One of the latest trends in contemporary kitchen design is open shelving. It’s a stylish yet functional way to display your kitchenware and décor. They can add a lot of personality to your kitchen design and make it feel more inviting. The scope to create visually appealing arrangements of art, ceramics or house plants will allow you to change what is on display whenever you wish.
When embarking on a new handmade kitchen design and you’re thinking about adding open shelves, we have a few inspiration ideas.
Mix & Match Kitchen Storage
Mixing and matching open kitchen storage with closed doors or frosted or reeded glass is a great way to display your favourite kitchenware and hide tools and equipment. We did precisely that in the contemporary kitchen design of our Victorian Town House project. The brief from our client was to create a light, airy space and somewhere to display a collection of art and unique pieces of kitchenware. We designed a bespoke floating cabinet with reeded glass panels framed in brass to partially obscure some of the treasure and make the most of the natural light by bouncing it back into the space.
Easy Kitchenware Access
Beyond aesthetics, open kitchen shelving provides easy and efficient access to what’s needed for busy people. From handmade crockery to wine decanters, spices or inherited glassware, a busy contemporary kitchen should function beautifully.
For our Georgian Manor House Kitchen project in Bristol, we designed a sizable open shelving unit that spanned an entire wall – floor-to-ceiling. A piece of furniture in its own right, the handmade kitchen also features crisp, clean lines and oak veneers, all custom-made by our expert cabinet makers. The open shelving unit design needed to stand out and provide ample space to display the client’s distinct chinaware and be useful simultaneously.
Clever Open Shelf Kitchen Furniture
Open shelving can be more than storage and display. We’ve also created handmade kitchens with adaptable room dividers to make the most of spaces. For our Georgian Townhouse Kitchen in Bath project, we designed cabinetry with architectural ‘room dividing’ features separating the kitchen from the pantry. Ensuring that the two light sources were not obscured, the lower part of the pantry furniture was solid, while our expert cabinet makers created open shelving to sit atop to encourage natural light and display the homeowner’s books, ceramics and other kitchenware.
No matter how you style or design your open kitchen shelves, they will add a touch of personality and style to your contemporary kitchen.
