Do you snip and pin photos of favorite kitchens for future (ah, someday!) inspiration? I do too, and I realized that many of the kitchens I loved had one thing in common: No upper cabinets. It might seem crazy to forego the storage that upper cabinets offer, but there are some significant advantages in return. See ten inspiring kitchens here that ditched the uppers, and read more on why it's sometimes a good idea.
It must be said that a kitchen without upper cabinets can feel conspicuously luxurious. "I don't need upper cabinets," it says. "I have all the space I need and more!" Many of the kitchens pictured are generously sized, even by suburban standards. They have the luxury of separate pantries and miles of lower drawers to hold tools, pans, ingredients, and dishes.
But even a small kitchen can benefit from cutting the upper cabinets. Why? It makes a space feel so much more open, and it leaves the wall space free for something just as important: Windows. This is why I decided to go without upper cabinets in the new kitchen I am building right now. It's not a huge kitchen, although it is more generous than an urban apartment kitchen usually would be. (It's in an old house in the Midwest.) I wanted yards of windows for light and breeze.
Going without upper cabinets also helps the kitchen feel more like a regular room, not a storeroom or pantry, flowing easily into the dining or living spaces — a very popular layout these days. And even the smallest apartments and homes often have a little bit of extra space that can be grabbed for pantry storage (a shallow closet, even a tall space between the studs of the wall!).
And finally, my upper cabinets are just not that functional; I am very short and have to climb up on a stool to get things above my eye-level! Lowering everything below the countertops will be a relief, and easier to keep organized.
Here are some of my primary inspirations in creating a kitchen with no upper cabinets. Does this appeal to you? Or is it not practical for the space you're in? If you have a kitchen with no uppers, do you like it?
TOP ROW
• 1 Gorgeous Grey/Gray Kitchen-Tradition with a Twist - at Willow Decor.
• 2 Modern Toronto Kitchen - via Houzz.
• 3 Modern Vancouver Kitchen - via Houzz.
• 4 Shiva Rose's Kitchen - Apartment Therapy.
• 5 Contemporary Austin Kitchen - via Houzz.
BOTTOM ROW
• 6 Ardsley Kitchen - Robbins Architecture.
• 7 Brooklyn Brownstone Kitchen - Apartment Therapy.
• 8 Bonnard Paris Apartment Kitchen - by Antonio Virga.
• 9 Melody's Beautifully-Designed Pacific Northwest Kitchen - The Kitchn.
• 10 Michigan Kitchen - Robbins Architecture.
Related: Open and Light: A Kitchen That Flows Into the Home
(Images: 1. Jamie Salomon/Willow Decor; 2. Andrew Snow Photography for Taylor Smyth via Houzz; 3. Eric Saczuk for Mango Design; 4. Marcia Prentice for Apartment Therapy; 5. David Wilkes Builders; 6. Robbins Architecture; 7. Beth Bates for Apartment Therapy; 8. Birgitta Wolfgang Drejer for Australian Design Review; 9. Leela Cyd Ross for The Kitchn; 10. Robbins Architecture)
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mostly, i repin kitchens with open shelving. i am no fan of cabinets in general. however, i've seen some fantastic kitchen tours with cabinets. a la ryan's pad in san fran.
Our kitchen is small and is completely closed off from the dining room. Entering the kitchen from the dining room requires a U-turn through a tiny butler's pantry-turned-bathroom. I probably don't have to tell you how frustrating this is during large parties. During our dream remodel, we will knock down the wall between the dining room and kitchen so we can walk directly through. Between the 4 doors into the kitchen (from outside, basement, upstairs, and dining room) and two large windows, there is already barely any wall space, and even less after we knock down the wall. To make things worse, two large cast-iron radiators take up much of the space that would be used for floor cabinets. I think we'll end up with nearly all storage in floor cabinets. But how do you store things like glasses there?
Would love to see more traditional-style kitchens without wall cabinets. So many of these pics are modern. Our home is Victorian and we're trying to maintain a traditional feel.
My kitchen is quite small and has no upper cabinets, but it does have a walk-in pantry with floor to ceiling open shelving on both sides (and a charming little window at the back). The pantry is my favorite feature of the apartment-- and you're right, not having upper cabinets does make the kitchen feel a lot bigger than it is!
When you live in a smaller city apartment where lot sizes are much smaller than some suburban ones, vertical space is your friend. Uppers with doors help keep grease out and hide clutter. Reed glass upper doors would have been nice when I did my kitchen renovation; it'd create a more open feeling.
I'd rather see a clean kitchen with proper storage than stuff on every surface.
COJO- You exactly described my 100 year old kitchen! Between all of the doors and the wall (which we can't knock down because there used to be a fireplace there), there is little space for any cabinets at all. I do love the bulter's pantry, but not when I have to walk through ever time to get to the dining room. We finally "switched" the dining and living rooms of the house, so the flow at least from kitchen to table was somewhat better. The rooms were virtually interchangeable in terms of size and layout though, so not sure if that would work for you.
@Amand0r, probably not - our home is one of those long-and-narrow types. The kitchen is in the back, and dining room in the middle, and everything is closed off by doors. However, our dining room is huge, so when we open it up to the kitchen, if we can afford to move pipes, I may steal some of the dining room's space for the much-smaller kitchen....
all i could think of while looking through these kitchens is 'where do you store the glasses?' it seems odd to me to have to reach down for a glass or mug, but i suppose it's just a matter of realigning one's expectations. it would probably become second nature after a while.
No uppers is totally doable in a traditional kitchen. It does take some thinking outside the box, but in our 1910 kitchen with 4 doors and two windows, I was able to close off one door (to the pantry, which was converted to a small powder room with an entry through the back door hallway) leaving us the full window wall and 2 walls with 3/4 length to "play" with. I put cabinets with drawers (and stove and sink) in an "L" configuration on two walls.
The key to great storage was on the third wall, where I sunk the counter-depth fridge halfway into the wall (so it stuck out only about 14 inches both into the kitchen in the front AND into the back hall behind it) and then surrounded the fridge with floor to ceiling 12-inch deep wall cabinets. There was tons of storage, the whole kitchen functioned fantastically, and I got lots of compliments on how well it fit into the traditional style of the house.
Don't be afraid to shuffle rooms around too. In the example of the commenter who has a long narrow house with all the rooms in a line, if a major remodel is planned anyway (and you have good access below, like a basement), then consider putting the kitchen in the middle, and the dining room in the smaller former kitchen, where lots of doors aren't as much of an issue. You could potentially then put more and larger windows along the back wall and bring lots more light into the center of the house.
I don't know how it came to be that people insisted on storing glasses at eye level, but a lot of those photos show only half the kitchen and others have open shelving where glasses can be stored. And others still show a vertical pantry or cabinet, meaning glasses could be stored there.
I like the way it's done in the Ardsley, the Michigan, and Melody's. In all three they're still making use of the walls for storage; they're just also making room for sunlight. Come to think of it, my kitchen, while not nearly as nice as the examples above, is similar in that the entire wall above the kitchen sink is a window, but there's still plenty of upper cabinet storage on either side of that wall.
Glasses can be stored in a drawer, I actually have a frient who does this (and has upper cabinets) and I find it much easier to get a glass, there is a mat at the bottom of the drawer to precent glasses from sliding around. Unfortunately I don't have enough drawer space to do this.
i love kitchens without upper cabinets. even though my kitchen is teeny tiny (think one bank of drawers and 3 upper cabinets), i think i could make the switch to open shelving pretty easily. for me, it's all about getting rid of the kitchen appliances i really don't need or use and constantly paring down all the glassware i seem to collect. less is more, and for one person, i really don't need that much stuff to cook meals.
I do like this idea but I don't think it will work well in a small kitchen since I'm not a fan of open shelving. I do have a pantry but not large enough to hold my food AND dishes, cups and glasses.
My last rental house had no uppers, lots of windows. Love the look, but bending and squatting to get to every ingredient and pan every time I cooked was tiring. Even with drawers you still have to bend over to reach things. And the windows and light were often overwhelmingly bright and hot, reflecting off dish ware and the stainless steel sink and surround. So I'm not saying don't do it, but consider the effect on your kitchen work style.
I actually prefer drawers to cabinets. 1) Everything is accessible in a drawer vs the dark recesses of cabinetry. 2) I'm short so I can only really reach the bottom shelf of any upper cabinet anyway.
I had a boyfriend whose rental kitchen had no drawers (only cabinets) and it was a disaster. Every utensil he had had to be out on the counter in some kind of container. Bowls too as the cabinet shelves were too short. Pure stupidity.
I love the look of these types of kitchens but for me it's just not practical. I'm messy and I don't want to have to clean open shelves off all the time. Plus, I don't like clutter on the counters and I know if I had no upper cabinets or open shelves, I'd have a mess on my hands. We redid our kitchen over the winter and I have tons of cabinets and I love them so I guess I'm not the target for this. To each his/her own.
I love the look of a kitchen without uppers, but undertand why some are needed, so I tried to compromise. I have a tall, skinny cabinet on the side of the fridge (glasses and plates) and a fridge-width cabinet above. Also, 2 floor-to-ceiling cabinets - one currently used for food and the other housing a double oven. In the next couple of years I'm adding a walk-in pantry, so the food cabinet will become strictly pots and pans.
I love the openness of the kitchen without a solid bank of uppers. More room for art.
@COJO My immediate thought is deep drawers for your bottom cabinets. They make reaching ANYTHING in the lowers so much easier and I can see rows of glasses and plates nesting and ready to be pulled out with a slight bend at the waist, as opposed to crouching to reach them... My parents built all drawers in this lowers when they built their kitchen, even measuring their tallest liquor bottles to make a drawer deep enough for them. Genius!
Some may dream of no uppers, I dream of deep drawers for lowers.
I'm only 5'2" so upper cupboards are pretty pointless for me. I can usually reach the back of the first shelf but only the front of the second, and nothing beyond that. I only have a couple of upper cupboards for dishes and glasses. Instead I have a walk-in pantry with shelving all the way up, and a little step stool tucked away to use for the higher shelves.
More useful for me, makes the room look bigger, plus there's room for a lot of windows.
Some good points but I don't think most kitchens have much to gain from removing the cabinets. Mine are all along interior walls, so I wouldn't be able to open up the space and put in a window instead. And since there's nowhere to install a pantry, there wouldn't be adequate storage without them. I used to live with a roommate who kept all the dishes and glasses in drawers, and I never was able to get used to it; even though I'm short I'd rather reach up for things than be bending down to get them.
Dulcibella, I'm also 5'2" and share the same problem. Whatever's on the 2nd and 3rd shelves is a mystery to me unless, I use my step ladder to view. Mostly, it's a collection of vases & glasses and mugs and kitchen trinkets I received as gifts from around the globe. I would love to have the upper cabinets gone, for me they serve lil purpose other than storage for things I don't use on a daily basis.
we remodeled our 1940s Cape 5 years ago. i took out the (few) upper cabinets, and installed (okay, the contractor did) open shelving right across the front of the windows.
I love the look but I need my cabinets.