Sneaky little buggers always know when to run away from the suspicious human with an object in hand that captures their souls.

I do think that there are open-shelving people and closed-cabinet people. I am in the closed-cabinet camp, it's best for all concerned. But, as a suggestion, perhaps you could keep that one small area on the top shelf open as a sleep-cubby for the kitty. :)

My home is very cat-oriented. :) (Don't forget I'm the one with the motion sensor faucet in my MBR for kitty drinks.) I don't know if he could jump up there, though, if he weren't using the shelf below as a booster point. He's very fat and getting older. :)

I have a tansu setup in my MBR I'm going to make steps up to, so they can climb up to the ceiling. Other stuff. :)

Gotta run to work!

agree about the open shelving as my cats climb into any cabinet that has room as soon as the door opens! so when putting all the glasses away from the clean dishwasher, you have a cat blocking progress;) i like cats better than open shelving though so i can't complain

CEFreeman - i love the motion sensor idea! my cats would be in heaven. does it work really well?

Your wonderful beaded fronts beat that view any day, but that mess doesn't hold a candle to what lurks inside our uppers. I would take a picture, but if my wife caught me showing it here she would kill me. I have a plan, however; I'm not going to have many uppers when I redo the kitchen.

Cats love open shelves! I could never have them, mine would be up there knocking things off them all the time. Aside from the cats, I like my doors so I can close the mess off from view.

We are "in between" cats right now (I'm really surprised one hasn't fallen into our lives again already; they usually arrive with a big bill attached for necessary vet help.) But open shelving would not work for us anyway. Besides the fact our stored stuff wouldn't be pretty, it would also be dusty...big time dust down here in the windy desert. Open shelving is not in our future, unless it comes with free maid service.

I don't do a lot of entertaining, but I had someone over last night and actually set the table with placemats and cloth napkins. So upscale!! My guest was seated, and when I turned around with the wine and glasses, there was Zephyr sprawled across my placemat. First course? Tuxedo tartar.

Linelle that's funny.

Dawn - we have 2 cats and I would love to have a third and a fourth but I really don't want to be known as The Crazy Cat Lady of my street. Maybe in a couple of years. But your cats are so pretty.

Seven kitties and I would be in bliss.

Zephyr was particularly defiant last night. I went through the motions of going, "No Zephyr. Down!!!" and he would ignore me so I'd have to get up and toss him off the counter. Turned my back and he was on the counter again. He kept licking and nibbling my guest's arm in a rather embarrassing way.

LOL. If SOs only knew what was revealed online...

Since this thread is about open shelving, and cats' fondness for them, no one has talked about cat hair and open shelving. It is guaranteed that if you have pets and open shelving, you will pull that bowl or cup or glass from the open shelf, and there will be a pet hair in it. Me, I have pet hair all over the house, so I would just shrug and give a quick rinse. But my guests may not feel that way…so, closed cabinets for me. As to no upper cabinets at all, I need to have the storage space of upper cabinets. If I had a bigger kitchen, or a butler's pantry, I would go with no upper cabinets.

ak0402, you're very late to that party on that issue. :) But boy are you right.

This thread might not have mentioned it, but it's usually one of THE first issues brought up (usually by me -- along with baskets for storage -- ick) when someone asks the pros and cons of open shelving.

I'm a shrugger and a rinser, too. With 5 cats or more at any given time? I pick my battles. Sounds like you do, too.

By the time I actually allow guests in my house, the dishware has all been rinsed, counters sanitized, furniture lint-rolled, and litter boxes cleaned. Hmmm.... maybe that's one of the many reasons I don't have guests. Or open shelving.

Ours gets in the way too sometimes. I brought the hard top for the car indoors because of a leak at the top of the rear window and the cat decided to help fix it.

The trick is to keep your open shelves packed full so the cat has no space to land. This photo was taken on a messy kitchen day, usually looks neater but still with no open space. Give a cat an inch of space and she will sit in it.

Oh linelle, I burst out laughing. Isn't that always the way!? I had someone outside on the porch (notice the not-letting-anyone-in-the-stinky-house theme?) and after a quick walk to show her a plant, we turned back to see Waylon drinking her margarita out of her glass. Avoiding the salt.

adioron, in theory. If it's on already, i.e. triggered by me, yes. If he triggers it, it comes on so hard, in full force, it scares the poop outta him and all I have is softly falling clouds of fur. I want to find a faucet I can set to come on in a dribble.

Oh, Dawn_t! My Bentley wants to sit on the arm of a chair and lay his head on every one's shoulder. Kharma lies on their feet and turns her tummy up. I find it horribly rude if people don't pet Bentley's ears and rub Kharma's soft tummy. After all. They're making "love me, new friend!" overtures. Your brood is gorgeous!

I've figured out another benefit of inset cabinet doors. On a few where I actually have overlay doors, the cats jumping on top of the cabinets has let (years of) fur sift down onto the contents between the cabinet and door. On my inset cabinets, fur and dust do not blow sideways, so the contents remain cleaner. MUCH cleaner. Score point for inset doors! :)

I'd take as many cats as I could, but vet care and food are an issue. I'm staying at 5 right now unless there's a cat-astrophe and I must take in another. Like another 4-claw declaw being dumped in my yard in the middle of the night (Hank) or a post-delivery Kharma taking up residence on my porch. Hmmm... the beautiful Pits at Christmas did that, too. Must be something about the porch. But anyway. No more at the moment.

This is what happens when you leave a cabinet open in my house.....

michey2st, what a beauty! Looks like a dilute or a brill creme baby.
Just sitting there. Waiting for you to notice. How can a heart not melt?
You guys realize I'm getting nothing done before I go to work in 2 hours. I'd planned to build a countertop and here I am looking at kitty porn. Well, could be worse. Could BE porn AWK!

You guys are killing me with your cat stories. We are cat-less now for the foreseeable future as DH is allergic to cats. He loves them; we love them. But after 25 years (+) of cats and watching him sometimes have asthma attacks (although all the bedrooms were "cat-less"), we decided when our last cat Zen died 4 months after his sibling Zoe, that we would not get more.

Open shelving I love, but I don't have any. Z&Z were 14 when we remodeled the kitchen so they weren't too interested in jumping up and getting in there. But Zoe was always the more curious one:

Good point about the cat hair getting in bowls with open shelving. One of my cats does know how to open the cabinet doors anyway. Before we remodeled the kitchen, I walked in to find her sitting on the counter, opening the cabinet door, and to my utter shock, she reached in and pulled out a live mouse! Ugh! But she was doing her job and let us know it was time to set some traps. Since then, she has shown no interest in opening the cabinet doors, although we now have the soft close hinges, so maybe that makes it a bit harder to do than the old cabinet doors. I think if she felt there was something interesting enough in there, she could still do it though.