The Absolute Best Types Of Storage Containers For Your Open Shelf Kitchen

One must be dedicated, disciplined, and dexterous to maintain open shelves in their home. For one, it isn't exactly cheap to keep swapping cabinets in and out of your kitchen, so you have to be almost certain that the style is for you. Open shelves also necessitate a little more upkeep than their cloistered cupboard cousins, collecting dust seemingly as fast as you can swipe it away. And finally, their composition craves a keen eye to achieve the intentionality that successfully arranged open shelves require. And frosted glass, opaque wood or marble, and even a few softly textured storage containers can go a long way toward creating that effect.

You can and should display your prettiest barware on your open shelves — showing off is kind of the whole point here — and a couple of cookbooks are always a functionally welcome addition, too. But some items are just better containerized. And while aspiring influencers might want to buy a bunch of uniform jars in bulk, coordinated (but unmatched) sizes, shapes, and colors can actually create a much richer, visually appealing aesthetic.

A cigar box, a lidded leather cube, and a crystal vase. These aren't the components of an escape room, but just a few of the unexpected vessels that you can repurpose in clever ways as storage containers for your kitchen's open shelves. The cigar box might just be the best fit for your flatware, and you can usually pick one up without even making a trip to the smoke shop. The cube can hide any wires you might want out of sight when you aren't using your throwback countertop TV or the more modern tablet take. And the vase is just the thing to hold your cloth napkin collection. Being that some of these elements can be serendipitously thrifted, they can also bring budget-friendly luxury to your open shelves.

Another key is avoiding clutter. You want just enough of these complementary storage containers to create a dynamic visual appeal while also keeping more utilitarian odds and ends out of the way whenever possible. The goal is to create manicured order and tell your home's story through decor, after all; not to just keep adding more and more pieces to polish.