Take off all the glass doors and see how you feel about the open shelf look there. Yes, the doors help keep dust down, but it likely will look more open without them.

Thank you for the suggestion. I should have mentioned that he shelves inside the case are glass so if we take the doors off i think we would need to replace the shrevles too. Is is as simple as that?

When you say remodeling, does that include changing the carpet out for some thing else?

@AiFL - Yes the carpet will be replaced with LVT. Would we be able to remove the middle doors, then replace those shelves with typical bookcase shelves and paint the entire thing white?

@HU-375754950 - You definitely can remove the middle doors + replace the glass shelves with "typical" bookcase shelves + paint the entire piece white. You will have some holes to fill (an then sand) related to the hinges that will no longer be needed for the doors.

The other issue depends upon whether you like painted cabinets where you can see the wood grain vs. the built-in having a smooth painted surface. The oak grain will need to be filled in order to achieve a smooth finish.

I'm not sure if you are painting this or if you are hiring someone to do it. If it is a DIY project, you need to make sure that you do all the needed prep work + use the right type of finishing product (not a paint that a regular retail customer just walks in and buys at SW in order to make it look nice. I

The top glass cabinets appear to have wood shelves installed already. You can make the new shelves (or have made if you don't have the skills to make them yourself - although, they are pretty easy to make). Just have the front edge trim match the thickness of the shelves in the top glass cabinets.

Luckily, you have decided to paint the built-in - so, you don't have to try to match the stain color of the shelves installed in the upper glass cabinets.

I can't tell for sure - but it looks like the glass shelves are fixed vs. adjustable - is that correct? If they are fixed, you could make the new ones adjustable if you want.

Kreg makes a shelf pin jig that you can use to make the adjustable holes. It might be nice to be able to change the heights of some of the shelves - unless you know exactly what you are going to store in there and prefer the shelves to all be spaced exactly the same. The jig works well.

Thank you so much for you comment. This is very helpful. The glass shelves are adjustable. And we are having this done by the contractor doing the basement, although it seems like it would be a fun DIY project. I plan to tell them to do the prep-work including sanding, wood filler, etc. Would you leave the doors on the top cabinets?

@Dan's advice is excellent. If the finish on the inside of the doors is the same as on the outside, I'd have your contractor make a sample test so you can see what the final product will look like, if they are using filler on the grain did it disappear as you'd like it to.

There are SO MANY cool updates that you could do to these built-ins!

I am trying to find a couple photos - but it's getting late for me because I didn't sleep last night. However, here are some ideas - you could combine elements from different photos.

Instead of taking all of the doors off of a row - you could do it more like this:

You could sand the back and shelves and paint only part of it. Sanding it would lighten the oak up - there are ways to make it look more like white oak (I can share later):

Here is a before photo of old bookcase:

here is the after (the oak looks lighter just after sanding and adding a new clear finish):

You could take off the top glass doors and replace with some type of storage basket (or do them on the bottom).

Instead of painting the entire built in white - you could do a pop of color (or wallpaper) on the back (you can do it in a way that makes it easy to change the color/wallpaper also - you add a false back instead of putting paint/wallpaper on the actual cabinet):

Another one with leaving some stained wood (could use a gel stain to make it easy)

Dark and dramatic:

You could take off the top glass doors and add arches instead (not difficult):

You could replace doors with rattan ones - this one they added rattan on the back also - I don't think that I would. You can also put rattan on the glass doors + remove the lower ones and replace with baskets.

I'll find the other photos and post tomorrow!