider and more open. Having upper cabinets with vertical lines and maybe some glass (ribbed glass to accent the vertical) will help where the shelving will not. And it'll keep those dishes from having to be hosed off before you use them.

I had open shelves in our temporary quarters while we were building. The kitchen was small so everything was close to the stove and it was, to use a 'technical term', yucky. I now have a great hood, but based on what gathers on the exterior of the hood, I'm thinking the cabinets in close proximity are probably getting just enough grease so that if they were open, the dust would get grimy and I think they'd be a mess.

I have my cups and glassware, and some serveware in open shelves right now...far away from the stove or any food. The shelves still get a bit grungy after awhile, requiring a complete emptying and scrub down. The things we have in there get used frequently enough that I don't have to dust or wash them especially. If you store things you'll use more rarely, expect to have to wash them when you want to use them, and/or to keep things looking nice and clean in your kitchen.

I do think it's a cool look, but I'm not a fan for practicality's sake. I know there are people, like Trailrunner, who love their open shelves.

I like the open shelving look. I thinnk it looks both airy and traditional. But I myself would never do it because I have pets. The pet hair floats upward and would land on and in the shelves and the plates and the cups and the glasses. I could see myself serving a guest a cup of coffee without having first rinsed out the cup that had been stored on the open shelf, and finding a pet hair floating on top of the coffee. Sorry to be gross, but if you have pets, you need to think about that when deciding on open shelves.

I too, love the look of open shelves. Do not get if you live in a new construction area, have pets, or in my case...flies.
A dairy farm is less than a mile from us and flies are known to wander in.

If you are super-freak-tidy, open shelves are beautiful!

rhome is right that I love mine. I have had them 2 yrs now and wouldn't go back to all closed cupboards. To each his own . You have to look at your set of circumstances and then decide , as others pointed out.

I take exception to the remark that the area is so dusty that the items stored need to be "hosed off". Sorry that is just not so. As I said, it depends on each home situation. I have an exceptional hood and there is no grease or residue at all on the outside of my hood or anywhere on surrounding areas. c

1. Dust catchers
2. Strongly not recommended in earthquake country!!!

I love mine too. Two years now and no problems. really open up the kitchen. Mine are on the range wall and I have pets. I'm also a neatnik and do dust them on a regular basis, but big deal. It takes two seconds, and as long as you keep stuff on them you use on a regular basis, you shouldn't have problems with long term dust accumulation. A good hood is key, especially if like me, the shelves are near the stove or you have a small kitchen.

I agree with above remark however about the horizontality (is that a word?) of the shelves. That's not necessarily a bad thing though, to make the space feel longer. Just depends.

Caroline, was it something I said that you took exception to? I was referring to my personal past experience and current situation...not saying what it might be like at your house, other than I know you love yours so they do work for someone...just not us.

I have to say that I don't find pet hair in mine, even with 2 dogs (a Lab and a Lab-Shepherd mix, who drop hair like crazy), and 3 cats. When I had a lower shelf that was open, now that one definitely gathered pet hair...But not the uppers.

For me, open shelving would not work for the reasons mentioned above...in particular the cleaning! I hate (loathe?) cleaning...I'd much rather be playing w/the kids, reading a good book, surfing GW, or just about anything else besides cleaning!!! I want to take out dishes or glasses and not worry about whether they're dusty or have grease on them.

As Live_Wire_Oak mentioned, I think glass-doored cabinets would work much better than open shelves. You get the advantages of open shelving (open feeling, show off your nice dishes, see what's where) as well as the advantages of cabinets (dishes protected from dust, grease, etc.). Yes, you'll still have to open a cabinet door...but is that really a trying task? And, wouldn't having to check & dust dishes & glasses before using them be more work than opening a door?

Some houses are either naturally dust-free, not open to the outside much, have few people in them regularly, or they have just enough dishes/glasses/pots/pans for one day's use and therefore they're used & washed every day so there's little time for dust to accumulate. (Although, if you talk to people w/dark polished countertops they'll tell you there's enough dust in much less than a day to accumulate!)

To help with the open feeling, have glass shelves & in-cabinet lights in the glass-doored cabinets.

HTH!

EKS,
Look at pictures, look at the dirt situation in your house.

I took the doors off most of the cabinets in my kitchen over 4 years ago, and my shelves stay very clean. Even decorative bowls I don't touch for years I take down and they don't look visibly dirty.

(Now don't everyone get huffy: this isn't saying "you dirty people have a dirty house and I don't." Not one bit. You all clean MUCH more than I do. I think it's all kind of intangible things: where I live, what kind of heating system, the materials used to build my house, the environment outside etc. Things I take no credit for.)

I love my open shelves. I wouldn't go back. I am having them put up in my soon to be started (finally) kitchen. It is so nice having ever thing out there, where you can grab it with one hand.

They can match the cabinets, they can match the wall color, they can match the woodwork color -- they can be stainless or wood -- there are a ton of ways and styles to do it, modern, simple and planky, Edwardian pantry, pole braced, bracketed -- you get the idea.

And I think being color coordinated is overrated.

Have fun!

Oh rhome...NO ! Not you...you didn't say anything about "hosing off " :)

Pirula and Growlery said it very well . c

It sounds great as you plan. I've had open shelves, and as Growlery, and others, say, and as you obviously already have figured, situation, design, and use make a big difference in how well they work. Dry climates are much more dusty than temperate ones--my open shelves in California needed frequent dusting. In any climate, people who keep their windows sealed and filter their air will have much less dust than people like me who throw all their windows open at first opportunity. In our urban California neighborhood, though, if a fly came in I opened the doors so it could find its way out.

Simple sculptural shelves (as little dust-catching detail on all exposed surfaces as possible) mostly nicely within reach are very, very easy to clean. When, as you plan, they hold only items that are used regularly, with maybe just a few items mainly for decoration (that can be tossed in the dishwasher, even!), you're home free.

It's the walls you'll be scrubbing down more frequently than the outer surfaces of wood cabinets that tend to hide all that greasy dirt. But having been there, I can say this type of open storage is actually more cleanable over the long term than cabinets as it lacks all those many surfaces and corners and hard-to-reach places (as well as top shelves full of unused stuff to take out and maybe clean first).

I wrapped windows from one end of my work counter to the other in this kitchen, so no place for even the shortest shelf, but if I didn't do that it would have been a few open shelves all over again, even with my main work space on an island.

my kitchen is 9x14 , and except for the base cabs I have open shelves. I would have open base shelves if I would have had money to do it. I love to know what food is on the shelves and it makes me keep things much neater. I am not a neat freak , the dust isnot bad, maybe cause I try to rotate my dishs and stuff.

I have closed cabinets on two walls and open shelves on a third wall. I love the look and in my house they are not hard to keep clean even though I have horses ,dogs, cats and kids to make dust or mud bunnies depending on the time of year. My big problem with them is they don,t provide the storage I had hoped for. To many things just don,t look like they should be on display without looking cluttered so I ended up with just my pans and wicker baskets up there.So if you will really be needing them for storage there probly not the best way to go. I just stuffed everything I want hid in the pantry or my uppers on the other walls

We (like madeyna) have both. We have open shelves on 2 walls and uppers arranged as part of a butlers pantry that leads into the dining room.

The open shelves added a lot of visual space to our L-shaped (and formerly cramped) kitchen. It also helped us brighten up the kitchen which had been the darkest room in the house.

Use to lots of upper cabinets of the old kitchen, we have had to get use to the open shelves. But, if we stop learning new tricks, hey, we may start growing old.

trailrunner, your kitchen is the first that came to mind when I saw this post. It's a great example of open shelving done well and in a kitchen that really gets used.

Personally, I would never have open shelving. I don't even want glass doors in my kitchen. It's not necessarily because of the dirt/grease/cleaning factor (though that is a part of it) but more because I know that look is not right for me. I've been living with de facto open shelving for almost a year now and I can't wait until the doors finally go up.

thank you pbrisjar: you are very kind. The OP hasn't been back...hope they check back in to hear the pros and cons. Knowing what look is right for each person is the key. You hit it perfectly.

As far as storage,madeyna said it didn't provide much. I have all of our everyday dishes, glasses and serving dishes there and use them nightly. It provides tons of storage for us.

I'm with tarstl also as far as lightening the space since our 1890 kitchen is in the center of the house and needed the breaking up of the large expanse of wall and color.

Again thank you....c

I'm all about open shelving.
The trick is to use them for everyday things and then nothing ever sits long enough to get dusty. Its very modern and old world at the same time. McNallys kitchen at home has open shelving, and he is a hipster restaurant design genius.
I think trailrunner and I have a similar aesthetic. It just might not be clean looking for some, and that is totally understandable. I am using Toledo Industrial stools for my counter,and honed marble on my tops, so I am going for patina everywhere.
I am hoping for Christmas pics.

Jenna my whole reno was all about patina and salvage. Where did you find the stools? I was born near Toledo and would love to have 2 of them . I searched but didn't find.

BTW the McNally kitchen was my inspiration....c

I considered open shelves, too, but saw another option I liked in a magazine: I cut off the bottom third of a few of the cabinet doors. (This is a DIY, minor remodel on an outdated kitchen) Now we can easily access the glasses, plates and bowls we use daily--and I love the way it looks!

I also have open shelving for our daily items and they stay just fine but a bowl that has not been used in a month or two might have some dust.. I just wipe it out and go on.. no one ever died from dust that I know of :)

maddiemom6

I had them over a peninsula in a 1930 lake house we bought and mini-remodeled in 1976. I loved the look and how they opened up the kitchen to the lake view . . . but I'm one of those people who found them really hard to keep clean. Granted, the house wasn't air conditioned, so we opened windows, and it had hot water heat in old iron radiators, so no furnace filter . . . but, boy, was I glad when we did a major kitchen re-do and got rid of them.

Loved the look; hated the upkeep.

So happy to see you back around here, Maddiemom6! I was just recently wondering what had happened to you and how your kitchen, your kiddos, and your hubby are doing.

Sorry to get off track.

Like Tami, I took the doors off of one wall cab to expose three open shelves that work great: on bottom sits the microwave, in the middle all of our daily glassware (no dust since we store our glasses upside down), top is cookbooks. Works splendidly and really lightens up that wall. It works so well that I'm planning on installing more open shelving as I go along in my remodel.

Quite honestly, I've never liked the look of the American built-up kitchen with marching closed-off cabinetry that matches top and bottom, so this works aesthetically as well as functionally for us in our 1920's bungalow kitchen. Thumbs up!

We have open shelves until our kitchen is put in, I love them and am now trying to incorporate them in my kitchen design. It is cutting down the cost of the cabinets and the KD says I can add cabinets later if I don't like the shelves.
One thing I've found is finding a designer that designs using open shelving, they want to put in cabinets without doors which is not the look I want.

Can you folks with open shelving post pics or point me to your albums?
Katy

Katybuggs - if you go to my post above (Dec. 2), I have linked a thread which contains a number of pics, both in that thread and linked. Starwitness' pic is, IMHO, the one that is the most "to die for". Still, I myself wouldn't have open shelves. I can barely keep up with the cleaning I have now, and can't spare even another 5 minutes for cleaning LOL.

If nobody has linked it yet, here's a great article by Starcraft Custom Builders about designing a kitchen using no upper cabinets:

Off the Wall Kitchens: Living Without Wall Cabinets

circuspeanut, great article on small kitchens and kitchen storage, thanks for posting! I think I'll start a new thread on this, there must be people here with great ideas for small spaces

This looked on-topic.

Here is a link that might be useful: from the kitchn at apartment therapy