The night the bottom of my kitchen cabinet finally gave up, it didn’t crack loudly.
It just sighed. A slow, soft bend under the weight of saucepans and cleaning sprays, the chipboard swollen like a sponge after too many mopping days.
I found a soft patch by accident, fingertips sinking where wood was supposed to be solid.
Behind the pots, a dark bloom of mould was already feasting, quietly.
I’d spent years wiping, repainting, pretending those cabinets were “still fine”.
They weren’t.
That’s when I started to notice friends’ kitchens with… no cabinets at all.
And strangely, they looked calmer.
And nothing was warping.
Why kitchen cabinets are quietly failing us
Walk into almost any older rental and you’ll spot the same scene: swollen doors under the sink, sagging shelves, hinges fighting for their lives.
Most classic kitchen cabinets are made of MDF or particleboard wrapped in a pretty skin, sold with a promise of “durable” that cracks under real steam and leaks.
They look good on day one, then the kettle steam, dishwasher mist, and tiny water drips start doing their slow work.
Five years later you’re scrubbing mould lines and telling yourself it’s just cosmetic.
It’s not just ugly.
It’s wasted money, wasted material, and a constant low-level annoyance every time a door sticks in the morning rush.
Scroll through home accounts on Instagram or TikTok lately and you see it: more open shelves, more metal racks, more “furniture-style” pieces instead of walls of cabinets.
One London couple shared a viral reel where they ripped out all their lower cabinets and replaced them with industrial steel shelving from a restaurant supplier.
Their sink area looked almost naked at first.
But three months in, they posted a close-up: water splashes? Wiped. No swelling. No bubbling laminate. Just a quick towel swipe and done.
They spent less than half what a new run of cabinets would have cost.
Friends kept asking the same question in the comments: “Wait… does this actually work in real life?”
There’s a boring but crucial reason kitchen cabinets fail: they’re boxes made of compressed sawdust living in a hot, wet room.
Steam wants somewhere to go, and when it can’t, it sneaks into every tiny gap in the coating.
Open or semi-open systems—rails, metal shelving, freestanding units—behave differently.
Air circulates, surfaces dry faster, and you skip the “dark, closed cavity” where mould loves to bloom.
You also don’t pay for miles of carpentry.
You pay for structure: steel, solid wood, tile, concrete, even basic pine planks.
That’s the quiet new trend: **less box, more bone**.
The cheaper trend that’s changing real kitchens
The shift starts with one simple move: stop thinking “cabinets”, start thinking “stations”.
Instead of a continuous wall of cupboards, people are building separate work zones with durable, open elements.
Under the sink?
Many are choosing a metal frame with a deep drawer or fabric skirt, plus a waterproof basin base, not a chipboard coffin.
For pots and pans, restaurant-style wire shelving is becoming the unexpected hero.
It’s usually chrome or black steel, cheap, adjustable, and rated for heavy loads.
You see everything at a glance, and a wet saucepan doesn’t quietly rot your furniture from the inside.
Of course, there’s still the fear: “Won’t it look messy?”
That’s where the human part kicks in, not the design catalogue.
One family in Barcelona kept their favorite upper cabinets for dishes, but replaced all the lowers with a mix of open pine shelves and a vintage sideboard they found second-hand.
They store big, not-pretty things—blenders, rice cookers—in matching baskets on the bottom shelf.
Everyday plates and glasses sit out in the open.
Their total spend, including a stainless worktop from a small metal shop, was about the price of a mid-range dishwasher.
Two years on, nothing has warped.
The sideboard has a coffee ring or three, and somehow that just makes the room feel alive.
Once you stop being hypnotized by catalog kitchens, the logic becomes simple.
Closed cabinets are like wardrobes for plates: they hide mess, but they also hide problems.
An open or hybrid layout forces stuff to stay a little more honest.
You see the puddle, so you wipe the puddle.
Air can reach the back wall, so damp doesn’t linger in secret corners.
The trend isn’t “no storage”.
It’s shifting to **elements that can actually survive a wet room**:
steel rails for hanging pans, tiled or stone niches, butcher’s blocks on legs, chunky shelves held up by visible brackets.
Let’s be honest: nobody really cleans the back of the under-sink cabinet every single day.
Take away the dark box, and you take away a whole ecosystem of slow, hidden damage.
How to say goodbye to cabinets without wrecking your kitchen
The smartest way to follow this trend isn’t demolition, it’s subtraction.
Start with the worst offender: usually the cabinet under the sink or next to the dishwasher.
You can remove just that box and replace it with a ready-made unit: a stainless utility table, a sturdy trolley, or a made-to-measure metal frame.
Ask a local metalworker or look at restaurant supply shops; their stuff is built for steam, spills, and chaos.
Protect the wall behind with tile, acrylic sheet, or even a coat of washable paint.
Then add a simple curtain, basket line, or low shelf to hide pipes without trapping moisture.
*Once you see how different that one area feels, it’s hard to stop there.*
There’s a trap here, and it catches a lot of people: going full “Pinterest perfect” on day one.
They rip out every cabinet, buy designer shelves, and then panic because there’s nowhere to hide the cereal boxes.
Be kind to your real habits.
If you know your counters collect clutter, keep at least one closed unit or tall cabinet for the visually noisy things.
Detergents, bulk food, that ugly-but-essential slow cooker—they all deserve a door.
Another common mistake is using untreated cheap wood directly where water hits every day.
It looks gorgeous for a month, then stains and warps.
Either seal it properly or choose materials that already know how to live with water: tile, metal, stone, or sealed plywood.
The people who are happiest with “no cabinets” are rarely the ones with the prettiest photos.
They’re the ones whose kitchens feel like tools, not museums.
“Once we took the doors off half the lower units, we stopped forgetting what food we owned,” laughs Camille, who lives in a small flat with two kids. “Stuff stopped going mouldy at the back, because there was no ‘back’ anymore.”
- Swap the worst lower cabinet for a metal shelf unit with adjustable tiers.
- Add one strong rail for your heaviest pans instead of stacking them in a dark corner.
- Use matching baskets or crates on open shelves to corral packets and lids.
- Protect splash zones with tile, stone offcuts, or stainless steel panels.
- Keep at least one closed pantry-style unit for things you truly don’t want to see.
A kitchen that breathes, and ages with you
What’s really ending isn’t just the era of standard kitchen cabinets.
It’s the idea that a “proper” kitchen must be a fitted wall from floor to ceiling, all the same colour, bought in one hit from one giant store.
The new wave looks looser from a distance.
A metal unit here, a salvaged table there, a couple of sturdy shelves for the everyday things you actually use.
It’s cheaper because you build it over time, adapting pieces as your life changes.
It’s also easier to fix.
If one shelf rusts or a trolley wheel breaks, you replace just that part, not an entire row of fitted boxes.
And you give moisture fewer shadows to hide in, so mould and warping lose their favorite playground.
People worry that trend-driven kitchens will age badly.
Ironically, this one depends less on fashion than on physics: water, air, and time.
Design shifts, but condensation on a winter window is not going anywhere.
A kitchen that breathes—literally—tends to smell better, stay sound longer, and cost less to update.
You don’t need a perfectly curated open-shelf aesthetic for this to work.
You only need pieces that can get splashed, wiped, and knocked about without sulking.
Some will still love neat rows of doors, and that’s fine.
But if your cabinets are already bubbling, if you dread opening that one mouldy corner, this quieter trend might feel less like “being edgy” and more like finally listening to what your kitchen has been trying to tell you for years.
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| Key point | Detail | Value for the reader |
|---|---|---|
| Swap lower cabinets selectively | Start with the dampest zones and replace them with metal or tiled units | Reduces warping and mould without a full renovation budget |
| Use open, breathable storage | Shelves, rails, and baskets keep air moving and clutter visible | Prevents hidden damage and cuts food and product waste |
| Mix materials over time | Combine second-hand furniture, restaurant-grade pieces, and simple DIY | Creates a durable, personal kitchen at a lower overall cost |
FAQ:
- Question 1Will an open, cabinet-free kitchen just look messy all the time?
- Question 2What materials really don’t warp or go mouldy in a kitchen?
- Question 3Can I do this in a rental without upsetting my landlord?
- Question 4Is this actually cheaper than buying new cabinets from a big store?
- Question 5How do I hide ugly plumbing and bins if I remove the under-sink cabinet?
