Even with Open Shelving, Include a Few Cabinets in Your Kitchen
Open shelving is all the rage these days. It adds to the decor of your kitchen, allows you to grab certain items without opening doors, and can also cut down on your kitchen remodeling costs. (Shelves are generally cheaper than traditional cabinets.) However, even if you want to include open shelving in your kitchen, you should also include a few closed, traditional cabinets in your kitchen design. Here are a few reasons why this is a good idea.
There may be items you don't want on display.
Sure, you want to show off your nice wine glasses and your fancy plates on open shelves. But if you think about it, you can probably list off a few kitchen items you'd rather not have on display all the time. An old baking sheet that has stains but still works well as a drip pan, a chipped plate you won't throw away because it was your grandmother's — these are good examples. Including a few enclosed cabinets in your kitchen design ensures you have a place to hide these items away so you're not always worried about how they look on your shelves.
There may be items you need to keep clean.
One downfall of open shelving is that the items on the shelves do tend to accumulate dust. This is not such a problem with things you use regularly, but items that sit up there and only get used once a year are bound to get dirty. If you have just a few enclosed cabinets, you can put your rarely used items inside of there and know they'll stay clean.
You may need to keep food away from rodents.
Everyone hopes they never have a rodent infestation, but rats and mice do sometimes invade homes — even clean ones. This is a good reason to store your food in an enclosed cabinet rather than on an open shelf. It will be safer from pests when behind closed doors. So at the very least, include cabinets for food in your kitchen design.
You may have fragile items that you need to keep safe.
If you have kids or pets, certain fragile items, like china, may not be safe when displayed on open shelves. With closed kitchen cabinets, you can keep those items much safer.
Even with open shelving, it is a good idea to include at least a couple of cabinets in your kitchen. Think about how you may use your kitchen cabinets and then have them designed with those uses in mind.