When I designed our new home I knew I wanted something between the dining room and kitchen that resembled what I had in my house while I was growing up. It was an old craftsman home that looked something like this….
I found this picture….sorry, I don’t remember where…but I love everything about this. It gives me the feel of my childhood home, but it’s more me.
Now that I have a clear vision of what I want, I need to figure out just how high the half walls should be. Should they be the same as the kitchen cabinets? Lower than the cabinets or higher?
So after the contractors packed up for the day Mr. Amazing and I headed over to the building site to get a good visual.
This was our first attempt….see the sawhorses and the carefully placed 2×4 to represent the post that will go up….Having a hard time imagining it all? Yep me too…So yes I asked Mr. Amazing to move a bunch of cement blocks for me….
So much easier to imagine! We finally agreed on 42 inches high…high enough to help block the view of the kitchen but not too high to block the view looking out of the kitchen.
Now I need to decide what the wall will look like on the kitchen side of the half walls. Do I want open shelves like this?
Or do I put glass doors on resembling my childhood memory?
Remember this is how it will look from the dining room looking towards the kitchen…
Once again, I would really love to hear your opinions….open shelves in the kitchen or glass doors?
a
inspiredwife
inspiredwife
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inspiredwife
Love it, and the kitchen question… I would do both. I would have some open and some with glass to protect the pretties… and make practical the ‘everyday’… or make it all glass so dust doesn’t become an issue.
I’d say it depends on how often your grandkids will be over!
I personally love the open shelving, but I also dislike trying to keep little ones out of things like that. I generally put kid-friendly stuff on the shelves under 3′. But, as a mom of little ones, I’m pretty biased (jaded?). 
I am hoping that grandma’s house will be like a second home for them. I want them to feel very at home here. I could do open shelves and just put baskets on them.
I love the look of glass doors, but only if you are putting them in the kitchen too. If not I would just have open shelves.
I like the glass ones best, since I hate dusting open shelves!
I really like both, but if I have to choose, I’d say glass. I just love the way glass ads a little shiny accent to a home! Both are really nice though
Are you going to have shelves on both d=sides?
If so I would go with glass doors that have magnets
so that they can’t be opened by little hands especially
if things that are breakable are going on the shelves.
I love the look that you want to achieve.
Your house will be so beautiful.
Denise
no…I was thinking of solid on the dinningroom side
Oh Dianne, you must be having so much fun designing your home!
I was thinking I liked the glass doors best until you mentioned in one of the comments about the shelves with baskets…that is a wonderful idea. It’s true open shelves need dusted often, but in our home, it’s probably even more work to constantly clean our grandchildren’s fingerprints from the glass that is low.
I’m sure whatever you decide, it will be beautiful!
I like the baskets on the shelves idea. This is going to be so nice!
Love these half-walls!
I’d go for the open shelves, myself–I like the casual, beachy feel of that, whereas the glass cabinets might read as too fussy/fancy.
You’d just have to be careful what you put in there, what with the little ones running around. Nothing breakable.
I like your idea of the baskets! That would also be a great functional place to store things like napkins and placemats if you wanted, or some kind of unbreakable decorative items (driftwood? big seashells? I don’t know). Just food for thought