DIY Kitchen Remodel Part 4: Installing Open Shelving
Tuesday, May 17, 2011 at 5:43PM Before we move on to open shelving in the kitchen, here is a quick look back at the beginning:
DIY Kitchen Remodel Part 1: Before
DIY Kitchen Remodel Part 2: Demolition
DIY Kitchen Remodel Part 3: Tiles, Tiles, Everywhere
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At the end of my last Kitchen post, I alluded to an updated stainless steel cook top that cost us $22. Looking back, I realized we did that AFTER we tackled the problem of where we were going to store our dishes and things considering that we ripped out all of the upper cabinets. Now that we had sparkly blue & gray tiles from the countertop to the ceiling on one wall & over a foot on the other AND a new modern hood installed, it was time to focus on storage.
I've long been a fan of open shelving in kitchens & decided that was the way to go to achieve the light and airy look I had been wanting. It still pains me to think about how much research we did trying to find the right shelves, only to end up with great stainless shelving from IKEA. I thought about ordering industrial kitchen shelving, but on some I didn't really like the brackets & how they attached to the wall. Or it wasn't the right size. Or they were really expensive. We decided to buy & hack down the long IKEA Mossby shelves and throw in a couple of Grundtal shelves as well.
The Mossby shelves are really just a hollow-ish particle board wrapped in stainless steel. Oh yeah, and the stainless is only on one side, which we didn't realize at first. So while it wasn't easy to cut these down to size, it could have been a lot harder.
We found the stud closest to the center of the wall & used that as our measuring point. Luckily we had 44" on one side and 42" on the other so they look like they're the same length. We then measured how high we wanted each shelf to go and marked it off with blue tape. KEEP IN MIND that we are both tall. And I didn't realize that we hung these really high until a shorter friend of mine couldn't reach the shelf with all of our glasses! Oops. So, think about that before screwing these things into the wall.
We hung the Grundtal shelves on the bottom so that we could hang pots & pans - yay for more storage! Remember to keep the pots clean, which is really quite simple to do.
As you can see in the picture below, we originally kept the upper cabinets on the right, figuring we could use it for ugly/messy storage, cookbooks, etc. Once we realized how much we loved the open shelving above the sink, we tore those down as well & installed more open shelving, this time in the smaller size. Yay for no hacking!
The final step was installing a rail above the sink. I wanted to be able to hang vases and other storage things to hold sponges, etc. While it looks nice, I have to say that I don't really use this now.
Next up? That $22 stainless steel cook top!
p.s. aren't those countertops positively hideous?! That was another $50ish change that made the biggest difference!
DIY, Interior Design, Kitchen 
Reader Comments (5)
Sigh - I LOVE your kitchen!!
Looks great!! I really wanted open shelves but Micah wasn't into them. :(
Fantastic ideas of shelves. I am loving it!
Wow, that's a really gorgeous kitchen, truly it is. One of these days I hope to have the time and resources to re-do my kitchen, it's an outdated nightmare.
Wow, those are really great looking shelves. I have to admit, I'm a little envious, my kitchen is dire need of a "do-over".