Open shelves in the interior of the kitchen is a very fashionable modern trend. They are horizontal or slightly inclined planes mounted on the wall, ceiling using special fasteners. Access to their contents is possible from one or several parties. This solution is convenient, practical, because the necessary items are at hand. This design looks great, slightly expanding the space, which is important for cramped kitchens. A variety of design options allows you to choose the right elements of decor for any interior.
Advantages, disadvantages of open shelves in the kitchen
On open shelves there are dishes, cookbooks, notebooks with recipes, table textiles, souvenir compositions, jars of cereal, seasonings. They, like any piece of furniture, have certain pros and cons.
Positive properties:
lightweight room design;
if necessary - easy, quick dismantling;
due to the lack of doors, no additional space is required for them to open;
convenient placement for items of permanent use;
when decorating in the color of the walls, they are almost invisible;
very aesthetic appearance;
lower cost than closed cabinets.
Negative qualities:
able to accumulate dust, especially if the windows overlook a busy highway;
not everyone is able to arrange dishes beautifully each time, which leads to chaos;
when there is no hood, difficultly washed fat is mixed with dust;
low capacity, insufficient for large items;
It’s problematic to integrate into a ready-made headset.
To make the cleaning less time-consuming, it is recommended to purchase a powerful hood that efficiently removes an air suspension of grease and steam from the room, and also does not litter excessively the surfaces.
Varieties, location options
In order for small drops of fat, water, and dirt not to accumulate in huge quantities on shelves, it is advisable to place them away from the sink, cutting and cooking surfaces. To prevent the formation of a mess on the shelves, they place a small number of objects, preferably homogeneous or alternate with closed cabinets. This piece of furniture is mounted on a wall, suspended from the ceiling, installed as a floor structure, built into various pieces of furniture. According to the design features of the shelf are produced:
single - rectangular, square, semicircular, fantasy shapes;
located in the form of a single ensemble - shelves, lattices, "snakes", "pyramids", cascades, etc.
There are several types of shelves:
functional - used for arranging dishes, various kitchen utensils;
decorative - serve only as interior decoration;
mobile - each is attached separately from the rest, is easily removed, re-hung in another place;
stationary - are part of the rack, headset, without them, the design loses the necessary properties.
The design, placed directly above the working, dining table, soft kitchenette, becomes a convenient place to store items that are needed so often that hiding them does not make sense. Shelves-consoles are mounted perpendicular to the wall, and to reduce the risk of injury they are placed in such a way as to minimize the likelihood of hitting your head, hand. For the same purposes, the corners are rounded, protected with rubber, plastic pads, which is especially important for glass, metal suspensions.
Hinged products are mounted on hinges, screws, brackets. It is important to fix the product as horizontally as possible - otherwise the dishes, other objects will move out of it. Wall cabinets without doors are mounted under the ceiling or at another convenient height. Rarely used items are located at the top, needed daily - at a height that is easy to reach with your hand, without standing on a stool, a stepladder. For a small kitchen, a suite is chosen that merges in color with the color of the walls - this way the maximum possible expansion of space is achieved, and the shelves seem almost invisible. Such lockers, like closed ones, are equipped with LED backlight. The design can be performed and combined - to have doors on top and one or two open shelves at the bottom of each.Furniture, reminiscent of a pencil case, but without doors is installed on the floor, corner open models are notable for their large capacity, they have triangular, convex, concave shelves.
Open shelves in integrated shelving
Shelving - a piece of furniture that is a little more than a meter high or reaches the ceiling, usually without doors, a rear wall, placed on the floor. In spacious rooms, this product has a zoning function, separating the dining area from the place of cooking. The metal structure usually has removable shelves that are mounted on perforated metal rails. The rack can be built into a niche - for an irregularly shaped kitchen room, attached to a wall, play the role of an extreme module in a headset, duplicated in interiors where symmetrical arrangement of objects is necessary. When placing such furniture in a place well lit by street light, live potted plants are placed on it, near the place of cooking - a microwave, other commonly used kitchen equipment.
Open cupboards
This product is often purchased by people who have a lot of beautiful dishes, decor, suitable for kitchen facilities. The design is suitable for storing pans and pots, cutting boards and salad bowls, vegetables and cereals. Open cabinets are not recommended for use in families with small, mobile children, curious pets, capable of overturning everything that is within reach. Such furniture looks good in kitchens combined with a living room or studio apartments.
Shelves in the facade of the island
When the headset is placed in an island, open planes are mounted under the surface of the countertop, repeating its configuration. Depending on the available contents, they can be turned towards the dining area or the place of cooking, located on the back of the kitchen sofa-island, combined with a bar counter. Here are placed books or notebooks with recipes, a variety of decor, plastic, wooden, wicker vine organizers for various little things.This design is convenient for people whose growth is much lower than average - it is problematic for them to reach the upper shelves.
Corner shelves
The location of the shelves in several internal corners significantly saves space, allowing maximum use of the entire area of the kitchen, bringing completeness to the interior. Vases with fresh flowers, dry bouquets are placed here, and if the mount is strong enough and the corner is far from the sink, they place a small TV.
Designs for external corners are used in cases where the angle between two adjacent walls is more than 180 degrees. This option looks great, often located above the bar counters, stands. Shelves mounted on ventilation ducts have a U-shaped, most often rounded shape, immediately enveloping two outer corners, creating an original accent. The filling for them is predominantly small decor - such wide shelves can be made excessively wide only in very spacious kitchens.
With ceiling mount
Suspended shelves are mounted on the ceiling using chains, rods, cables, cords, wire, fixed on hooks. With independent mounting, the weight of the structure, the level of its mobility should be taken into account. In order to avoid falling of placed objects, the product is supplied with small sides, including openwork. Ceiling shelves with special slots are suitable for placing glasses, wine glasses, wineglasses on the leg. On ordinary lines, heat-loving indoor flowers, rarely used dishes, kitchen textiles and more will be placed. Such convenient elements become part of the island or wall headset, significantly saving space.
With combined mount
Heavy, voluminous shelves often have a combined mount - not only to one or two walls, but also to the ceiling. The product does not look "airy", but this type of installation is very reliable.On such a model of furniture, a large TV, including an old model, heavy cast iron, clay dishes, plants in pots or tubs, books in thick bindings, figurines made of metal, ceramics, gypsum, can safely be placed.
Style, color, workmanship
Open models are ideal for most styles:
country;
Provence
classical;
rustic;
chalet;
art believe;
Scandinavian;
high tech;
loft;
Art Deco;
baroque;
Empire
minimalism;
brutalism;
Art Nouveau;
Japanese;
African.
The most suitable material for any style is natural wood. Designs richly decorated with carvings are often found in luxurious interiors of Empire, Baroque. More simple, thick, rough, suitable for Scandinavian stylistics, rustic. In country, Provence, it is allowed to close the shelves with decorative curtains with floral ornaments or in a check. High-tech, loft stylistics means shelves of glass, metal or a combination of both. In classical, neoclassical interiors, stone elements placed symmetrically look good, and plastic elements in minimalism, futurism, even in the Rococo or Gothic styles.
When installing heavy structures on walls or ceilings made of drywall, additional installation of embedded bars is required.
Wooden
They have all kinds of sizes, can be rectangular, rounded, asymmetric, have a different thickness. They are decorated with textured carvings, paintings, elegant pyrography, covered with wax, stain, varnished, and when placed in the wet corners of the room they are impregnated with special compounds to prevent warping, cracking, damage by fungus, mold.
Natural wood is used both simple and valuable species - oak, beech, maple, cherry, pear, alder, pine, spruce, fir, larch, birch and many others.For low-cost interiors, natural wood is replaced with laminated or veneered chipboard, fiberboard, MDF, plywood, laminate, drywall. Wooden surfaces combine perfectly with forged, wire, textile frames, individual glass inserts or sides. The product is mounted using brackets carved from wood, forged from metal, self-tapping screws, looks great on walls sheathed with clapboard, pasted over with wallpaper “under the tree”.
For independent production of wooden shelves, dry wood is selected that does not have falling knots, crevices, cracks, mold traces, damage by the bark beetle. Fragments of Euro pallets, drawers, old furniture that should be sanded, marked out, tinted with stain are suitable.
Metal
Such details are usually made of stainless steel, for individual interior stylistics they are chrome plated and covered with gilding. Shelves have a small thickness, with proper fastening they can withstand a significant load. They are reliable, durable, aesthetically pleasing, and easily cleaned of contaminants. Often the product is made mesh, for example, for drying dishes above the sink or has hooks for hanging cups by the handle. Sometimes only the frame itself, horizontal planes are made of metal, and the side walls are decorated with cut-out fragments of plywood or intertwined with macrame-style threads.
Plastic
Shelves made of polyurethane do not differ in increased strength, therefore they are used mainly for decorative purposes. They are relatively durable, easy to install, painted by manufacturers in various colors. They have small vases with flowers, light dishes, photographs in frames, jars of seasonings. Designs are carried out in a fantasy form, combined with brackets, niches, and other plastic stucco moldings.
Plastic floor collapsible racks are usually placed in the corner of the room, suitable for storing a small amount of dishes, cutlery, kitchen textiles. If desired, a soft plastic shelf can be easily made from multi-colored plastic bags or a piece of film used to make greenhouses. The material is sewn in the form of squares or inclined sections, suitable for storing cutlery, sponges for washing dishes, bags with aromatic herbs, spices.
Glass
Products made of transparent or tinted glass have a high decorative effect. They can significantly lighten the interior, adding airiness to the room. This model is selected with a thickness of at least five to seven millimeters, often has a rear mirror wall, which allows you to further expand the space, filling it with reflected light. For glass shelves, special fasteners are required, equipped with holders with rubber gaskets and clamping screws from the bottom. Such a design will allow the glass to be fixed as securely as possible, preventing it from accidentally falling. Very popular U-shaped, equipped with sides of different heights on both sides.
Made of natural or artificial stone
The real stone structure made of granite, marble has considerable weight, therefore it is used extremely rarely in kitchens that have other surfaces made of stone - walls, floors, window sills, countertops. Artificial stone is much lighter, more plastic, it is mounted on almost any surface with the help of special metal brackets, it imitates a real one qualitatively. The shelf is placed above the electric or false fireplace, above the countertop made of the same material, attached to the forged brackets, side columns. Stone furniture elements are very environmentally friendly, durable, look good in various interiors, sometimes decorated with textured carvings.This model is rarely suspended, often has a combined mount.
Conclusion
Open hinged shelves in a city apartment, a country house, in a country cottage - an original solution for a room of any size. This type of design allows you to conveniently arrange the kitchen space, located in the most convenient places. For a small kitchenette, narrow wall or ceiling ones are most often chosen, for a more spacious one - wide, long, with multiple decor. Shelves for the kitchen are practical, aesthetically pleasing, are sold by manufacturers as part of a full-fledged headset or as an independent product.
Open shelves in the interior of the kitchen is a very fashionable modern trend. They are horizontal or slightly inclined planes mounted on the wall, ceiling using special fasteners. Access to their contents is possible from one or several parties. This solution is convenient, practical, because the necessary items are at hand. This design looks great, slightly expanding the space, which is important for cramped kitchens. A variety of design options allows you to choose the right elements of decor for any interior.
Content
Advantages, disadvantages of open shelves in the kitchen
On open shelves there are dishes, cookbooks, notebooks with recipes, table textiles, souvenir compositions, jars of cereal, seasonings. They, like any piece of furniture, have certain pros and cons.
Positive properties:
Negative qualities:
Varieties, location options
In order for small drops of fat, water, and dirt not to accumulate in huge quantities on shelves, it is advisable to place them away from the sink, cutting and cooking surfaces. To prevent the formation of a mess on the shelves, they place a small number of objects, preferably homogeneous or alternate with closed cabinets. This piece of furniture is mounted on a wall, suspended from the ceiling, installed as a floor structure, built into various pieces of furniture. According to the design features of the shelf are produced:
There are several types of shelves:
The design, placed directly above the working, dining table, soft kitchenette, becomes a convenient place to store items that are needed so often that hiding them does not make sense. Shelves-consoles are mounted perpendicular to the wall, and to reduce the risk of injury they are placed in such a way as to minimize the likelihood of hitting your head, hand. For the same purposes, the corners are rounded, protected with rubber, plastic pads, which is especially important for glass, metal suspensions.
Hinged products are mounted on hinges, screws, brackets. It is important to fix the product as horizontally as possible - otherwise the dishes, other objects will move out of it.
Wall cabinets without doors are mounted under the ceiling or at another convenient height. Rarely used items are located at the top, needed daily - at a height that is easy to reach with your hand, without standing on a stool, a stepladder. For a small kitchen, a suite is chosen that merges in color with the color of the walls - this way the maximum possible expansion of space is achieved, and the shelves seem almost invisible. Such lockers, like closed ones, are equipped with LED backlight. The design can be performed and combined - to have doors on top and one or two open shelves at the bottom of each.Furniture, reminiscent of a pencil case, but without doors is installed on the floor, corner open models are notable for their large capacity, they have triangular, convex, concave shelves.
Open shelves in integrated shelving
Shelving - a piece of furniture that is a little more than a meter high or reaches the ceiling, usually without doors, a rear wall, placed on the floor. In spacious rooms, this product has a zoning function, separating the dining area from the place of cooking. The metal structure usually has removable shelves that are mounted on perforated metal rails. The rack can be built into a niche - for an irregularly shaped kitchen room, attached to a wall, play the role of an extreme module in a headset, duplicated in interiors where symmetrical arrangement of objects is necessary. When placing such furniture in a place well lit by street light, live potted plants are placed on it, near the place of cooking - a microwave, other commonly used kitchen equipment.
Open cupboards
This product is often purchased by people who have a lot of beautiful dishes, decor, suitable for kitchen facilities. The design is suitable for storing pans and pots, cutting boards and salad bowls, vegetables and cereals. Open cabinets are not recommended for use in families with small, mobile children, curious pets, capable of overturning everything that is within reach. Such furniture looks good in kitchens combined with a living room or studio apartments.
Shelves in the facade of the island
When the headset is placed in an island, open planes are mounted under the surface of the countertop, repeating its configuration. Depending on the available contents, they can be turned towards the dining area or the place of cooking, located on the back of the kitchen sofa-island, combined with a bar counter. Here are placed books or notebooks with recipes, a variety of decor, plastic, wooden, wicker vine organizers for various little things.This design is convenient for people whose growth is much lower than average - it is problematic for them to reach the upper shelves.
Corner shelves
The location of the shelves in several internal corners significantly saves space, allowing maximum use of the entire area of the kitchen, bringing completeness to the interior. Vases with fresh flowers, dry bouquets are placed here, and if the mount is strong enough and the corner is far from the sink, they place a small TV.
Designs for external corners are used in cases where the angle between two adjacent walls is more than 180 degrees. This option looks great, often located above the bar counters, stands. Shelves mounted on ventilation ducts have a U-shaped, most often rounded shape, immediately enveloping two outer corners, creating an original accent. The filling for them is predominantly small decor - such wide shelves can be made excessively wide only in very spacious kitchens.
With ceiling mount
Suspended shelves are mounted on the ceiling using chains, rods, cables, cords, wire, fixed on hooks. With independent mounting, the weight of the structure, the level of its mobility should be taken into account. In order to avoid falling of placed objects, the product is supplied with small sides, including openwork. Ceiling shelves with special slots are suitable for placing glasses, wine glasses, wineglasses on the leg. On ordinary lines, heat-loving indoor flowers, rarely used dishes, kitchen textiles and more will be placed. Such convenient elements become part of the island or wall headset, significantly saving space.
With combined mount
Heavy, voluminous shelves often have a combined mount - not only to one or two walls, but also to the ceiling. The product does not look "airy", but this type of installation is very reliable.On such a model of furniture, a large TV, including an old model, heavy cast iron, clay dishes, plants in pots or tubs, books in thick bindings, figurines made of metal, ceramics, gypsum, can safely be placed.
Style, color, workmanship
Open models are ideal for most styles:
The most suitable material for any style is natural wood. Designs richly decorated with carvings are often found in luxurious interiors of Empire, Baroque. More simple, thick, rough, suitable for Scandinavian stylistics, rustic. In country, Provence, it is allowed to close the shelves with decorative curtains with floral ornaments or in a check. High-tech, loft stylistics means shelves of glass, metal or a combination of both. In classical, neoclassical interiors, stone elements placed symmetrically look good, and plastic elements in minimalism, futurism, even in the Rococo or Gothic styles.
Wooden
They have all kinds of sizes, can be rectangular, rounded, asymmetric, have a different thickness. They are decorated with textured carvings, paintings, elegant pyrography, covered with wax, stain, varnished, and when placed in the wet corners of the room they are impregnated with special compounds to prevent warping, cracking, damage by fungus, mold.
Natural wood is used both simple and valuable species - oak, beech, maple, cherry, pear, alder, pine, spruce, fir, larch, birch and many others.For low-cost interiors, natural wood is replaced with laminated or veneered chipboard, fiberboard, MDF, plywood, laminate, drywall. Wooden surfaces combine perfectly with forged, wire, textile frames, individual glass inserts or sides. The product is mounted using brackets carved from wood, forged from metal, self-tapping screws, looks great on walls sheathed with clapboard, pasted over with wallpaper “under the tree”.
Metal
Such details are usually made of stainless steel, for individual interior stylistics they are chrome plated and covered with gilding. Shelves have a small thickness, with proper fastening they can withstand a significant load. They are reliable, durable, aesthetically pleasing, and easily cleaned of contaminants. Often the product is made mesh, for example, for drying dishes above the sink or has hooks for hanging cups by the handle. Sometimes only the frame itself, horizontal planes are made of metal, and the side walls are decorated with cut-out fragments of plywood or intertwined with macrame-style threads.
Plastic
Shelves made of polyurethane do not differ in increased strength, therefore they are used mainly for decorative purposes. They are relatively durable, easy to install, painted by manufacturers in various colors. They have small vases with flowers, light dishes, photographs in frames, jars of seasonings. Designs are carried out in a fantasy form, combined with brackets, niches, and other plastic stucco moldings.
Plastic floor collapsible racks are usually placed in the corner of the room, suitable for storing a small amount of dishes, cutlery, kitchen textiles. If desired, a soft plastic shelf can be easily made from multi-colored plastic bags or a piece of film used to make greenhouses. The material is sewn in the form of squares or inclined sections, suitable for storing cutlery, sponges for washing dishes, bags with aromatic herbs, spices.
Glass
Products made of transparent or tinted glass have a high decorative effect. They can significantly lighten the interior, adding airiness to the room. This model is selected with a thickness of at least five to seven millimeters, often has a rear mirror wall, which allows you to further expand the space, filling it with reflected light. For glass shelves, special fasteners are required, equipped with holders with rubber gaskets and clamping screws from the bottom. Such a design will allow the glass to be fixed as securely as possible, preventing it from accidentally falling. Very popular U-shaped, equipped with sides of different heights on both sides.
Made of natural or artificial stone
The real stone structure made of granite, marble has considerable weight, therefore it is used extremely rarely in kitchens that have other surfaces made of stone - walls, floors, window sills, countertops. Artificial stone is much lighter, more plastic, it is mounted on almost any surface with the help of special metal brackets, it imitates a real one qualitatively. The shelf is placed above the electric or false fireplace, above the countertop made of the same material, attached to the forged brackets, side columns. Stone furniture elements are very environmentally friendly, durable, look good in various interiors, sometimes decorated with textured carvings.This model is rarely suspended, often has a combined mount.
Conclusion
Open hinged shelves in a city apartment, a country house, in a country cottage - an original solution for a room of any size. This type of design allows you to conveniently arrange the kitchen space, located in the most convenient places. For a small kitchenette, narrow wall or ceiling ones are most often chosen, for a more spacious one - wide, long, with multiple decor. Shelves for the kitchen are practical, aesthetically pleasing, are sold by manufacturers as part of a full-fledged headset or as an independent product.