Ten Little Knives

To reward myself for staining our kitchen cabinets, I bought a new set of knives on fab.com – it’s the first matching set of knives I’ve ever owned, and although we have plenty of knives collected one-off from places like Marshalls, this non-stick all-black set seemed like it’d be a slick/sick/sweet complement to our newly finished cabinetry. Also, if you know Pete, you might be thinking that ‘they’re very Pete’, and that sentiment would be right on. He loves them.

I can’t claim that these knives produced by Gela Global are the greatest quality knives ever (the set of 10 was only $28 on Fab, which equates to $2.80 per knife), but it is a fun assortment. Black knives are sexy and they know it.

After seeing the knives in person and taking some measurements, we decided it might be fun/fresh/fabulous to display them openly on an open wall in the kitchen where they could be seen and accessible all at the same time.

We considered a few different locations – beside the fridge, below the shelves with the plates and bowls, and eventually, a narrow wall beside our microwave. This particular wall felt like the best place to feature something artful like our new black knives, the proportions were right on. The only issue being, we’ve had shelves filled with books installed right there for two years.

I have some touch-up painting to do in the kitchen, and doing so will require me to remove these brackets, so they’ll be coming down (at least temporarily) in any case. It only seems sensible to hold on painting until after new countertops are installed because the existing backsplash needs to be removed and that’ll inevitably cause some damage, but in the interim month between now and when that project takes off, we’re making sure we really like exposed knives.

I bought an IKEA GRUNDTAL magnetic knife rack because I really liked that the face was a solid stainless finish (no exposed screws, no exposed magnets), and it can be hung vertically and horizontally easily.

We hung the rack on the wall between brackets (sans shelves) to see how it looks and get a feel for using the knives in the open; like many other things, we’d rather test this out for a few weeks to make sure we really, really like it before ditching the shelves. So far, so good.

For folks wondering if it’s going to be a safety hazard with a kid wandering around, we don’t expect it to be any more so than having a drawerful of knives beside the spoons. Julia knows not to fool around with knives, and they’re not all that easy to remove from the magnet bar unless you know how to grip and pull them the right way. Shorter answer: no worries.

P.S. The glossiness of the cabinets? We’re still questioning it. Food for thought: What happens when you go over a satin finish with a matte finish? Does it immediately take on the new matte finish, or would it look like a wonky mishap?