Kitchen Designs: Open Shelving

Whether you’re looking to do major or minor updates to your kitchen space, you may find yourself considering open shelving. Open shelving is growing in popularity in the interior design world, and for good reason. It’s clean, it’s stylish, it’s elegant, it’s casual. In other words: it compliments a variety of styles. Here’s the low down on open shelving for kitchen designs to help you decide if this style is right for you.

Open shelving in any kitchen designs can save thousands in remodeling costs, especially since you won’t need to purchase or install all those upper cabinets. However, just because you’ve saved money on the cabinetry, don’t skip on the support for your open shelving. After all, you don’t want your dishes to fall off or worse, rip a giant hole in the wall from excessive weight.

This aside, there are pros and cons to open shelving. Of course, reduced cost is one of the many benefits to open shelving. However, you will lose out on some storage; as shelves can only be so large and hold so many items. Furthermore, depending on your household, you may find that dust gathers quickly and often on your dishes, meaning you’ve got rinse everything, every time. On the other hand, open shelves are a key factor in many modern kitchen designs of today. They’re stylish and elegant, clean and casual, modern and up to date.

Keep in mind that with open shelving, you’ll likely want to invest in dishes that are more visually appealing rather than the mismatched set you might have currently. Furthermore, you’ll likely feel obligated to keep your shelves looking neat and clean. That means more time spent cleaning and organizing, then keeping up on that organization to ensure your open shelves stay visually stunning throughout the day.

In the end, you’ve got to weigh the pros and cons of this potential interior design idea before deciding if it’s right for you and your family. It may be enticing simply because it saves you money now and hey, who doesn’t like to save a small fortune when remodeling their kitchen? Of course, saving money shouldn’t be the deciding factor for whether you’re ready for open shelves with your kitchen space.

Ask yourself, will open shelving cause more stress in the long run than what it’s worth? Remember, open shelves may look pretty in kitchen designs in the magazines. However, that ‘pretty’ look takes work: cleaning, organizing and putting away the dishes in a visually appealing way. Do you have the time or energy to follow through with this on a regular basis?

Will open shelving make your space feel more elegant or will it make your future (or existing) kitchen design ideas look more cluttered? When it comes to the kitchen, interior design should also be functional, so keep this in mind. If your space will look more cluttered or chaotic, then open shelving might not be right for you.

Other questions to ask yourself include whether or not you actually like the look of the kitchen items you own (your dishes, your glasses and so forth). Are you already tight on space? If so, will shelves reduce or increase your storage? Is the price worth the stress that might be associated with organizing the dishes in a neat, orderly and visually appealing way?

Open shelving can be visually appealing, but it’s not for everyone. Be sure to weigh the pros and cons before you opt for this in your existing or future kitchen designs.