Creating a more simple kitchen

[Geila]

When I redid my kitchen 10 years ago, I wanted to create a cheerful open space. We took down walls, and used color to brighten up a white space.

Inspiration for Current kitchen:
http://hgtvhome.sndimg.com/content/d...954947230.jpeg

Now I'm wanting to change things up and make it a more uncluttered and simple space, but I still want it to be bright and pretty. I've been really debating changing out the shelving for cabinets with glass doors or reducing the shelves to 2 instead of 3. I'm thinking of painting the space a soft sage mint color and reducing the amount of stuff on the shelving by at least half.

Inspiration for Future kitchen:
https://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/64893857

What do you guys think? Any ideas you can provide?

p.s. sorry for the post bombs but I'm in project planning mode and itching to get started but not sure which way to go. I've been accused of over planning...

[SteveinMN]

It sounds nice to me. Kitchen design, IMHO, is a very subjective thing.

I've not been a fan of open shelves or even glass-front cabinets because I don't find layers of colors and textures at all soothing. Plus we're too cheap to spend money on a matched set of anything , contributing further to the mismatched cluttered look. Then there's the cleaning; in our kitchen (at least) there would be a constant battle with splatters on surfaces. But that's me/us.

One thought about glass-front upper cabinets (well, any upper cabinets) is that they will take away from the airiness plainly visible in the picture. The shelves in the picture allow the eye to include the white space offered by essentially one storage surface (the shelf itself) while an upper cabinet will enclose space even if it is empty.

The sage mint is a good color in a lot of places, but for me it would depend on what other colors exist which you could not/would not change. Monochrome tends to extend the eye's reach. Multiple colors tends to break that up. What else would you change to that color?

Now if it were me and a blank check... lol

[herbgeek]

I love the open look of shelving, when there are only a few types of items on display. Three shelves is too many for my aesthetic. I like the way additional light moves around the room as compared to closed cabinets. This really only works to have your daily dishes on shelves, where you'd be washing them frequently and not those occasional items which would just be dust/grease collectors. It also works better I think when you have items with a strong shape/presence so it looks more like sculpture and typically monochrome dishes that contrast with the background. The open shelf look also looks better if you don't have a soffit extending into the room, so that there is a clean line upwards.

Of course, I have the closed cabinets that came with the house when we bought them because I'm too cheap to replace something that is functional.

[Geila]

Steve - ok, my kitchen would drive you nuts! You know, you could create your look with Ikea products pretty cheaply, well, ok, that big overhang maybe not. But the rest, yes. Oh, to answer your question: I plan to paint all of the walls the same soft green and maybe the surround for the fridge. I would remove the red behind the stove and use something neutral or leave it green. I would also change out the stool cushion covers to something in the green family. And I would limit the colors on the shelves to blues and greens. with maybe a pop of yellow.

herbgeek - I do like the monochromatic look in pictures. Very soothing and clean. But for actually using my kitchen and living with it, I find the lack of color a bit depressing. Especially in winter time.

I'm going to add the link to the new kitchen inspiration to the original post to make it easier to visualize.

Regarding the cleaning, I haven't found the shelving to be much of an issue. I do have to take things down and clean them every once in a while, but it's easy and quick. I rarely fry and I don't cook big meals every day so that helps. And the big vent thing really helps too.

[herbgeek]

herbgeek - I do like the monochromatic look in pictures.

In case I wasn't clear, I meant dishes all one color, not lack of color in general in the room. Like if you had a deep color on the walls, white dishes would really pop. Or if you had a pale background, some darker dishes would do the same. Patterned dishes in the same tone as the background wall would not be (to me) as appealing as a contrast.

[Yppej]

My parents have green cabinets and it works.

[Geila]

My fridge is in place and we like it a lot - more than we thought we would. The counter depth makes a big difference. Now I know exactly what I'm going to do!

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

[pinkytoe]

The house we just bought is in dire need of a kitchen update and I have been procrastinating on its design because it is fairly small and an odd configuration. dOne contractor who came out wanted to rip out the dining room wall and install an island from there to the other end of the kitchen. Nope - I am not a fan of totally open kitchens. The photos you posted though are what I want - a counter between the two. Looking at houzz and Pinterest overwhelm me.

[iris lilies]

I cant do open shelving although I like the look of it. We fry foods a lot, and everything gets coated with grease.

i remember the days when were were finishing our house (a gut rehab) and plaster dust was everywhere. We had no kitchen cabinets, just shelves. Each item I used, a dish, a pan, an implement,, had to be wiped off before use. Ugh, those were the bad old days and they went on for two or three years.

i love painted cabinets. While DH will never allow me to paint ours anything other than white or ivory, I would love a pale green.

[Float On]

The oak cabinets were too dark in my small galley kitchen. I found a $5 mis-tent in a sage green at Lowes and painted the lower cabinets that color with the upper cabinets in white. Loved it grew tired of the sage green so went and got a gypsy teal teal.JPG can of paint because it matched the color of my Durango (about 2 years before it became the most popular color). I love having the color on the lower cabinets and I removed a few of the doors on the upper cabinets. It's open over the uppers so I have a lot of glass up there which I need to remember to take down and wash soon.
My laundry is a light sage/mint green with white appliances, white sink, white cabinets and shelves (with black support brackets). I love that room. The light green is very clean.