Discuss wall cabinets vs. open shelves or rails on IKEAFANS.com. We're Personalizing the IKEA Experience. wall cabinets vs. open shelves or rails - Need help with planning your remodel? Want a kitchen planner to review your ideas? This is the happenin' spot!.
Well, we finally started demo of our old kitchen (fun!) and after tearing down the wall cabinets above the sink and dishwasher, we both sort of stopped and said "wow, the room looks sooo much bigger without a cabinet up there.!" So, my question is, will we regret it if we forefo wall cabs in that space and go with any of the following options du jour--bygel ss rails or shelves, a pot rack hung from the ceiling, cool pendant lights or a budget busting backsplash??
This is the smaller wall in my not too big galley kitchen, w/ the range, d/w and sink on the bottom
The space is 48 inches wide, tall enough for 39"h cabinets with a soffit above, so I'd be giving up a lot of storage. The longer wall opposite has the fridge and and a long run of base and wal cabinets extending into the dining area. It's an open floor plan, so that less boxed in feeling makes a big impact. Still, I'm stuck on the idea of giving up 48 inches of cabinet.
I don't think you're going to find it looks more open with open shelving, unless you carefully restrict what will be displayed ON those shelves. I find a row of closed cabinets looks less busy and more controlled than a bunch of stacks of dishes, cups and bowls! So I would recommend going for the cabinets, with the glass doors if possible.
Do you have sufficient storage on the other wall? Have you planned out what will be in each cabinet? (Don't worry if you haven't, I can never wrap my head around those exercises, but some people insist it's the only way to ensure that your cabinets are laid out correctly and that you have enough space for everything.) Personally, I'd drop the cabinets if you don't need the space for storage--it would feel a lot less claustrophobic to me.
Ditto what eva said re: open shelving...only if you're planning on using it for tidy storage, or static display. Otherwise, it will end up feeling more cluttered, busy and full. I do like open shelving, though -- I think it can look really sharp, and mixes well with many different styles.
What's your most recent plan look like? The one you based your cabinet order on, that is...
Susan
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nyc_home, my plans call for 2 different styles of open shelves:
LACK for storage of very cool silver or white serving pieces. Big, chunky, oversized. I think this is "static display"
and heavy duty working GRUNDTALs as wall-mounted pot racks. The Grundtals will have all my pots, some hanging frying pans (on the hooks), some multi-pot lids on their sides resting in the rails and measuring cups, etc. Artfully cluttered is my plan. I bought almost all new pots for the main event.
But, in the alternative, I don't actually *need* to store anything on the shelves at all. So if it gets to be too much, I can use my traditional storage and tone the zones down a bit.
I wish I could do the pictures for you, but alas, still waiting to grout the chase so I don't want to put up the GRUNDTALs. And I don't want to put out my much loved chunky dishes while the Patina Bringers are still wandering through.
Thanks, as always you three for great advice. Yes, planning each cabinets use would make sense,wouldn't it? Even without the cabinets over the sink, it'll be a lot more storage. But I have such an ingrained apartment living maximize your storage ethic, that part of me wants to put a cabinet anywhere I can fit one.
G of D, I'll get a picture from the planner up soon. Basically, we kept all the cabinets on the long wall 30", mounted at the same height and will use double sets of 15"h doors on each. We'll leave the doors of the bottom half on one cabinet for display. Rushing to order during the sale meant that we got to add lots more drawers in the base cabinets and stay within our budget!
Eva, I think you're right about too many open shelves looking cluttered. Lisa, can't wait to hear how you like the grundtal.
Ta-da! Here are two views. We actually havent ordered the two over the sink and dishwasher yet--those are the one's in question. So its sitll a question of more storage vs. less claustrophobia!
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