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czecheart

small lit uppers

czecheart
11 years ago

What do you guys think of a cabinet kitchen layout design which uses small cabinets 18 x 12 inches ( with glass fronts and lights) when they are placed above upper cabinets?

What genre of kitchen do you see those boxes being used?

Are they not trendy anymore?

I'm going for white/marble, subway / farmhouse kitchen genre. Thinking of using them on one back wall, there would be 6 cabinets , above three 18 inch cabinets on either side of the range hood. I'm only wanting to use them on one wall.

What do think?

Do you like then? Why, why not?

Thanks

Comments (19)

  • taggie
    11 years ago

    Oooh, I like them, I do I do I do. So much so that I had to have them myself too.

    I think a farmhouse genre kitchen with white marble, subways, and lit upper cabs would look gorgeous! For sure you should do it.

    I don't know about "trendy", I would say probably not, but trendy to me is such a fleeting thing. My kitchen is quite traditional and anything but trendy anyhow. Modernists would have a heart attack at the appliques and rope molding in my kitchen, lol, but if it's your forever kitchen you have to do what you really love yourself. Here is my range wall with the small uppers (2 x 16.5's vs. your 3 x 18's but it will give you an idea of scale):

  • herbflavor
    11 years ago

    tag:really pretty kitchen-haven't seen yours before-are more pics posted somewhere?

  • deedles
    11 years ago

    Taggie, is that your kitchen? It's so pretty! I like the little glass uppers in any style of kitchen.

  • lolauren
    11 years ago

    I am not a fan. They can look lovely in kitchens (like above) where they help to break up all the solid cabinets, but I am not the type of display stuff. I'd rather have the space to store stuff.

  • steph2000
    11 years ago

    I am a sucker for those little square'ish glass cabinets on the top. I practically have to take medication because of it, I'm so addicted to that look. It just adds a ton of character and depth, for some reason. The shape/size just does something nice, too. It seems like it would fit perfectly with what you are trying to achieve.

  • blfenton
    11 years ago

    I have 4 of them - two on each side of the range - very similar to taggie. I show pottery in them. The way I figure it - I can't reach that high anyway so I'm going to store junk that will be forgotten about so I'd prefer to show off some of my pottery/glass ware. For me, it helps to personalize the kitchen a bit by showing off some things that I love.

  • taggie
    11 years ago

    tag:really pretty kitchen-haven't seen yours before-are more pics posted somewhere?

    Thank you herbflavor, you are sweet. My reveal was many moons ago now, link below.

    I wish more people would post some of their glass uppers, there are some really pretty ones I've seen recently including beekeepers wife, angieDIY, and many many more.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Finished Kitchen Reveal -- Traditional Yellow Stained Cabs

  • 2LittleFishies
    11 years ago

    I think you need the right ceiling height. We have 8' and we were going to do that but everything seemed a tiny bit "squatty". We switched to having one box with one door with glass at the top section of the door which is a similar look but we gained a couple of inches.

  • ellendi
    11 years ago

    If you feel you already will have enough storage space than go for it. It does add charm to a kitchen.

  • czecheart
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    You GW kitchen guys are awesome! I love it that I can get objective opinions. Taggie your kitchen is beautiful, I'm saving it to show KD what I had in mind, thanks for sharing. I'm shorter , 5' 4, and was thinking along the same lines as blfenton, that high space too high for it to be functional to me, even for storage space. 2little fishes, I have 8 ft ceilings also, this was my idea to help draw the eye up and hopefully make it seem taller. As far as cabinets being squat, another reason I was leaning towards using them. I'd rather have the space broken up than have cabinets seem long and narrow ( like I have now). Hoping they would give depth, like Steph2000 said. Displaying pottery would be cool. I finally decided to throw out our 12 year old formal dining room with formal dining set including matching hutch/buffet. My hutch is full of ...you guessed it ... crystal and glass stuff . What to do with it all ? Since the hutch/buffet is going, I though my favorite pieces would be pretty up there, maybe dressed down a bit mixed with pottery or something like that. I think we'd all love to see more pictures of kitchens with those little uppers and find out what you put in them. BTW: is there an offical name for those small upper cabinets, if not what should we call them?

  • mrspete
    11 years ago

    Love 'em.

  • labbie
    11 years ago

    Style-wise I love them, as in taggie's kitchen (beautiful kitchen taggie!)
    My inspiration photos are full of that look, but we didn't have the space to use them all over.

    We used them randomly over our range top in an effort to break up a "wall o' wood". These are not useful for storage, and in this photo they are empty, but the cabinets have false backs that hide our ductwork and we will search for a couple of pieces, maybe during our travels at some point.
    For now we have some random glassware from HomeGoods that were cheap enough that I won't feel guilty swapping out eventually.
    Not shown here and I don't have a photo yet, are 2 narrow standard height glass cabinets (on other side of fridge in this photo) that we do store our good wine glasses in. We like the look and have dimmable lights in these, and the small rangetop cabinets.

  • fouramblues
    11 years ago

    I love the look! I've seen stacked cabinets in some very nice kitchens, from traditional to modern. I like them so much they're in my kitchen now.

    I'm not a kitchen display kind of person, so did glass in only a couple of cupboards. My regular dishes are in the lower glass sections. Our ceiling is 8', so that means 42" cupboards. I felt that the 12/30 split did look a little squat, so went with 15/27 for the stacked cupboards. I love them, and can reach everything in the lower section. (I'm 5'7".)

  • beekeeperswife
    11 years ago

    I was on the fence when we were designing the kitchen. I posted various drawings and it ended up that the look that was most pleasing to my eye was either all glass or all closed. I am not one to put stuff on display just to display it. And that is what I think looks best in those spots. I don't care for displaying items up on top of cabinets that are open, so it was only natural that I didn't want a space IN the cabinets that are for only displaying items.

    I ended up mixing full glass cabinets with totally closed cabinets.

    Here are some of the drawings and then what we ended up with...

    almost did this, but we added the glass on the sides of the ones on the window wall

    The kitchen:

    Wow, kinda interesting to see that one drawing and then the real photo.

  • 2LittleFishies
    11 years ago

    BTW, instead of actually stacking cabinets which takes more space and can sometimes look off with 8' ceilings (or make the upper cabinet a bit short to store things...) here is a photo of our soon to be cabs. I believe by having the one door we gained 2" in height but I forget how.

    The cab maker put a "deck" which is stationary for the top shelf and there will only be one door but the top section of it will be glass and the bottom solid.
    (The deck doesn't allow light to bleed into the bottom section of the cabinet)

    You can also do where it's all glass but still one door. The cabs on either side of hood will be one door but all glass with a rail separating top from bottom. The cab on the right still needs to be painted with a white interior.

    Either way (stacked or not) it's a great look and just wanted to give you some options : )

  • fouramblues
    11 years ago

    Here's how you lose the 2" of space with stacked cabs, Fishies:

    Having stacked cabs was one of the few things that DH felt strongly about, in spite of the lost space and increased cost. I happily made that concession...

  • wi-sailorgirl
    11 years ago

    Love them and I'd have them in a second if I had higher ceilings. I've come to the realization that it just won't work with our 8-foot ceilings. Instead I'm planning to do something like Beekeepers wife did with the side-glass cabinets on one wall.

  • hobokenkitchen
    11 years ago

    Love them and would have done them in either of our past two kitchens (one modern, one traditional) if we had the ceiling height to pull it off.