Glass Cabinetry | Open Your Kitchen Design Space

Glass Cabinetry | Open Your Kitchen Design Space

Current kitchen design focuses on clean, fresh colors, a healthy dose of light, and a sense of ‘open space’ – even in tight quarters. How do today’s best designers maximize the space available in each new kitchen, and make even small kitchens seem larger than the space they occupy?

For many, glass cabinetry is the answer. Simple glass panels on the front of kitchen cabinets allow for greater, more varied applications of light, as well as ‘open up’ the design space. Glass cabinets can feature beautiful dishware, stemware and accessories, as well as provide a needed ‘break’ for the eye in a stretch of closed-off cabinet space.

Used in intelligent doses, glass provides wonderful reflection of ambient light sources, as well as the opportunity to add more light to your kitchen design. Glass panels open up the front of your cabinets, allowing interior and recessed lighting within the cabinets themselves to radiate out into the kitchen design space. The result is a brighter kitchen without going overboard on accent lighting and island lighting (or using an overbearing quantity of high hats).

In the white transitional kitchen pictured below, placing glass cabinets both adjacent to the large window features and the far design wall allows natural light to reflect beautifully throughout the space, allowing the large kitchen to be well-lit with a minimal amount of ceiling fixtures.

Glass cabinets can also create an elegant effect, like the ones seen below in Peter Salerno Inc.’s award-winning showroom in Wyckoff, New Jersey. The glass cabinetry features gorgeous blue plates and glassware to match the La Cornue range, rotisserie and chandeliers. Recessed lighting within the cabinets adds a luxurious glow to the kitchen, and mirrors the accent lighting inside the recessed Swarovski crystal ceiling feature.

The addition of glass cabinet faces helps open up the walls in the transitional design below. High-hat recessed lighting is placed around the ceiling’s perimeter to utilize these glass surfaces in carrying their light around the kitchen space. These tall, vertical glass cabinets help elongate the room, and provide pleasant breaks of the flat gray wall spaces for the eye to enjoy. The transparent cabinets also play nicely against the reclaimed tin on the recessed ceiling and the twin refrigerator doors.

Glass cabinetry also helps add depth to more ornate kitchen designs (like the one seen below). The mirrored ceiling only augments the traditional curved cabinetry on either side of the range, with recessed cabinet lighting to highlight the gorgeous dishware stored inside. The additional depth created by the glass cabinetry blends seamlessly with the twin archways into the dining room and hall on either side of the kitchen, helping add perceived length to the space.

Making the simple choice to use glass on your kitchen cabinets reaps tremendous benefits. It allows the owner to display dish and stemware, while adding additional light to the design space through the use of recessed cabinet lighting. It reflects both ambient light and lighting fixtures, adding a layer of brightness to the entire kitchen. Glass cabinetry also provides a ‘break’ for the eye along a flat design wall, as well as a point of focus to break up long rows of closed-off cabinetry.

What’s your take on glass cabinetry? Do you utilize it in your designs? Is it an idea you’re playing with for your next kitchen design or renovation? We’d love to hear from you in the comments!