Well remember that unless you have a ton of storage elsewhere, your shelves will not be staged like the ones in the photograph. Instead you'll be using them to store your dishes, glasses, cereal boxes ... think about how much closed storage you will be giving up and if you have room to store things you'd rather have behind a door elsewhere. I think plates, glasses, etc look nice if neatly stacked on open shelving, but I'd also be concerned about how much grease and dust they would collect in the kitchen being out in the open and in your case, right next to the range.

I don't see a ton of storage in the rendering of your kitchen, but maybe there is more on other walls we can't see. I guess the first thing I'd do if I were you is put a plan together of what gets stored where, and make sure everything has a place that makes sense for you.

It sure is beautiful, but I have to say I hate dusting my open shelves and it's a constant battle to keep them neat and "display ready." As susana mentioned, you have to think really hard about what needs to be stored in that space and your willingness to maintain and stage it all.

You could do it to the right of the hood in that corner but unless you close in the Window(?) you would have basicly a kitchen without storage

I agree that you might want to consider how much open shelving to include. I'm limiting my new kitchen to two open shelves, 28" long each. I plan to use them mostly for cookbooks, crockery bowls that I use frequently, and a framed picture that will lean against the wall. The shelves are on the opposite side of the kitchen from the stove.

Something like this example, which opens up a little wall space and lets you add a bit of personality to the kitchen!

Personality should come secondary to practicality. Do you have a giant walk in pantry elsewhere? If not, then open shelving is impractical for your small kitchen with limited storage.

Open shelving instead of wall cabinets does not make sense if you need the cabinets for storing items. Plus, it is a lot more work because you will have to make sure your dishes are still spotless before using them. I like the idea of what Kim has suggested.

In your kitchen space, does that opening exist or is that something the designer suggested? I'm asking because it might be a good idea to take up some of that space to add more upper cabinets. You could still keep the opening just shorten it a bit. Then what you could do is add a couple small shelves in the corner that can break up the cabinets. I did that for a client in the picture below. But I do agree with my fellow designers, it all depends on how much storage space you need and if you have a seperate pantry somewhere.

HI -- That is a very beautiful "staged " kitchen but .... real life means you have to stay very organized and clean . Open shelves in a kitchen gets sticky dusty . I would not want summer flies skating around on my dishes either !

Hi! Original poster here :)

Thank you for all your input! We are a new family and don't have a big kitchen collection yet. But I feel like we have enough storage, maybe I'm wrong?

Attached is our storage with the current layout. If we copy those corner shelves we lose the glass open cabinets which would have been display items anyways and about 10 inches from the stove wall upper cabinets that would become shelf space.

There is a 27 inch wide pantry (net of the cabinet side walls) on the opposite wall of the stove. We also have an island with 2 columns of 35" wide drawers.

No to open shelving too much cleaning to do the shelves and all the items get dirty and greasy from cooking. I have 2 small open shelves which need cleaning every few days.