OPEN SHELVES IN THE KITCHEN

Since there are no overhead or wall cabinets in the kitchen at the farm, we will need some additional storage and one thing we've always liked the look of are open shelves.


Unfortunately, there is no place in the city house to put open shelving, but at the farm, we believe we have found the perfect spot.


In this picture, you can see where we'd like to put the shelves, on either side of the kitchen window:

So below, I present some of the ideas I've found across the Internet for what I'd like to do in our own farmhouse kitchen with open shelving:

This is a nice look, two shelves on each side of the window.  Painting it all the same color as the window trim is a nice touch.  It makes for an almost "built in" look.

I really like the minimalist look of

these shelves.  Simple brackets, simple shelves, same color.  Very "clean" looking.  This is
2nd Man's choice.

This one is very pretty.  I like the detailed brackets, and painting the shelves a different color from the supports almost makes them stand out as an architectural element.

Another one that has some nice details and it's all painted the same color, again, almost blending into the wall and making the items on the shelves become the focus of the room.

Here is another very minimalist design, kind of reminds me of a "Shaker" style or design.  I do like the stained wood look, it really compliments the color of the counter tops and the wood detail on the back splash.

 


Now I just love this one.  I think the metal
brackets against the white look beautiful and old world.  However, they might be a bit TOO old world for our farmhouse, but they still sure do look nice.







This is something that will be very easy to do, just mounting shelves on each side of the window.  But I think our hardest decision will be deciding what kind of shelf brackets we want?  Wood?  Metal?  Ornate?  Plain?  Painted the same color as the walls?  Or the color of the window trim?


Funny, I just looked back at the photos and realized that all 6 are shelves on white walls (one is questionable white, could be "off white", ha).  That's exactly what we are doing, painting the whole house white so we can have that airy, bright, summery, cottage feel and it's kind of funny that I was attracted to pictures that were all white walls.  Perhaps that's a sign we're on the right track!


These are the fun decisions we will soon get to make!


UPDATE 10/2011: Well, as often happens, plans change.  Here is how we ended up solving the open shelving problem:

This is almost "after", at the time of this photo, we hadn't finished cleaning up the counter, floor, put new knobs on, etc.  But what we did for the solution was to have cabinets built instead of shelves, but leave the doors off so that they matched the lower cabinets.  It almost looks like they have ALWAYS been like this.  We think it was the right choice.