Feng Shui Kitchen Talk #3
Q – “Bridget why did you take your cabinet doors off when you did your remodel/refresh? Is it a Feng Shui thing?”
A – Not hanging the cabinet doors back up on the units with our every day + holiday china and above the fridge was a personal choice. Not a Feng Shui decision.
I’ve been a homeowner since I’ve been 19, a long, longgggg time ago and in every home, I’ve owned or custom-built I’ve always had some open cabinets or shelves. I prefer the open feeling you get with open shelves and or removing a few cabinet doors gives a space.
A full wall of heavy doors and cabinets feels oppressive to me so it’s an easy fix to either design a new kitchen or modify an existing one by building open shelves or by simply removing a few doors.
The open shelves also give me an opportunity to create yet another pretty vignette.
Q – “Don’t you find it hard to keep them clean and organized?”
A – No, I like things clean and pretty so they’re easy to maintain.
The dish cabinet is organized by how we use them.
Our favourite coffee mugs hang for ease of use over the coffee station. We’re addicted to coffee so this is a must.
I chose the dish cabinet to be beside the fridge for convenience as well.
Our daily dishes are on the bottom shelf, with extra coffee mugs, sandwich/dessert plates and pasta bowls on the middle shelf. These are items we use once a week.
The top two shelves store our fine china that we use on holidays. I found a full set of 12 at value village last summer for next to nothing. A full set is really hard to find so when I found these with the blue detailing I grabbed them.
The space over the fridge is always a dead zone where people store stuff they never use. We don’t have a lot of kitchen gadgets and appliances so I decided to do what I always do over the fridge and style it with pretty vintage kitchen decor items. I used wood tones to add warmth and texture.
Q – “What did you use to line the inside of your cabinets?
A – Damask Tac Paper from Walmart for $9.00. I love it. It brakes up the white and cream. It was so easy to install. I was going to use beadboard, yes I said beadboard but when I found this I changed my mind thinking if I didn’t like it I wasn’t out a ton of money to redo it. But I love it, so it will be staying!
Here’s a tip. If you want to try open shelving but are a bit nervous about committing simple remove a couple of upper doors from the cabinet that houses your everyday dishes. Store them in a safe place, wrap them in extra blankets or sheets so they don’t get damaged. Mine are safely tucked under the stairs in the basement.
Style by;
1. Emptying the entire contents of the cabinet.
2. Purging items that are chipped and that you don’t love or use. When helping my girlfriend organize her kitchen when she moved I suggested she get rid of anything that had a logo on it. She had 50 coffee mugs with many of them branded. Ugg??♀️ she was able to pair down to 20 of her favourite non-advertising mugs! Lol she was amazed by how much bigger her kitchen felt!
3. Clean and organize your dishes by how you used them. With everyday things low and easy to grab.
4. Place occasionally used items in the middle.
5. Put special occasion things on the upper shelves and style to look pretty. Styling these shelves is easier as you won’t be moving decor all the time to get to the things you use daily.
After a week or two if you don’t like the look and feel, simply hand the doors back up. It’s really that easy.
