8 Kitchen Open Shelving Before-and-After Installs: Was It Worth It?
Real homeowners who ripped out upper cabinets and replaced them with open shelves — here’s what they actually think two years later
Open shelving in the kitchen is one of those ideas that divides people faster than pineapple on pizza. On one side: the Instagram crowd who swears by beautifully curated shelves with matching ceramic canisters and exactly one trailing pothos. On the other: anyone who’s ever actually cooked with oil and knows that grease settles on everything. But here’s the thing — some of the most functional, beautiful kitchen transformations happen when someone takes the leap and pulls down a few upper cabinets. We found eight real kitchens where open shelving was installed as part of a before-and-after project, and checked in on whether the homeowners actually kept it, adapted it, or quietly put the cabinets back. Spoiler: most of them kept it. But not without some honest lessons along the way.
1. The Narrow Galley That Needed to Breathe
This galley kitchen was maybe seven feet wide — the kind where you could touch both walls if you stretched your arms out. Upper cabinets on both sides made it feel like walking through a wooden tunnel. The homeowner pulled the uppers on the window wall only, replaced them with three thick white oak floating shelves ($85 each from a local woodworker), and kept the closed cabinets on the opposite wall for actual storage. The difference was immediate: light flooded in, the kitchen felt like it had an extra two feet of breathing room, and the shelves now hold the everyday stuff — plates, bowls, mugs, and a few cookbooks. Total install cost: about $310 for shelves and heavy-duty hidden brackets. Two years later, the homeowner says it’s the single best thing they’ve done to the house. The key? They only removed cabinets on one wall. The other side still hides the mess — the Tupperware, the mismatched lids, the appliance graveyard. Open shelving works when you’re strategic about which wall goes open.
Total Cost~$310 for three custom shelves plus mounting hardware
Two-Year VerdictStill up, still loved — ‘I’d do it again in a heartbeat, but only on one wall’
2. The Builder-Grade Kitchen That Went Full Cottage
This kitchen started life as every early-2000s builder spec: oak-toned cabinets, laminate counters, and a general feeling of ‘we chose the base package.’ The homeowner decided to go full cottage — painted the lowers Behr Back to Nature (a soft sage), installed a peel-and-stick beadboard backsplash, and replaced the uppers on two walls with thick pine shelves they built themselves using $40 in lumber from Home Depot and heavy-duty shelf brackets from Amazon ($18 each). Total shelving cost: under $150. The shelves now display a mix of everyday dishes, vintage ironstone collected from estate sales, and a few plants. The homeowner says the vintage pieces make the shelves look intentional, not cluttered. Two years in, the pine has aged to a warm honey tone that matches the cottage vibe perfectly. The only downside? ‘Dusting is a real thing. I wipe the shelves down every Sunday. It takes ten minutes. I’ve made peace with it.’
Display StrategyEveryday dishes mixed with collected vintage pieces — nothing on the shelves that isn’t used weekly
Honest Take‘Dusting is a real thing’ — budget 10 minutes a week or accept a little character
3. The Dark Kitchen That Finally Got Some Light
This kitchen had one small window over the sink and upper cabinets on every other wall blocking what little light existed. The homeowner’s contractor initially pushed back — ‘you’ll lose 40% of your storage’ — but the homeowner was firm: the dark was making them hate cooking in their own home. They removed uppers on the two walls flanking the window, installed simple white-painted pine shelves with concealed steel brackets, and painted the exposed wall behind them a warm white. The light transformation was dramatic. That single window now bounces off the white wall and shelves, filling the room in a way the cabinets never allowed. Storage was rerouted: a pantry cabinet went into the adjacent hallway ($180 from IKEA), and a rolling cart ($65) lives next to the fridge for overflow. Total project cost: about $290 including the pantry and cart. ‘I lost cabinet space but gained a kitchen I actually want to be in,’ the homeowner says. ‘The pantry in the hallway takes five extra steps. I’ll survive.’
Total Cost~$290 including hallway pantry cabinet and rolling kitchen cart
Trade-OffLost upper storage but rerouted to hallway pantry — ‘five extra steps for pasta is worth a bright kitchen’
4. The Rental Kitchen Renter-Proof Shelving Swap
Renters get told they can’t do open shelving because landlords won’t let them drill. This renter got creative: their existing upper cabinets had been installed with standard mounting screws into drywall anchors. They carefully removed the cabinets (storing them in the closet), patched and touched up the existing holes, then installed lightweight metal bracket shelves ($22 each from IKEA’s GRUNDTAL line) using the same wall anchors that were already there. The shelves hold a curated set of white dishes, glass jars for dry goods, and a small plant. Total cost: $88 for four shelves. When the lease is up, the cabinets go back on the same holes. The landlord won’t know. The homeowner’s take two years in: ‘It’s the best $88 I’ve ever spent on a rental. The kitchen went from ‘fine’ to ‘I actually like being in here.’ The key was reusing the existing anchor points — no new holes, no new damage, no landlord conversation needed.’
Total Cost$88 for four shelves — the most affordable transformation on this list
Renter HackReuse existing mounting points — no new holes, no landlord conversation, fully reversible
5. The Farmhouse Kitchen with the Reclaimed Wood Shelves
This homeowner found reclaimed barn wood at a local salvage yard — three 48-inch planks of weathered oak for $60 total — and had a friend with a workshop plane them flat and cut them to size. They mounted the shelves on heavy-duty black steel brackets ($24 each from Amazon) into studs, and styled them with white stoneware, enamelware, and a few pieces of inherited family china. The shelves replaced upper cabinets that had been painted cream but were starting to show their age (peeling veneer, soft spots near the sink). Total cost: about $175 including brackets, stain for sealing the wood, and new screws. The reclaimed wood adds a warmth and texture that no new shelf could match — each plank has character: old nail holes, weathering marks, a grain pattern that tells a story. Two years later, the homeowner says the shelves are the thing guests comment on most. ‘Everyone asks where I got them. Nobody believes they were $20 planks from a barn.’ The only maintenance: a reseal with tung oil once a year, takes 20 minutes.
Total Cost~$175 including brackets, sealant, and hardware
MaintenanceAnnual tung oil reseal (20 minutes) — the wood actually gets better with age
6. The Modern Kitchen That Went Minimal
This was already a clean, modern kitchen — flat-panel white cabinets, quartz counters, stainless appliances. But the homeowner wanted that next-level minimal look you see in Scandinavian design blogs. They removed the uppers on one wall and installed ultra-thin black powder-coated steel shelves from a custom metalworker ($120 each, three shelves). The shelves hold almost nothing: white plates in a neat stack, clear glasses, one small cutting board propped upright. That’s it. The rest of the kitchen’s storage lives behind the remaining closed cabinets and in deep drawers below. Total cost: about $420 for the three custom shelves. The homeowner’s honest review: ‘It looks incredible. Like a showroom. But it only works because I’m extremely disciplined about what goes on those shelves. If you’re the kind of person who accumulates stuff on surfaces, this approach will drive you crazy within a month.’ Two years in, the shelves are still sparse and beautiful. But the homeowner admits they have a ‘shelf basket’ in the closet where things that don’t make the aesthetic cut get hidden.
Total Cost~$420 for three custom-fabricated shelves — the splurge on this list
Reality Check‘Looks incredible but requires discipline — I have a shame basket in the closet for overflow’
7. The Corner Kitchen That Used Every Inch
This L-shaped corner kitchen had the worst kind of upper cabinets — the corner ones with the lazy Susan inside that never worked right and collected mystery items from 2015. The homeowner ripped out the corner uppers entirely and installed shelves that wrapped the corner: two longer shelves on the main wall and two shorter ones on the return wall, all matching white oak. The corner, which had been dead awkward storage, became the visual focal point of the kitchen. The shelves hold everyday items on the main wall and cookbooks plus a small herb garden in terra-cotta pots on the return wall. Brackets were the key challenge — they used heavy-duty concealed shelf pins rated for 50 pounds each, driven into studs. Total cost: about $340 for the four custom-cut shelves and hardware. The homeowner’s verdict: ‘I gained usable storage, lost the lazy Susan that never worked, and now I have fresh basil three feet from the stove. The corner went from my least favorite part of the kitchen to my favorite.’ Two years later, the herb corner is still going strong.
Total Cost~$340 for four corner-wrapping shelves with heavy-duty hardware
Corner HackWrapping shelves around a corner turns dead space into a focal point — herbs near the stove is a bonus
8. The ‘Half and Half’ Kitchen That Found the Balance
This homeowner wasn’t ready to go fully open — and that’s exactly why this project works so well. They removed the uppers on the wall above the sink (the wall you see first when you walk in) and replaced them with three floating shelves in white oak. The uppers on the adjacent wall stayed — but the homeowner swapped the solid doors for glass-front inserts ($45 per door from a cabinet door supplier online). The result is a kitchen that feels open and airy from the main vantage point but still has plenty of hidden storage around the corner. The open shelves hold the pretty stuff — white dishes, clear jars, a few plants. The glass-front cabinets hide the practical stuff — canned goods, backup spices, the Instant Pot accessories. Total cost: about $380 for shelves plus glass inserts for six cabinet doors. ‘I call it strategic openness,’ the homeowner says. ‘Open where it matters for the vibe, closed where it matters for sanity.’ Two years in, they say this is the configuration they’d recommend to anyone on the fence about open shelving. ‘You don’t have to go all or nothing. The half-and-half approach lets you test the waters without a full commitment.’
Total Cost~$380 for three shelves plus six glass cabinet door inserts
Best Advice‘You don’t have to go all or nothing — half open, half glass-front is the safe way to test it’
Before You Rip Out Your Cabinets: Open Shelving Reality Check