A kitchen can have cupboards on every available wall and still feel short of room. The worktop stays crowded, everyday dishes are awkward to reach, and another storage unit seems like the obvious answer. But adding cabinets without identifying the problem can leave the room feeling more enclosed while preserving the inconvenient layout that made cooking and clearing up difficult in the first place.
Professional organizer Kristen Ziegler approached her own kitchen differently. Her renovation shows why the position and purpose of storage matter as much as the amount. The useful starting point is a check you can make before ordering cabinetry, buying organizers, or committing to building work.
Why removing cabinets worked in this kitchen
In her renovated Richmond, Virginia, condo, Ziegler left the walls above the worktops largely bare. White painted walls replaced the crowded appearance of the old kitchen. In her own account, she describes the open wall as providing visual rest: an area that gives the eye a break from the room’s doors, windows, and other details.
The storage still had to go somewhere. Drawers provided space below the counters, while floor-to-ceiling cabinets replaced a redundant bar area and second sink. That tall run housed the pantry and a concealed fridge-freezer. Moving the fridge also created a continuous preparation surface; the main sink and range stayed in their existing positions.
This was a planned renovation, rather than a quick cabinet removal. Its useful lesson is that extra storage and useful storage are different things. Leaving a wall open only works when the items previously kept there have accessible homes elsewhere.
Check what your cabinets actually need to hold
Before measuring for another cupboard, make an inventory of the contents you already own. Ziegler’s kitchen-organizing method starts with defining how the room should function, grouping belongings by activity, and editing them before choosing organizing products. Apply that sequence to your existing kitchen before deciding it needs more capacity.
- Empty and group the contents. Work through a manageable section, sorting cookware, everyday dishes, baking equipment, and food into separate categories. Bring matching items from other cupboards into the same group. When sorting your pantry contents, distinguish what gets used from what keeps being saved.
- Remove what no longer belongs. Relocate paperwork and household tools. Set aside usable duplicates and unwanted equipment for donation. Keep occasional items that serve a real purpose, rather than discarding everything used infrequently.
- Map storage to the task. Put preparation tools near the working counter, cookware near the stove, and everyday dishes where unloading and serving are convenient. Mark proposed locations with sticky notes before moving everything back.
- Test the arrangement. Prepare a meal and unload the dishwasher. Notice which items still require awkward reaching, which drawers become overcrowded, and whether appliances can be stored without making their daily use inconvenient.
Decide what the test actually shows
If the retained items fit comfortably and the counter becomes easier to use, another cabinet may be unnecessary. If essentials still have no practical home, the kitchen may genuinely need more storage. Judge that need after reorganizing, rather than buying a unit to accommodate belongings you no longer want.
Removing upper cabinets requires a separate plan. Check replacement capacity, drawer dimensions and load limits, appliance ventilation, and access for everyone using the kitchen. Empty walls offer little benefit if everyday crockery ends up in deep, inconvenient stacks or the worktop becomes its replacement shelf.
Keep useful cabinets until that plan works. Before approving a renovation, assign a storage location to every retained category and confirm that the proposed drawers and cupboards can accommodate it. That turns a photograph of an appealing kitchen into a layout you can actually live with.
