I think since having upper cabinets is so practical it will never go out and many people will still prefer them to open shelving.

Ah, but how many (non-commercial) kitchens have you personally been in that actually had open shelves vs. uppers? For me, that would be none. The magazines may feature it, but not so many people actually do it. On a practical level, why would I want to put this on display?

And the dishes went in the drawer opposite the DW. Very practical.

I didn't even know that upper cabinets had gone OUT of fashion, so I'm even more surprised to hear that they might be making a comeback. I'm so out of the loop.

What annkh said. Also, stuff in the kitchen gets dusty and somewhat greasy over time, despite the hood. I'd rather clean off the outside of the cabs than all the items on the shelves. Open shelves for me come under the heading of "things I like in other people's kitchens."

I didn't want many uppers, but I didn't sub in open shelving. I have two cats who would think it was super fun to watch everything on those shelves crash to the ground. I just put giant windows in my kitchen with very few uppers. My kitchen is large though (19 x 15), I have base cabinets in our regular pantry, and we have a butler's pantry, so I don't have a lack of storage. If we do end up with children later I can put my pretty stuff in the butler's pantry and fill up a drawer in the kitchen with their paraphernalia.

Ditto what others said. Uppers will always be there as most kitchens are not big enough to have the luxury of completely avoiding them. Also I completely don't get open shelves next to the cooktop.. How can you avoid things getting greasy and sticky. One open kitchen I saw over the weekend had "display cookware" on the open shelves on the range walls and under the lights you could see the glossy grease and a thin layer of dust.

I love the look of open shelving but who in the world are the people that are neat enough to really want all their goodies on display? In my kitchen I have two drawers filled to tipping with who knows what? I call one the Bermuda Triangle, as anything that goes in may never show up again and the other one is called Never, Ever Land because when you are looking for something you can never, ever find it! Though my beautiful rose chintz plates would look quite lovely on open shelving it would drive my cleaning lady nutso keeping it all tidy and clean. The biggest complaint in my kitchen is the lack of adequate upper cabinets. I have 96 inches of window above my sink and though it is quite a lovely view I would trade some of those inches for more upper cabs!

Yep, what they said! It looks pretty in a photograph or on tv, but isn't really practical. Dust, cats, etc would really not go well with lots of open shelves. One or two is fine.

Well, I may be one of the lone open-shelf people responding here, but it's too early to tell how they'll work for me. I'm planning on putting all the stuff I use every night in dinner prep on the lower shelves -- mixing bowls, prep bowls, mortar and pestle, measuring cups -- and then some vaguely decorative stuff on the top shelf. I know the decorative stuff will get dusty, so I'm planning on trying to clean it once a month or so. The dinner prep stuff will get used every day, so I don't think that will be hard to keep clean. As for whether I can keep it looking good, well, we'll see.

Having said that, I wouldn't have wanted shelves when I was younger. When we were raising kids, there was a lot more plastic stuff in the kitchen, and a lot less time to devote to keeping things organized. That's a "luxury" I've only lately come to.

I have one wall of closed uppers and one wall of glass and open cupboards. I didn't have the space to go without any uppers. If I had more room for drawers I would have.
justmakeit---you'll find the open cupboard very handy. I keep all my dry food in mason jars and it really simplifies stocking up. If I had a butler's pantry then I would use that too, but I would always have at least one open cupboard in the kitchen. My soapstone dealer commented on how neat everything was. I was so surprised when he said that. :)
Sometimes we all keep too much "stuff".

When we removed the cabinets separating the family room from the kitchen, we replaced them with 2 long shelves. I bought lovely new canisters for all my flour and things and used the top shelf to display my cool coffee stuff.

In planning for the remodel, my husband wanted the cabinet along the window wall back. I was heartbroken at first, because I loved the shelves and how awesome they looked. Until I took the top shelf things down. Yuck! Dust and really fine spider webs. Apparently, if I can't really see it that well, I don't clean it that well!

I don't think I know anyone who has open shelving or whose house looks like what's being done in the magazine or tv marketing "ads". Gardenweb seems to be its own little island.

This post was edited by snookums2 on Tue, Apr 2, 13 at 17:38

I love my open shelving. I am not that neat but I keep my white everyday dishes on them stacked up, hard to get messy. They do not get dusty because they are washed so often. I love not having to open a drawer or door to get out a plate for lunch or dinner or bowl for cereal. It is easy to put away too as it is close to the dishwasher and I do not have to open multiple doors to put them away.

We put open shelves in our kitchen and I love them. However, I think they fit with our home and I personally prefer them to upper cabinets. But if uppers work in your kitchen and you want them, by all means put them in. Most people probably expect them...the few who like open shelving can always remove the cabinets. Much less expensive than putting them in. On the flip side, if you prefer open shelves, I wouldn't think that would really stop someone from buying your house...it wouldn't be a huge expense to add in a few cabinets.

We did a 'middle of the road' sort of approach with 2 of our sets of upper cabinets done in all glass with glass shelves. So they're 'open' but not.

Beautiful Tim. Exactly what I was going to say. Mostly closed uppers (I don't care for open shelves except maybe one for vertical storage of the NICE dishes)/

Diffused glass at the least. My wife is like the same as mentioned above "No way do I want anyone comeing here and seeing my crappy dishes"

One must only look east to the trendsetters to see the future. Not only are upper cabinets gone, but so are the lower ones. Future kitchens are changing quite dramatically.

"Not only are upper cabinets gone, but so are the lower ones."

So what are we going to use for storage?

Question: "So what are we going to use for storage?"

Answer: -Butler Pantry

oceangirl67 takes a break from the appliance forum to try to stir up some reactions on this forum.... happens monthly or so. It doesn't appear to be maturing or going away; it's probably best to ignore.

I'm not sure if the trend is coming or going, but I think the decision ought to be made based on the needs of the kitchen rather than trends. In small kitchens there is often no choice - if you need the storage, you need the storage.

My last two kitchens haven't had uppers (so the last 9 years) - I prefer the look without uppers, but I have/had sufficient storage in drawers to not need the uppers.

One or two shelves is not a hardship re: dust and grease, particularly if you store regularly used items on the shelves. In my last kitchen I had two open shelves with crystal wine glasses. We didn't use them often enough and they were covered in dust. On my current open shelves I just have frequently used items - everything probably gets used every 48 hours or so. So no problem.

My favourite look is no uppers, no shelves, just windows, tile or art. But again, not every kitchen could support that. But it is so clean and light.

So often upper cabinets (even white ones) are just so heavy, they can make an otherwise lovely kitchen seem uncomfortably closed in. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing, including lovely cabinets.

This post was edited by sochi on Tue, Apr 2, 13 at 20:37

sochi : " So often upper cabinets (even white ones) are just so heavy, they can make an otherwise lovely kitchen seem uncomfortably closed in. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing, including lovely cabinets."

yes !!
If I ever have more room...plain english kitchen

We have a mix, with open shelves on one wall partly for aesthetics (old upper there was looming and I hit my head on it many times!) and partly for cost (figured we could always add it later if need be). We are not neat and have no issue with our open shelves being home to lots of things that get used every day but aren't pretty--top shelf is radio and assorted pitchers and carafes; lower shelf is mugs, coffee supplies, tea, and cocoa. We haven't gotten the last set of shelves up yet but they will have oils and vinegars on them that we use daily (others live in pantry). I'd have no objection to uppers, but also wouldn't trade some of the other things we were able to have because we skipped them (and love the openness!) We've had them for two years with no problems, but we also keep sippy cups in a drawer. :)

We recently removed two upper doors to expose our everyday dishes. I can always replace the doors if it doesn't work out...

This post was edited by ctycdm on Wed, Apr 3, 13 at 15:36

One must only look east to the trendsetters to see the future.

East of here is Arizona. Hey, you folks in Arizona! What's going on in your kitchens that I don't know about and should?

Interesting. This reminds me of a comment Beagles once made. She has a large glass display cabinet for her china in the kitchen. She likes how it looks displayed but also likes to use it. When in use, the cabinets are empty and then look empty/undecorated. I think she was planning on getting more of the same pattern and storing it elsewhere. (Beagles - are you there? How goes the Florida kitchen?)

It doesn't matter if shelves are in style and whether they stay or go. Open shelving for dishes is not something we will ever have in our kitchen.

We live in the country, on a farm with cows, plus chicken growing and laying houses nearby (think thousand's of chickens), so we have lots of flies from March - November. There is no way I'd have open shelving because we'd have to wash all our dishes every time we used them.

I really love the look, just not practical for our lifestyle.

I look at open shelves in two ways:

1 - Cat gymnasiums.

2 - Grease and dust collectors.

I dislike having to wash the dishes before I can set the table.

I'm solidly on the side of those who say, "How impractical". No matter how large or small your kitchen, you need some upper storage for glassware and so forth.

I don't like this look on any level, and I can't believe it's all that big a trend in real life.

It seems there are two separate issues in play.

(1) Are upper cabinets necessary again (where there were no cabinets for a while)?

It totally depends on the size and layout of the kitchen. I was able to do away with uppers because I had lots of room on the bottom and used a lot of drawers. All the tupperware, etc. is in drawers, as are glasses, spices, plates . . . But if I didn't have that room, I wouldn't have been able to nix the uppers.

(2) Are those who opted for open shelves now going back to cabinets instead?

As others have said, the open shelves are typically more of a visual choice than a practical one. You've got to be willing to do the cleaning (or willing to ignore the grease and fuzz). I don't have any open shelves -- thought about it, but decided not to bother. I'm glad I didn't do it. I don't clean the glass on the hood or pendants nearly as much as i should, so the open shelves would have suffered the same fate.

I would add them to our kitchen if I could. I like to see beautifully stacked and organized dishes when I open my cabinets so that wouldn't be a problem for me because I already organize the inside of my cabinets as if they were "open". But I do think people who say dust/grease isn't a problem are in complete denial! My closed cabinets get dusty; how could that not happen on open shelving? Is something wrong with my cabinets? I think people who have open or glass front cabinets really need to work on "styling" and make sure it's spot on. Otherwise it brings down the look of the whole kitchen (like if you can see Lucky Charms or ugly serving pieces through the glass).

They never left my house. I don't have a butler's pantry and no room for one. I have a brick house on a slab foundation with no room for expansion, The kitchen is not particularly large (small by current GW standards it seems) and has three walls with two doorways and a window breaking them up. It wouldn't function for a family without upper cabinets, so I not only kept the uppers, I took them to the 10 foot ceilings. Couldn't be happier -- but I didn't want a contemporary kitchen or a quaint cottage kitchen. I wanted a workhorse with the good looks of a thoroughbred. ;-)

kiko - I promise I'm not in denial. The trick is storing daily use things on the shelf. Yes, I have to dust the shelf itself every week or two, along with every other flat surface in the house. It adds about 20 seconds to the bi-weekly housework.

Or of course store whatever you want on open shelves if you don't mind dusting more frequently.

If you need uppers, you need 'em, end of story. If you don't, consider skipping them (and shelves too) altogether as jakabedy did.

We are doing one wall of floor to ceiling cabinets and one wall of no cabinets/no shelves either. I can imagine the dog hair that would become a mandatory ingredient in every meal;)

Our uppers consist of both shelves and glass front cabinets. We store daily use and decorative items on the shelves. The rest are in the glass front cabinets. Yes, I like to keep them neat looking, but it doesn't take that much more effort to stack things neatly than to toss them in randomly. I don't make any effort to style the items in the cabinets and I think "neat" looks just fine. I'm with Sochi in believing that too many uppers can often create too heavy a look, at least for my tastes.

We took the uppers out in our remodel. If there had been room on the range wall we would have added open shelving. But since we are opening up the kitchen, we felt there should be no uppers. Six big windows in kitchen/DR space let in all kinds of light and openness.

I'm with the others who didn't know that upper cabinets have been "out", so didn't know a comeback was needed.

A few people have mentioned cats, but I think they're talking more about cats potentially knocking things off open shelves. But also, whether you have cats or dogs, their pet hair is always floating in the air, unseen, until it gently lands. With open shelves, I am certain I would pull a bowl off the shelf and find a pet hair or two inside it.

I have open bookshelves in my den, i.e. not a bookcase, but individual shelves. They are dust collectors. I have to dust them, that's fine, but it is such a different environment from a kitchen. I think in my kitchen, even with a good exhaust hood, that I would not want to deal with the dust, hair, and the grease (I make hamburgers pretty often!) on open shelves.

I have 2 double upper cabinets with glass that I don't like to clean, one of which DH uses for his plastic coffee cups--everything else looks good in it. I originally had a 21" wide cabinet that was installed as open shelving for display. Within months I'd ordered the door for it. I gave up the look because I hate to clean--even one little cabinet with 3 shelves!

Anne

I have 2 double upper cabinets with glass that I don't like to clean, one of which DH uses for his plastic coffee cups--everything else looks good in it. I originally had a 21" wide cabinet that was installed as open shelving for display. Within months I'd ordered the door for it. I gave up the look because I hate to clean--even one little cabinet with 3 shelves!

Anne

If I could design my 'perfect' kitchen, it would have lots of windows, a plate rack, some open shelves and a few upper cabinets for storage and also a few glass uppers for display.

I don't think upper cabinets will ever be out of fashion, but I do think having some glass or shelves helps to break up the 'heaviness' of a very large kitchen with solid uppers. Since most of us don't have very large kitchens (as you see in magazines) upper cabinets are a necessary and practical storage solution :)

I'm piping up from Earthquake Country. Nobody in their right mind would have open shelving in Southern California! Even glass doors are a bit dicey!

Suzi

Just took down some open shelves that I bought at Ikea years ago and can't wait to put up cabinets!! Open shelves in a kitchen do not work in my opinion. Way too much dust, grease, flour, etc. as mentioned above. To see how much could grime could collect on an open shelf was a deal-breaker for me. And I clean, a lot. Ick.

I don't think most of the general population considers anything other than closed upper cabinets.

I didn't get a chance to read through all the other posts yet but here is my experience. My kitchen happens to be large ( even though It is an old 1960 house) and a separate space from our living areas. I put in several long runs of open shelving in our new remodel and it is perfect for the way We live and I cook. I cook every day and keep the items I use frequently on the open shelves such colanders, mixing / serving bowls / platters, plates and bowls, bamboo steamer, etc. They are used and washed so frequently that they do not get greasy or dusty. I work full time outside the home and easy/fast access to cooking tools is more important to me than aesthetics. I do understand the desire to hide the 'stuff' also if the kitchen is open to the living areas. Another thread, but I also agree that hiding the kitchen stuff helps us to not think about food /eating all the time!

In Real World USA (NOT Design World) uppers never went away. The number of times that I've been asked for open shelving in the past 5 years, I can number on one hand. I do show some open shelving in our new showroom, but it's already a PITA and our grand opening hasn't even happened yet. We partnered with some local design groups to stage the vignettes, and it's full of frou frou that will make dusting difficult. And it's already dusty. After 1 day of being set.

Agree with live wire - for 99.9% of people, myself included - you'd no more omit uppers from a kitchen than you'd omit a cooktop. While I think upper shelves look nice, most people would wonder where the other cabinets are.

I don't care if my kitchen looks like a kitchen, in fact, I wouldn't spend so much time on GW if I didn't want it to look like a kitchen. If practicality and affordability isn't fashionable, I am hopelessly out of style at age 34.

You can certainly have practicality and affordability whether or not a kitchen has upper cabinets or open shelves.

I spend a lot of time on GW Kitchens and Decorating (actually discovered GW when researching a range for our new build kitchen) but I did not want a kitchen that looked like a kitchen. There's no denying it is a kitchen, and looks like a kitchen... but it's not an ordinary kitchen, imo. I didn't get any ideas from the Kitchen forum, but after 7 years, I'm still here. ;D

While I don't have any open shelving, I do have a double plate rack and that hutch has chicken wire doors. But the dishes and glasses are used daily, so nothing sits long. And if the top shelf does, and gets that slight greasy feeling, I just toss a load in the dishdrawer.

Most of the kitchens in my neighborhood are magazine or ad worthy. Many of my friends in different areas of town have kitchens that are magazine worthy. Several of my friends have open shelves and love them. DD2 considered but her kitchen is small, so she needed hidden storage. What works for some doesn't work for others - and this goes both ways.

It gets old hearing things like you can't truly be a cook in "that" kitchen just because it's A, B or C in looks or perceived function. Just like kitchens, cooks are also different.

My way isn't right or wrong, and neither is someone with no uppers or someone with only uppers. We're talking about kitchens for Pete's sake.

Here is a link that might be useful: kitchen pictures

This post was edited by allison0704 on Thu, Apr 4, 13 at 15:00

As the owner of a kitchen with no uppers at all, my answer to the OP is that upper cabinets they won't be making a comeback because they've never gone anywhere -- except for those of us who don't care for them.

I have open shelving, open plateracks and open space. We had uppers in the previous kitchen and I couldn't wait to get rid of them. Now I don't need to climb to get anything and I don't have doors opening into my face.

No dust or grease collects on anything that's out because I use it and therefore I wash it. OTOH, I don't have any "displays," gimcracks, or cats. Many here find animals walking around on kitchen counters to be normal and endearing but I don't.

Basically, I don't see a need for the tone of dismissiveness about kitchens without uppers -- as if it's some elite plot that "normal" people wouldn't be involved in. It isn't useful or informed.

All of us have opinions, naturally. Trends come and go. But if someone was to air views about all the look-alike white kitchens, or how ridiculous it was for someone to put a crystal chandelier in a gas-stove kitchen because it would get greasy, or snipe at less than perfectly matched counters and backsplashes, it wouldn't be any more helpful than this thread is.

My mother had a great saying about overdone houses (or kitchens for that matter). She used to say "you never want your house to look like your life began the day you met your decorator." And, since Mom is gone (may she rest in peace) and since many of us aren't in a position to hire a decorator (though nice if you can) let me rephrase for modern times: You don't want your kitchen to look like the last magazines, website or blog you read. Or the last picture you saw on GW. Or, maybe you do.

well said allison and rococogurl.

(she of clean open shelves and cats.)

There have been plenty of opinions aired about the white kitchens - and I'm still doing one despite the fact that it is a GW snark target. What I love happens to be what a lot of other people love and it will look a lot like other kitchens I've seen on GW and the interwebs (not IRL, I'm in maple and cherry country). I'm ok with that as I'm the one who will have to live with and love it for the next 20 years.

I don't see it as an "elite plot" so much as the fact that most people don't know about GW, don't follow decorating trends. It's either not a priority or not in the budget. Based on kitchens on real estate sites, I don't see much resembling the beautiful kitchens shared here.