Mix your stacks up. Tend to keep similar objects in stacks? That could come off a bit sterile. Mix bowls on top of plates! Cups in bowls! If you're someone who tends to be very specific with your decor, this could help loosen up the room and make it feel more casual and authentic.
Think of your open shelving like a bookshelf. Switch the directions of items to create interest, and consider incorporating art or small decorative objects interspersed with your kitchen tools and tableware.
Think of it like a wall art collage. When hanging objects on hooks or a pegboard, think about it like a wall art collage. Spacing can make a collage of hanging objects feel busy or relaxing, and the same sorts of ideas behind wall collages — having each item have something in common — can help create organization to something that could easily turn haphazard.
Leaning's a perfectly acceptable form of display and can add some depth to your space. Lean art on a shelf or on top of a cabinet or countertop, lean plates and platters on their sides, and consider adding layers by creating vignettes of leaning objects.
When in doubt, go for the combo. Who says you can't have hanging, stacking and leaning displays in one kitchen? Heck, maybe even in the same display area? Just keep in mind clutter when creating your kitchen display.
(Images: Marcia Prentice, Adrienne Breaux, Bethany Nauert, Andie Wurster and Eleanor Büsing)
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This works great if your pots and pans are beautiful colors or if all your cups are cutely mismatched while conveying the same quirky, vintage feel, but my practical, ugly Analon pans and second-hand plastic cups are going to stay hidden, thank you very much. There's a reason cabinets were invented! Anyone with a set of copper pans already has them on display, anyways. These open shelves are a trend that will and should die sooner rather than later.
I love the look of open shelves and my dishes are pretty cute but how on earth can they be practical with the dust and kitchen grease that will build up?! Gross.
I like the open shelves and I LOVE the pegboard. Very Julia Child.
Mixing bowls with plates "could help loosen up the room and make it feel more casual and authentic." Somebody explain -- what is the word "authentic" doing in this sentence? I truly don't understand. If I stack little plates on big plates, that's not authentic, even if my family and I have done it that way for generations? But if I copy somebody else (WHO?) and stack bowls on plates, now it's authentic?
This reminds me of guys who use three kinds of product and ten minutes of time scruffing their hair so it will look just the right kind of messy. The result, in both cases, is supposed to be "Look how casual I am! I don't give a hoot about your ruuuuules, man. I'm a rebel." But the underlying message is "I am afraid of looking like I care about appearances, even though I desperately do."
I guess the "authentic" people -- and I'm guessing that the writer, if pressed, would end up mentioning peasants -- stack their dishes any old which way, and that makes it better.
I love the idea of mixing around your kitchen like you would rearrange furniture! Just lovely.
If someone mixed up the stacks in my cabinet and I had to move a cup, a bowl, and small plate just to get to a big plate, I would freak out. I'm more concerned about things being practical than visually interesting when it comes to things like that.