Decorating & Renovating
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Open shelving: another bad trend - thoughts?
I'm seeing so much open shelving in kitchens. I think this is going to be another trend that sticks around until people realize it's not very practical.
We have a portable island with open shelving. The stuff on those shelves gets loaded with dust and dog hair (we're talking after a week). Maybe it's better if the shelves are higher up? I just prefer to have my plates & glasses protected from everything flying around in the air. I think open shelves are especially impractical next to a range (think of the grease splatters!)
Do you agree? Does anyone have open shelving and love it?
Re: Open shelving: another bad trend - thoughts?
I don't have it, yet, but I really like the look. With two kids and a lot of meals at home, we cycle through our plates and cups a lot, so I can't imagine the regular items getting dusty, but even now my platters and other things I don't use often can get a little dusty.
Either way, I think it's practical if you want to display your dishes and use them also. I also like both the clean, organized look of simple displays and even the random clutter look of some open shelf displays.
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I love the look of the open shelving in JennaSue's kitchen:
I think it does a nice job of utilizing space that wasn't being used before and its being used for more decorative items than everyday items.
I totally agree with low open shelves being a trap for dust and pet hair and useful items on open shelving getting covered with nastiness. I think that they are becoming rather popular though.
I'm guessing the dog hair issue is probably better higher up, but I wouldn't want to have to dust around all my plates and glasses. Even if it's highly used, I bet the backs and corners of the shelves themselves get dusty. I can see why people like it though. It does really open up a kitchen and make it seem more airy and casual.
The main reason I wouldn't go with it is that at least half of my cabinet contents aren't nearly nice enough to put on display. I have one entire large upper cabinet of water bottles, coffee mugs, random tupperware, and other assorted plasticware that would look terrible out on an open shelf. We have two glass upper cabinets that have our dishes and glasses, so those look pretty. The rest...not so much
This. Entirely fine for the pretty stuff.
Not so fine for the stuff that use daily. It may get rotated through so it never gets slimy but who has time to keep it organized enough for public display? It goes messy fast IMO.
ITA
As someone who works in the disaster preparedness field I think this trend is horrible for anyone that lives in an earthquake prone area.
It looks pretty though.
DH and I have improvised with our kitchen that has zero cabinet space. We sanded and painted an old bookshelf to serve as open shelving to help house items we didn't have cabinet space for. It gets cluttered and looks messy FAST.
I absolutely LOVE the picture above and see how it suits that purpose...but not for tons and tons of kitchen stuff.
I drive myself crazy trying to keep everything neat in the shelves we use. I'm not one for trashing my current set of mismatched mixing bowls, pots/pans etc...so i also feel you have to have matchy/matchy or color coordinated stuff to really pull it off OR use it primarily for decor items like pp's mentioned.
I guess I'm in the minority here.
Before we bought our house we had lived in a 150 year old house that didn't have upper cabinets in the kitchen at all, just shelves. We used the shelves for our everyday things, cups, bowls, plates, etc.
Since we used those things nearly everyday, I never had any issues with thing getting dusty/dirty AND we had a dog.
If anything, I loved the open shelving because it kept me accountable for keeping my dishes organized. It was just seemed really convienent, although I couldn't tell you why.
If I had my choice, I'd have open shelving in my current kitchen. The configuration of it doesn't work for it, unfortunately.
That could be why I find open shelving so unappealing to have in my own home...earthquake safety is so ingrained that I think my subconcious automatically rules out unsafe things like that.lol
I do think it looks pretty, but honestly, the main reason that I don't want it is because it would bother me if it was not well designed display and I don't want to work that hard at keeping it clean and organized all the time.
Hehe, another strike against. I didn't even think of this.
I too think it's fine for deocrative display - much like a kitchen hutch. And cookbooks too (not mine though, they're all dog-earred, w/other recipes sticking out haphazardly).
Thanks for weighing in. Incidentally, I was thinking about this after reading the apartment therapy blog posts on trends.
Yes exactly. Even if it was stuff I was rotating through on a regular basis I would still have to take everything off the shelves to clean around them. To me kitchens should be the cleanest area of the house since food is prepared there. The stuff on my LR bookshelf gets dusted but it's not as critical. In the kitchen there are small grease particles in the air (especially if they are around the hood like YHL's) plus the dust which will collect on the shelves themselves. No thank you I don't need another place to clean.
I like the idea of them and think they look amazing in other people's homes, but not in mine. Way too much upkeep!
We don't have open shelving. However, I think there's something wrong with our kitchen, because the dishes in our cabinets get dusty if they're not used daily. So if I was redoing our kitchen, I wouldn't be opposed to open shelving. Rinsing things out every now and then wouldn't be that different from what I do now.
Organization-wise, I can't imagine it being that bad for us. However, I tend to be a minimalist with kitchen items. Everything's white or clear glass. And what few small kitchen appliances and baking items we have fit in two bottom cabinets. But I can see how it would be different if we had more stuff.
I hate the look of open shelves. to me it equals clutter + dust.
haaaate it ;-P
Terrible idea. I don't have anything in my kitchen other than spoons that we cycle through in a week.
I had pots on an open shelf in my apartment due to complete lack of space and the dust was out of control--no pets.
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I swear, my dogs are little and their hair just flies around - I'm always amazed at how high it reaches!
You know how they say to not store toothbrushes in the bathroom near your toilet because flushing causes teensy germs to go flying through the air? I can totally see cooking/food/cleaning is the same way. I may not SEE the food particles, grease, dish soap, raw chicken bits flying around but my head tells me it happens.
And I don't want my dishes out and exposed to that grossness. Just in case it's true
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I was showing my mom Jenna Sue's blog the other day (love it!) and she noticed the open shelving in the kitchen and I told her it was a big trend now and she laughed. I guess years ago when she was growing up it was trendy then too! It's funny how things come back in style.
For me, I prefer cabinets just for the dust/organization factor. They would get cluttered too fast.
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I put open shelves in our old house 5 years ago and I loved them. I still had cabinets, but I used the open shelving for everyday dishes and classes. The turnaround was so often that we did not have a problem.
I have put them in my current home on a chalkboard wall and use it for cookbooks, platters, and other odds and ends that I rotate.
I disagree about clutter. I can't stand clutter and by having dishes on display, it actually cuts the clutter. There is no place for mismatched dishes , coffee mugs or plastic souvenir cups! Now that i have cabinets I keep finding more of these pieces creeping in.
Open shelving looks lovely, in carefully controlled situations. That is, you use only nice decorative things, it's not cluttered, and you clean the items of dust and grime periodically.
But because of this it's completely impractical. Basically it's not storage. It's an updated version of a curio cabinet or a china hutch. It should never be considered storage or a replacement of actual cupboards.