Inspiration for open shelving in the kitchen

If you value practicality and like to have everything close at hand, kitchen shelves are just the thing for you. They will look light and inviting in a Provence, French or country-style interior. A standard kitchen certainly has its merits, but shelves can make a room feel spacious and full of character.

A budget kitchen

Short of money? Then kitchen shelves will come in handy. Get some simple ones and a suitable type of connecting brackets or wall fixings, and then all you have to do is screw them in. And you’re done. The kitchen will look visually larger and more airy.

You can put anything on open shelves. Don’t be afraid to be creative!

The big drawback of open shelves is that you need to dust them more often, not only the shelves themselves but also the crockery on display. In the kitchen in particular, the dust can be very greasy. This drawback is easy to deal with too. If you decide on them, be sure to place them away from the hob and keep mainly the crockery you use every day on them. Dust will not have time to settle on it. Even so, you really cannot avoid wiping dirt off the shelves themselves from time to time.

Combine and decorate

Open shelves combined with standard cabinets also look elegant. The cabinets can, for example, be finished with shelves at the sides, or the shelves can be placed between the cabinets. This solution can sometimes be ideal, letting you combine the pleasant with the practical. In this open space you can then place, for example, distinctive decorative items inherited from your grandmother, or again, crockery you use often.

Decoration

To keep the kitchen and walls from looking cluttered, it is better not to fill the shelves with lots of small, mismatched items. It looks nicer and is more practical to display larger pieces, or to use attractive jars or boxes to store small items in.

Don’t be afraid to place flowerpots with houseplants or herbs , or a framed picture, among the crockery and other essentials on the shelves. All of this will give the kitchen flair and a soul of its own.

If you like the open-shelf style and want to use it to replace, say, all your wall cabinets, try to put only the items you use in the kitchen every day on the shelves, so they do not have time to gather dust. For easier upkeep, you can get small boxes or lidded baskets for smaller items, where dust cannot get in. In a kitchen like this, you can also cook zero-waste recipes.