DIY Open Kitchen Shelf Ideas: Farmhouse, Cottage & Coastal Decor

Dreaming of a kitchen that feels more open, airy, and full of character? Open shelving is a design trend that isn’t going anywhere – and for good reason! It’s a fantastic way to add personality, increase visual space, and display your favorite kitchenware. Whether your heart belongs to the rustic charm of a farmhouse kitchen, the bright simplicity of a guest cottage, or the similar elegance of coastal decor, you’re in the right place. In this post, I’m thrilled to share how we’ve embraced open shelving in our homes, with creative ideas from open cabinets, DIY shelving, and unique plate racks. Get ready to be inspired to create and style your own beautiful open shelves!

We just remodeled our tiny beach cottage and removed all the upper cabinets to make the 7′ x 12′ space feel larger.

In addition, we replaced the lower cabinets with open shelves. This was not only a very budget-friendly option, but the space feels much larger, and our kitchen tools are visible and at our fingertips.

When Did Open Shelves First Become Popular?

Believe it or not, open shelves have been popular since the early 1900’s. Before custom cabinets were affordable, most homes utilized open shelves to store pots, pans and dishes for quick access.

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A Rise In Popularity

However, there was a rise in popularity in mid-century homes between the 30s-60s as a design aesthetic. New kitchen appliances and gadgets were quickly filling the shelves, and homemakers proudly displayed their new kitchen toys.

Although open shelving has never gone out of style, a rise in custom cabinets in the 1980s and 90s slowed the trend. Most open shelves were reserved for butler pantries instead.

More recently, the popularity has boomed again with the farmhouse and cottage-style boom. In addition, open shelving provides an open, airy feel which is very popular for a modern kitchen.

What are the types of open shelving?

There are several options for open shelves for the kitchen or other areas within your home.

• Decorative Brackets or Simple Brackets- The most common and most affordable style for farmhouse and cottage style homes.
• Floating Shelves—This clean look is especially popular for modern homes but is also seen in farmhouse and traditional-style homes.
• Plate Rack – A popular open shelving concept, especially for farmhouse and cottage style homes.
• Cubby Shelves—This style can be custom built or achieved from a custom cabinet. I’ll explain more later.
• Free-standing—The options are unlimited, from shelving units or baker’s racks to hutches and cupboards. I’ll share how to make this concept work.

Why Should You Want Open Shelves?

1. First, they are popular in design and give your home a fresh new look.
2. They easily access your dishes, pots, pans, etc.
3. It’s a great way to display collectible items or a special set of dishes.
4. Creates an open, airy feel in any kitchen.
5. Makes small kitchens feel larger.
6. They can easily add storage to odd spaces within your kitchen and can be built to fit any area, large or small.
7. Budget-Friendly Option to Increase Storage.

How to Create Open Shelves in Kitchen

There are some easy and inexpensive ways to create open shelves for your kitchen.

Decorative Brackets

First, adding decorative bracket with a piece of wood or prefabricated board attached to the top is probably the easiest option. You can customize the size of your shelves to fit even a small open area.

All you need is an opening on a wall, and you can add one shelf or many.

You also have many options for brackets. Corbels or simple metal brackets can totally change the feel of open shelves. Due to the industrial feel of our farmhouse and to not compete with the texture of the brick wall, we opted for simple forged iron brackets.

However, these chippy corbels make a statement in Liz Marie’s Farmhouse and speak to my vintage loving heart.

Shaker Style Peg Rail Shelving

A shaker-style peg rail shelf has gained in popularity recently, and we transformed an existing one for our beach cottage. You can see the tutorial here.

This lovely peg rail shelf belongs to Wendy at Winterberry and Thyme

The peg rail can be attached or added underneath the shelf, as in Micki’s kitchen from Cottage on Main St.

Floating Shelves

The clean lines of floating shelves are very popular for a minimalist or modern look. They are a no-fuss option. Ashley from Modernly You shared these beautifully styled floating shelves on Instagram.

You can purchase floating shelving, or there are some great DIY tutorials, such as this one. They are slightly more detailed than a decorative shelf option, but very doable.

Plate Rack

Adding a plate rack to an open wall area is another form of open shelving. I built my plate rack to allow for layering plates, bread boards and more. You can see the tutorial here.

This type of shelving can even be added to the side of an existing cabinet or hutch. Jenn at Down Shiloh Road created this fun display of pig cutting boards. This post also has more about decorating plate racks.

Cubby Open Shelves

Cubby Open Shelves is another easy-to-create option for open kitchen shelves. When we updated our guest cottage, we wanted the space to feel open and airy. You are not going to believe how easy this is to achieve.

Wait for it…..

Just take the door off an existing cabinet in your kitchen. It’s that easy!

But, hold on a minute…

You may need to paint the inside of your cabinet, and you will definitely need to mend the holes where the door was attached. This is easily done with some wood filler and touch-up paint or stain stick. These cabinets were originally stained, so they were painted white inside and out for a cohesive, uncluttered look. It’s amazing how much larger the kitchen feels with open shelves.

Here is another example from Hillary at Hillary HA and only one door was removed to create an open cubby shelf leaving the remaining cabinetry intact.

Free Standing

For free-standing open shelves, you can purchase or maybe already have a baker’s rack or shelving unit in your kitchen. These vintage baker’s racks are a stunning free-standing open shelving option.

Karina from Magnolia Tree Farmhouse has a vintage baker’s rack filled with kitchen supplies and vintage treasures. Julie at Little Farmstead takes a more minimal approach, with basic kitchen needs stored for easy access.

However, there are other options such as cupboards or a hutch. Some styles of cupboards already have open shelving at the top, such as this one shared by Exceeding Joy on Instagram.

Others have doors that cover the shelves at the top of the cabinet. If so, you can do one of two things. Either remove the doors as we did with the cubby style shelving, or just throw them open.

Note: If you remove doors from your hutch or custom cabinets, don’t dispose of them. You may eventually want to return them to their original position.

How to Decorate Open Shelves in the Kitchen

Now for the fun part, let’s decorate those open shelves. There are unlimited possibilities for decorating open kitchen shelves. The functional design will keep often-used kitchen utensils at your fingertips.

In the guest cottage’s cubby-style shelving, you can reach cups, glasses, dishes, cooking utensils, and coffee and tea supplies without taking a step.

The bright dishes from Bico Ceramics are displayed above the stove with a plate rack, which serves as both a decorative shelf and a convenience item.

I have several of these plate display racks which instantly turn a shelf into a plate rack. They make you dishes easily accessible and beautifully displayed at the same time. If you don’t care for the original bamboo finish, you can easily paint them to match your shelving.

Should You Decorate Above Your Cabinets?

I consider the area above my kitchen cabinets as just another open shelf. Therefore, it is always decorated. You can see How To Display Collectible above your cabinets for more details.

The decor on the two open shelves in the farmhouse kitchen is constantly revolving with vintage collections.

I’m displaying my collection of pig cutting boards and vintage rolling pins here.

The same shelves look very different when styled with different collections. All white ironstone and wooden bread boards vs. handy new colorful dishes from Bico Ceramics.

See their latest collection Summer Provence here.

Notice I’m using another plate rack on this shelf to display the new dishes.

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The hutch doors, which are rarely closed, are thrown open to showcase my white ironstone collection.

The DIY Plate Rack shelving holds more ironstone platters and bread boards, and the lower bar holds vintage copper pieces hanging from my favorite brass S hooks.

Why I’m A Fan

As you can tell, I’m a fan of open shelving and would actually like to have more in my kitchen. I love the convenience of grabbing a plate off the shelf instead of digging through a cabinet to retrieve what I need.

In addition, I tend to use my dishes more frequently. I don’t automatically reach for a paper plate when I can see my beautiful dishes are ready for use.

Decorating and moving my decor around is a favorite hobby of mine and therefore, open shelves give me plenty of options for restyling my decor.

The Downside

However, there are some downsides to open shelving, and you should consider whether these issues will diminish its appeal.

• You need to keep the shelves tidy, whereas a closed cabinet door hides a multitude of sins. LOL
• Utensils and dishes may need washing before use.
• The items on open shelves will get dusty and require more time to clean.
• They may be dangerous for small children if shelves of filled with breakables or heavy objects at lower levels.

In Conclusion

If you love the look of open shelving, I say go for it.

If it doesn’t work in your household, you can always replace it with custom cabinets or add the doors back if necessary. I hope you found this post informative and helpful.

Other Ideas for Kitchen Decorating & DIY Ideas

• How To Decorate Above Kitchen Cabinets
• 11 Ways To Add Vintage Charm To a Modern Farmhouse
• Christmas Ideas for a Farmhouse Kitchen
• Best Modern Farmhouse Kitchen Ideas
• How To Build A Kitchen Island
• 5 Ways To Decorate A Plate Rack

Thanks so much for stopping by today and I look forward to sharing my next adventure with you.

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