Open vs. Closed: Finding the Perfect Storage Balance in Your Kitchen
Why Bespoke Cabinetry Creates the Perfect Storage Balance
Bespoke cabinetry is custom-designed and handcrafted joinery custom to your exact space, lifestyle, and aesthetic preferences. Unlike off-the-shelf solutions, bespoke cabinetry offers:
- Perfect fit: Every millimetre is measured and crafted to suit your specific room dimensions and layout.
- Personalised design: Materials, finishes, hardware, and storage configurations chosen to match your style.
- Superior quality: Built by skilled joiners using premium materials and trusted hardware (Blum, Häfele, Hettich).
- Functional innovation: Custom solutions for awkward spaces, unique storage needs, and lifestyle requirements.
- Long-term value: Investment-grade craftsmanship designed to last decades, not years.
Modern Sunshine Coast living thrives on balance—open-plan layouts, relaxed coastal textures, and a seamless flow from indoors to out. Your cabinetry should reflect this harmony. The challenge is finding the sweet spot between the visual warmth of open shelving and the practical function of concealed storage. Too much of one can feel cluttered or cold. The hallmark of expert joinery is mixing them seamlessly to create visual rhythm while maintaining everyday practicality.
At G&M Craftsman Cabinets, we've spent decades perfecting this balance for Sunshine Coast homes. From butler's pantries to entertainment units, every project is designed with proportion, detail, and longevity in mind. Our in-house team handles everything from consultation and CAD design to precision joinery and professional installation, ensuring your cabinetry works beautifully for years to come.
Why Bespoke Cabinetry? The G&M Difference
The difference between off-the-shelf and truly bespoke cabinetry lies in creating solutions that perfectly fit your life, not just your walls. At G&M Craftsman Cabinets, we bring over 100 years of combined experience to every project, understanding how Sunshine Coast living—from humidity to beautiful sightlines—affects your choices.
What sets us apart is our integrated approach. We handle everything in-house, from Brent's initial consultation to the final installation by our experienced team. This means no outsourcing, no surprises, and complete quality control, ensuring your cabinetry is built to last for decades.
We are uncompromising on quality, using only the best components from trusted providers like Blum, Häfele, Hettich, Furnware Dorset, Silestone, Titus Plus, and Kethy. These brands ensure your drawers glide smoothly and doors close perfectly, year after year, even in our coastal climate.
Our proven 6-step process, detailed on our Our Process page, takes the stress out of customisation. We listen, design with you using CAD drawings, and then our skilled joiners craft every piece in our workshop. This approach allows us to perfect the mix of open and concealed storage, turning awkward corners into useful spaces and changing how you live in your home.
The Expert’s Guide to Blending Open and Closed Storage
Why the Mix Works: Achieving Visual Rhythm and Practicality
The modern Sunshine Coast home thrives on openness, but this presents a challenge: maintaining a clean aesthetic while managing everyday life. The solution is a thoughtful blend of open and closed storage.
Aesthetically, open shelving breaks up monotonous cabinetry runs, adding depth, personality, and warmth. It’s the perfect way to display curated ceramics, cookbooks, or family photos. As our Senior Joiner, Warwick, often says, “Open shelving brings warmth and character, while closed cabinetry keeps life organised.”
Functionally, this mix creates smart zones. High-use items are kept on open shelves for easy access, streamlining daily routines. Meanwhile, bulkier appliances and everyday clutter are tucked away behind closed doors, where we can integrate clever solutions like pull-out pantries or deep drawers to maximise every inch of concealed space. This blend also maintains clear sightlines in open-plan homes, making spaces feel larger and more connected.
Where to Use the Open/Closed Storage Balance
The versatility of balanced open and closed storage means it can lift almost any room in your home. We tailor these solutions to meet your specific needs and complement the design of your Sunshine Coast property.
Kitchens & Butler’s Pantries: This is where the balance shines. Open shelves can display stylish glassware, while concealed cabinets hide appliances and pantry staples. In a butler's pantry, it keeps prep essentials handy while maintaining a clutter-free look for entertaining. Explore our custom kitchen work.
Entertainment Units: A custom unit with open sections for your TV and decorative pieces, and closed cabinets to conceal media players and cables, creates a sophisticated, functional focal point.
Home Offices & Studies: A mix of open shelving for books and closed cabinetry for files and equipment creates an inspiring, tidy workspace, helping you focus without visual distractions.
Bathrooms, Laundries, and Robes: In these functional spaces, open shelves can hold towels or soaps, while custom cabinets provide discreet storage for toiletries and supplies. Luxurious walk-in robes benefit from open shelving for shoes and bags, with closed sections for clothing.
Outdoor BBQ & Alfresco Areas: Our weather-resistant cabinetry for the Queensland lifestyle combines open areas for your BBQ with closed storage for utensils and entertaining essentials, ensuring your outdoor space is always ready for guests.
Crafting the Perfect Balance: Key Design Considerations
Achieving the ideal blend of open and closed storage is an art form our team at G&M Craftsman Cabinets has perfected. It requires meticulous planning and an understanding of how each element contributes to your home's function and feel.
Proportion & Planning
One of the most common questions we hear is, "How much open shelving is too much?" While there's no hard and fast rule, a good starting point for many homes is the 70/30 rule: approximately 70% closed storage and 30% open storage. This ratio typically provides ample hidden space for everyday items while allowing enough room to display personality without overwhelming the eye. However, this is just a guideline. Our design process is entirely custom, adapting this proportion to your unique lifestyle, family needs, and the specific constraints and opportunities of your space. We consider everything from the volume of items you need to store to the visual impact you wish to create.
Material Selection & Hardware
The materials and hardware you choose are crucial for both aesthetics and longevity. For open shelving, durable timber offers warmth, while closed cabinetry in 2-pac polyurethane provides a sleek finish. We also see a rising demand for sustainable options, with clients seeking products made from certified sustainable wood or reclaimed materials. We ensure our choices not only look stunning but also withstand the Sunshine Coast climate.
Our commitment to quality extends to every component. We only use the best hardware from trusted providers: Furnware Dorset, Silestone, Blum, Titus Plus, Kethy, Hettich, and Häfele. These brands are renowned for durability and smooth operation, ensuring your cabinets function flawlessly for decades.
Structural Integrity & Installation
Poor installation can ruin beautiful cabinetry, especially open shelving that must bear weight safely. Our bespoke cabinetry is built to withstand the Sunshine Coast’s high humidity and UV exposure, with timber properly sealed and finishes chosen for resilience. Our experienced team handles every installation with precision, ensuring a millimetre-perfect alignment that prevents warping or moisture damage. As our experts advise, “DIY installations often fail because shelving isn’t properly balanced or supported. Our joiners ensure every piece is aligned and millimetre-perfect.”
Our Proven 6-Step Process
Our comprehensive process ensures every detail is managed with expertise and transparency.
- Initial Consultation & Quote: We meet on-site to understand your style, space, and goals, allowing Brent, our Lead Designer, to capture your vision accurately.
- Design & Planning: Using advanced CAD drawings, we collaborate to refine every detail—from materials to layout—until the design is perfect for you.
- Craftsmanship in the Workshop: Led by our Senior Joiner, Warwick, our skilled team crafts every piece of bespoke cabinetry in-house, performing rigorous quality checks.
- Coordination & Site Preparation: Our Project Manager, Nigel, coordinates all trades (plumbing, electrical) to ensure a seamless installation process.
- Installation & Final Touches: Our professional installers align every cabinet and edge until it fits perfectly—no shortcuts, no surprises. We then conduct a walkthrough with you to ensure complete satisfaction.
- Completion & Aftercare: After a final inspection, we hand over the project and provide care guidance to keep your new cabinetry looking its best for years.
Explore our process in more detail to see how we bring your vision to life.
Finishing Touches That Lift Your Bespoke Cabinetry
It’s the subtle details that lift bespoke cabinetry from functional to exceptional.
- Integrated Lighting: Under-shelf LED strips can highlight displayed items and provide task lighting, while ambient lighting within cabinets adds sophistication.
- Seamless Details: The hallmark of expert craftsmanship is in the details you feel, not just see. Concealed fixings, V-groove panelling, fluted glass inserts, or waterfall benchtops add texture and visual interest.
- Design Cohesion: We ensure every element works in harmony, matching finishes and maintaining consistent lines that flow through your space for a polished, cohesive result.
As our Project Manager, Nigel, reminds us, “It’s the little details—like a perfectly mitred edge or a hidden LED strip—that set our work apart.” Explore examples of our signature style in our Our Work/Portfolio.
Award-Winning Craftsmanship, Built for a Lifetime
When you balance open and concealed cabinetry, you're not just making a design choice—you're improving how your home works for you. Spaces become effortlessly beautiful while quietly managing the practicalities of daily life.
At G&M Craftsman Cabinets, this is what we do. With decades of experience on the Sunshine Coast, we craft bespoke cabinetry that brings functional beauty to your home. Our reputation for precision joinery comes from listening to how you live and designing solutions that make your routines smoother.
We offer comprehensive custom cabinetry for kitchens, bathrooms, robes, home offices, entertainment units, and alfresco areas. Our expertise also extends to commercial fit-outs, including office joinery, retail displays, and hospitality cabinetry that combine striking aesthetics with robust functionality.
Every project is an investment in quality, built to stand the test of time using premium materials and trusted hardware. To help you maintain that pristine look, we provide comprehensive Care & Maintenance Tips with every project.
Ready to see what custom design can do for your space? Book a Design Consultation with our team today.
Talk to G&M Craftsman Cabinets today—and see how we can transform your space into one that's beautiful, functional, and built to last.