A few weeks ago John and I decided we wanted open shelving in the kitchen. Well, basically I decided, but John agreed. It’s becoming popular now and I wanted a more traditional farmhouse look, and to be able to see in my cabinets. So instead of finding some new shelves, taking down our old ones, and installing new ones, we found an easy DIY open shelving hack to achieve this. So if you are reading this, let me know what you think. Did we pull off open shelving?
Open shelving in the kitchen isn’t anything new. The ability to easily grab spices, jars, towels and more has never been out of style, but more recently the idea of a nearby, open faced cabinet is becoming more popular. Not all kitchens have or would even need open shelving, but ours seemed like a good candidate for it so John and I figured out an easy DIY open shelving hack as part of an old world kitchen revamp I’m doing.
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Why Open Shelving?
Unless you have a tiny kitchen with only one or two shelves total, you probably have at least one shelf that you can open up.
If you search open shelving on Amazon, you’ll find lots of shelves from floating to full on open cabinets. It seems that the modern, wood floating shelf is popular now but that’s not what we did.
We just took our current kitchen cabinet door off and called it open shelving. Actually, we worked on this project a few months ago and I am just now blogging about it (whoops) but it’s better because now I can tell you why we like or dislike the shelves.
The first PRO to open shelving is that it forces you to clean out your shelves. It’s a good time to organize your spice rack into small glass jars, throw away tea bags that are several years old, and maybe donate all those plates or glasses that you never use.
Another good use is for decorating! While my primary goal of open shelving is functional storage, it also gives you a chance to put some cute stuff in there too. Like florals during summertime or garland at Christmas. I like to store my mason jars, teas, spices, protein powder, dates, and some pantry staples like onion and garlic. It really varies over time, depending on what I need in that spot most.
How to Create Easy DIY Open Shelving – The Hack
Back when we did this I didn’t know how I would create a blog post out of it. I thought, is it really that interesting to know that you can create open shelving just by taking the door off your shelves?
But that’s how I am folks, simple and basic. If something was too difficult we probably wouldn’t bother with it, and I figure your’e probably like that too.
So without further adieu, here is how you can create easy DIY open shelving:
- Open up your shelving door and look at how it’s currently attached to the shelf. Ours were attached by two small hinges that were easily removable by a screw driver.
- Remove the attachment. Luckily ours were screwed in on the inside of the cabinet using a bracket, so that when we removed it you couldn’t see the hole on the outside.
- If yours leaves a mark on the outside, you can paint it to match. Hey, maybe this is a good time to paint your cabinets your dream color anyway, right?
- Start styling! I also added these hooks that go under the cabinet so I could hang my measuring cups and spoons.
Have you done this to your kitchen cabinets? Show me! I’m on Instagram at @theduvallhomestead or Facebook.
FARMHOUSE KITCHEN ORGANIZATION STEPS
Next, I organized the kitchen a bit. I am always organizing the kitchen but here are some main ways I like to organize:
Gather all cloth items, like table cloths, runners, cloth napkins, or placemats and put them in a drawer. That way you can see all of the items you have and maybe toss or donate the ones you don’t need any more.
Store your spices in these mini glass jars and use a washable pen to label them. I explain more about how to do this in a blog post here.
Use storage containers, mason jars, bowls, or whatever you have to group similar items together. For example, I store my onion and garlic in a woven basket. Then I have a large bowl for the potatoes. I talk more about how we organize our pantry here.
Clean out the drawers and consider lining them with a paper towel.
Clean the countertops and drawers with a natural homemade cleaner. I just combine water, vinegar, a touch of Castile soup, and some lemon essential oil and that cleans everything in the kitchen.
How do you like to organize your kitchen? If you want to share, you can comment below this post or let me know on Instagram or Facebook.
MORE DIYS FOR YOUR HOME
How to build a Farmhouse Dining Table and matching bench
DIY Garage Shelves for Extra Storage
How to Refinish an Old Dresser
Installing our Farmhouse Bedroom Head Board
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