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  • Hi, I’m Emily

    Emily Fazio

    I'm a home improvement enthusiast, living a very merry DIY lifestyle.

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Cabinets vs. Open Kitchen Shelving

November 26, 2010

When I bought the house, I contemplated painting the kitchen cabinetry white to brighten the space up, but the interest of trying to retain the natural wood as best as I could for resale purposes I left them in their original state (not sure why people like oak so much, but they do, so be it).

Alternatively, since I knew I could get by with fewer top cabinets (at least 3 of them were completely empty), I began taking them down. Easy as that. You’d be surprised how few screws actually hold a heavy wooden cabinet to a wall, if you haven’t had the pleasure of installing or uninstalling before. I took down one, and then got a little addicted to demo, and ended up lugging 7 (yes 7) cabinets to the attic for safe, dry storage (future homeowner can re-install them easily – I marked them all clearly and taped hardware right to the shelves!)

There were a few issues we uncovered once the cabinets were gone, but nothing major – the walls beneath the cabinetry were never primed or painted, two sections of ceiling were damaged, and there was a hole hiding behind the fridge. We took care of those problems with some spackle, drywall tape, and a few coats of paint, and while the walls were being refinished, I bought and painted some unfinished brackets from IKEA (priced at $4 and $7 each). Check out the photos of the kitchen before and in-progress:

  • BEFORE: Kitchen, on the day that I put an offer in on the house. Not my belongings.
  • BEFORE: Kitchen, the day that I moved in.
  • Cabinets coming down! Nothing like the feeling of immediate improvement.
  • Removed cabinets above the fridge.
  • Removing a few more cabinets. My apologies for the mess.

The new shelves went up with relative ease – I bought some super-extra-strength toggle bolts to ensure that each shelf could really hold a lot of plates and cups. Success – they still need to be painted (white) but I’m thrilled with the openness in the kitchen, and happy that I have the opportunity to display fun things (thinking plants, mugs, colorful plates). Here are some afters – the shelves are admittedly a little cluttered at first, because I was experimenting with how much they could hold. Since the photos were taken, about half of the cups and dishes have been stored away.

  • New kitchen shelves going up!
  • Installing more open cabinets in the kitchen.
  • The kitchen in its current state. Still need to paint the table and shelves. (That "curtain" in the background didn't work out, it's since gone).
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DIY  / Kitchen

Emily
I'm a home improvement enthusiast, living a very merry DIY lifestyle. I've been a freelancer writer for 10+ years and you can find my work on popular home and garden sites, like HGTV.com. Follow me on facebook and instagram, or drop me a note.

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  • HI, I’m Emily

    Emily Fazio

    I'm a home improvement enthusiast, living a very merry DIY lifestyle. Follow me on facebook and instagram, or drop me a note if you'd like. I love notes.

    Thanks for visiting!

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