Only 6.8% of Homeowners Would Choose Open Shelves Over Upper Cabinets
Kitchens · Poll
chose open shelves for their upper storage
Source: Statwren, The Kitchen Readers Would Build (2026). In-article poll of Home Stratosphere readers, n = 118 answers, Sep 3 to Sep 20, 2026.
Open shelving has been a fixture of kitchen photography for a decade. When readers were asked what they would actually choose for their upper storage, it came last by a wide margin: fewer than one in fourteen picked it.
Solid doors won outright, and glass fronts took most of the rest, which suggests readers like to see some of what is inside, just not all of it, and not the dust.
A separate poll found 66.4% would give up upper cabinets entirely for windows, so the objection is to open shelves specifically, not to an open-feeling wall.
From the report
The kitchen report pairs every poll like this with the photos readers saved and passed over, so you can see where stated preference and behaviour agree.
See the full report