DIY Galley Kitchen Cabinets

Topped Off

• Store seldom-used serving dishes and cooking utensils in extra cabinets that top the conventional cabinets in your galley. Older apartments and homes often have high ceilings in the kitchen with unused space above the cabinets. Add frames, doors and shelves to match or complement the existing cabinets, using the top of the existing cabinets as the base for the additional ones. Match the paint and hardware, replacing hardware on all cabinets if necessary, to streamline the look from counter to ceiling. You get a lot of extra space to keep clutter at a minimum. Doors on the very top cabinets prevent anything that is stored up there from becoming dusty.

Sleek Galley

• In an old galley kitchen with a mishmash of open shelves and cabinets, add and replace doors to create a budget-conscious cabinet system that looks clean and modern. Measure bottom shelves to determine whether standard cabinet door sizes will fit. If so, hunt for salvaged cabinet doors to save money or buy unfinished cabinet doors to install and finish yourself. If the existing open shelves, upper or lower, are oddly sized, order or make custom doors to turn the shelves into cabinets. Use the same treatment on the upper and lower cabinets with identical paint or stain and cabinet hardware on all the units. In a very narrow galley, use open upper shelves for storage canisters of spices, pastas and grains on one wall. Hooks below the shelves can hold colanders, pans and utensils like soup ladles and spatulas.

Cabinets with Character

• Use weathered wood, old crates and construction pallets for entirely original cabinets in a galley kitchen. Keep all colors in the kitchen neutral to show off your unusual cabinets. Build sturdy shelves below the counter and paint them to match the kitchen walls. Then add doors made from weathered planks of barn wood or reclaimed solid wood shutters. Search for reproduction iron hardware and hinges that are treated to look old to attach the doors to the shelves and create a cabinet system. Hang a wood construction pallet on one wall as a plate rack. Stack or wall-hang vintage wine or fruit crates above the counters for open shelves to complement the cabinets below.

Clutter-Free Visibility

• Galley kitchens are small -- sometimes too small to conveniently open cabinet doors without smacking yourself in the head. The solution is to build identical cabinets above and below the counter but leave the doors off the top cabinets. Keep the design very basic -- plain cabinets with doors below will have adjustable or mixed-height shelves to accommodate large appliances, pots and pans, baking items and cleaning supplies. For uniformity, make the shelves inside the upper cabinet frames all the same height. A minimalist kitchen gets all white, medium or high gloss paint on all cabinets. An eclectic kitchen can handle a crayon box of cabinet colors for a fun and lively food prep space. Whichever approach suits your style, keep open cabinets absolutely clutter-free so the kitchen doesn't look messy or cramped.