Would you ever go sans upper cabinets in your kitchen?

Did you just think to yourself ~ what is this chick talking about?!

But  really, think about it, it’s a string of boxes hanging on the wall, floating over that precious counter space… and those top shelves are always so hard to reach!

You don’t see a lot of kitchens without upper cabinets, but I’m totally in love with this look and can’t wait to have a space that I can design this way. It might be a little tough to go this design route if you are tight on space, and using vertical surfaces is a tried and true way to maximize storage, but if you have the room to make up a little storage elsewhere, you might want to consider going this route. Personally I think it really opens everything up and I adore the clean look, plus we all probably have too much stuff anyway, so maybe you don’t need quite as much storage as you think {guys, my manfriend has so much kitchen stuff, especially given that he doesn’t cook! we will be having another round of kitchen purging. for. sure.}Sometimes people opt for open shelving in the kitchen in lieu of cabinets, which I like in theory. But in practice unless you are very disciplined about keeping everything just so {because it’s literally on display at all times} it won’t look good. And any shelving that is close to the stove always gets covered in a thin oily film from cooking… and so does everything on it. So you end up having to re-wash anything you use twice… once when it’s dirty, and then again when you want to use it. If I went with open shelves in the kitchen, I’d opt to display items that don’t get used everyday, or make them a special moment somewhere away from the stove.So what to do with all of your dishes etc. if you want to ‘go crazy’ and give up those upper cabinets? There are all kinds of other ways to solve for storage besides traditional cabinets. I like the idea of dishes all in one pantry… instead of having small groups of things across a long line of cabinets, you have everything in one place where you can see it and get to it all at once… and most of it within a much easier reach.  I also like the idea of open shelving where you can store everything. It’s a brave move for sure, again having everything out on display similar to shelves above the counter, but it can look really great and fun, and you can put some of your heavier cooking items that are a pain to get out of those bottom cabinets here as well for easier access!Would you give up upper cabinets in your kitchen altogether, or do you still think I’m crazy?! When I have my kitchen up and running, with no upper cabinets, I’ll invite you to dinner so that you can see how great they are ;)