Different styles of kitchens come and go with current trends and the cottage-style are increasingly common when it comes to creating an attractive and yet functional layout. These kitchens usually rely on an open layout so that everything is easily accessible regardless of what you need. In this style, in lieu of bulky cabinets and endless drawers, these kitchens use open shelving and pegboards that can hold most of your implements. It can be an attractive look for your kitchen as well as a functional layout but if you are not careful, it can also be an invitation for chaos.

The ugly truth is that cabinets and drawers are popular because they can keep clutter and disarray hidden safely away while adding some organization to the kitchen layouts. Doing away with most of the cabinets leaves all that clutter is left out in the open. Fortunately, there are ways to tame it, though it does require a bit of thought in the beginning.

Be Smart with Shelving

One of the big traps that people fall into with cottage kitchen shelving is trying to maximize its display properties without thinking about how to maximize efficiency. The look of plates, glasses and various other items and kitchen must-haves arranged neatly on shelves is certainly appealing. If you’re not careful though, you’re going to end up with at least some of your shelves being overcrowded and a pain to work with as you sort through them to find exactly what you’re looking for.

The key to successful shelving is to arrange everything so that it’s not only appealing to look at but also on the shelves for a particular reason. Before placing anything on shelves, stop and think about which shelves those specific items would be best on. Consider where in the kitchen you’ll use them the most, and install shelves in those areas so that your prep tools can be near the prep station and your baking tools can be near your oven. Supplementing your shelving with under-table drawers cabinets and other unobtrusive storage solutions can also aid with this without ruining the cottage aesthetic you’ve created with your shelving.

A Place for Everything

Pegboards are another common sight in cottage-style kitchens, but they can become a message array of items stuck up seemingly at random if you aren’t careful. It can take a little while ti find an ideal layout of your spoons, tools and other pegboard items, but once you have it then you should do everything you can to keep it. Even a few items placed incorrectly can throw off the entire arrangement and lead to your perfect organization falling to clutter.

A great option here is to get everything placed on your pegboard and then carefully trace around the various items lightly with a pencil. Once you have outlines of everything, remove it all and take the pegboard down. Carefully fill in those outlines with paint, using a variety of colors that match or accent the dominant colors in your kitchen. For added flair, paint a small stripe on the handles of the spoons and other tools that match the space you filled in for it on the pegboard to make it easy to see when anything is out of place.

Designing Your Dream Cottage Kitchen

The more thought you put into the design and functionality of your shelving and other cottage kitchen storage solutions, the easier it will be to avoid the clutter in the future. This is where we can come in. We have designers, installers and other pros in your area that can help you make an attractive and functional kitchen for you to use. Give us a call and we can connect you with the professionals you need. We are here to be your real estate resource for life.