Or this:
And this:
Soo naturally of course, I chose a kitchen with Maple unpainted cabinets, white appliances, and some crazy lookin' peachy counter top. Oh! And NO pantry. That's right THREE bathrooms, and a HUGE laundry room, but NO pantry. Really? The builder didn't walk his wife through, and ask, "Everything good to go?" She would have said, "Yes! If you never want a woman to live here." Well jokes on me. I don't think I even noticed until the day we moved in. -_- I do have to say though, that A.) He definitely over compensated in cabinets and B.) A.) means nothing when your 5' 4" and can only reach the bottom shelf of the cabinets anyways. So, you may ask yourself, "How could she possibly even consider open shelving with no pantry?" Well the answer is a big hutch on an adjoining wall in the kitchen that serves as a pantry, but isn't done yet so you can't see it! But someday. And it will be a joyous day. But for now I have a decent sized kitchen with a gazillion cabinets, and I don't even use all of them.
Sometime ago, before one of our moves somewhere, I downsized. I didn't need 20 plates that didn't even match because we have no friends to invite for lavish dinner parties, and I'd put off doing the dishes until they were all dirty! Ha! Keith has his own dishes, little for a little person, and Joey and I have ours. They are classic white, they all match, and they all fit in ONE cabinet. Okay one down, 15 to go. So many cabinets make it feel heavy, and almost a little overwhelming. I'm constantly reorganizing which means I never know where anything is. All of the blogs, design magazines these days are geared toward, "Solutions for not enough storage space." "Um, excuse me sir, please tell me what to do when I have so many cabinets they're taking over my life!" "Oh. What is that you say? Rip them off of the walls and put up pretty little shelves? If you say so!" By the end of this thought process, and seeing the gorgeous kitchen above with only ONE upper cabinet, I was ready. I was going to rip down all of cabinets, do a beautiful Subway tile backsplash, and my stainless steel appliances would look ravishing. (Voice again.) "Oh what is that you say? I have no money to do any of that? Oh poop." Come to find out paint is cheap, and wood is cheaper, so I wasn't too off course. I decided I would give it sometime, and try a "test" open shelf. Some people just take the cupboard doors off instead of taking the cabinet down, like in the second picture. So I grabbed my other half, (my power drill), sorry honey, and took 3 doors off. Here was my result:
Before
During
After
I wanted to play around to test out if I wanted to do open shelving, if I just wanted to do open cabinets, if I wanted to to do only a few, etc., etc., etc. It was fun, and I have swapped many things since, but something was wrong this day. When Joey got home that night he went into the kitchen, and stopped, "Wow! I like it!" Then he looked as if he instantly regretted saying that. "What?" I ask. He sits down, and looks at me, fear in his eyes. "It's too busy." He says so softly I almost don't hear. "I know!!!!!!" I exclaim! That was it!! That's what was wrong! The open shelving I love is only 2 or three shelves. When there are more they are in a large kitchen with high ceilings. It's okay for now, and I am still thinking, and planning, but I think I know where I'll go with it. Once I paint, and we can afford the backsplash, probably all but one or two cabinets will come down. I'll do a shelf for an herb garden, and a few more for dishes. Everything else fits in the lower cabinets and the hutch. If I didn't constantly feel like I needed color I would be a minimalist and live like this:
Stay tuned. Tomorrows post will be "Why we decided to become minimalists." Just kidding. Maybe.
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