Kitchen wall shelf design advice needed

[Frances]

We are getting very close to finishing our remodel. We still need kitchen cabinet drawers and doors and a new table/chair(s) in the kitchen eating nook. One other smaller thing is that we have a space reserved for likely three free standing shelves where we will display pottery made by my husband and others. As the cabinets below have built-in step stools, the pottery will be easily accessible and used. Our debate is over the material to use for the shelving.
 

We are both intrigued by copper shelves, but I worry it might be a bit much introducing another element into our kitchen. We already have wood (painted white for cabinets and built in seating, painted teal for bottom of island, fir floors with natural finish, and to be determined wood for table and chair(s) in built-in eating nook), black leathered granite countertops, primarily stainless steel appliances (with stove having some black accents), oil rubbed bronze light fixtures with glass shades/pendants, fabric multicolored rugs and built-in seating cushions, and an exposed reddish brick half chimney (it stops at counter level) with small gas fireplace  in the eating nook. I also wonder if copper shelves would compete too much with the pottery on the shelves and detract from it rather than highlight it.

Please offer your suggestions for shelving materials. I’ll add pictures of shelving area and some other parts of kitchen. Please don’t quote, as I will likely delete pictures later. And note that the drawers below are our old drawers just temporarily retrofit.  And the table and chairs will be replaced and there is another piece of built in seating being added below the toaster oven. The seat cushions are still being made, so not yet pictured. The pictures were also taken at different points during the project. Thank you!

 

 

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by Frances

[prairiewindmomma]

I wouldn’t go copper just because it’s kind of opposite on the color wheel of that tile and you already have a lot of strong contrasting colors going on (floors playing off of tile, cabinets playing off of countertops). I would probably go white so that the focus can be on the pottery rather than on the shelves.

[Anne]

I would probably have the shelves made out of whatever the cabinets adjacent to them are made of and painted in the same way.  I think this will give a more cohesive look, and As previous poster said, make the pottery the focus rather than the shelves.

Anne

[Annie G]

I’d do live edge shelves (with no bark).   White would work too since it would match your cabinets, but I enjoy the combo of wood and pottery together. 

[Storygirl]

I would either do white shelves or wood shelves in a tone that matches the flooring.

[Tap]

Can you go with a thick glass shelf? I love natural light enhancing the glaze on pottery. You would likely need a support on the open end. EIther an L bracket or a wire support that connects from the ceiling to the cabinet. You could also have the open edge of the glass curved to give it a more natural finished edge. 

 

Edited January 15, 2022 by Tap

[Tap]

dp

Edited January 15, 2022 by Tap

[Tap]

1 minute ago, Tap said:

Here is a company that does glass shelving. There are a few pictures on this page that may give you some inspiration.

https://www.janssenglass.com/blog/glass-shelves/

 

[Anne]

Oooh - I love Tap’s glass shelving idea!!

Anne

[Vasha]

No advice from me, just letting you know it's beautiful!

[mom2samlibby]

I would do a natural wood or darker stained wood. 

[Carol in Cal.]

I like the idea of the live edge wood.  I think that that complements pottery very well, generally.

I think that adding copper is iffy, and if I did add it it would not be the shelves themselves—rather, it would be a big old copper kettle on a high shelf.  By big, I mean the kind that is an ovoid shape that fits across two stove burners to boil laundry on washing day.  I’d store lightweight, rarely used things in it— maybe paper goods for picnics, in their original packaging to avoid getting dusty, or seasonal cake molds that I only use once a year, with an old towel thrown over them (but hidden down inside the kettle) to keep dust off.  Then I would live with that for a while and see how I liked it.  If I loved it, I’d judiciously add some more, here and there, but not built in—rather, occasional pieces that I can intersperse with the existing decor.  

Generally my rule is that trendy materials should be very easily changed out, and timeless materials are what gets built in.  

So in the case of the kettle, if I ended up hating it for the room because it made the room’s colors/textures too over the top busy, I could easily pull it off the shelf and either get rid of it or repurpose it in a pantry or basement or to hold kindling next to the fire place.  And then I could replace it with a more neutral but still distinctive basket that served the same basic purpose, like a big rectangular Chinese basket.  Or, if I wanted a local look maybe some local veggie or fruit crates, again serving the same purpose.  

[Frances]

2 hours ago, Carol in Cal. said:

I like the idea of the live edge wood.  I think that that complements pottery very well, generally.

I think that adding copper is iffy, and if I did add it it would not be the shelves themselves—rather, it would be a big old copper kettle on a high shelf.  By big, I mean the kind that is an ovoid shape that fits across two stove burners to boil laundry on washing day.  I’d store lightweight, rarely used things in it— maybe paper goods for picnics, in their original packaging to avoid getting dusty, or seasonal cake molds that I only use once a year, with an old towel thrown over them (but hidden down inside the kettle) to keep dust off.  Then I would live with that for a while and see how I liked it.  If I loved it, I’d judiciously add some more, here and there, but not built in—rather, occasional pieces that I can intersperse with the existing decor.  

Generally my rule is that trendy materials should be very easily changed out, and timeless materials are what gets built in.  

So in the case of the kettle, if I ended up hating it for the room because it made the room’s colors/textures too over the top busy, I could easily pull it off the shelf and either get rid of it or repurpose it in a pantry or basement or to hold kindling next to the fire place.  And then I could replace it with a more neutral but still distinctive basket that served the same basic purpose, like a big rectangular Chinese basket.  Or, if I wanted a local look maybe some local veggie or fruit crates, again serving the same purpose.  

That’s an interesting idea, but the shelves definitely won’t be wide enough for anything that large. We mainly plan to put small and medium sized pottery bowls on them. The big bowls still go on top of our refrigerator (one of several reasons we didn’t go with a built in) or on the open shelf at the bottom of our island.

Edited January 17, 2022 by Frances