If yours is a home with regular home-cooked meals, then the kitchen is perhaps one of those high-traffic zones, with lots of storage requirements, and easily prone to clutter. Not surprisingly, therefore, kitchen often pose the biggest challenge to decor and design.

Today’s modular kitchens do provide you with wall-to-wall, ceiling-high cabinets with tons of storage, but this might still not suit everyone’s taste. For example, you might want more light and movement in your kitchen.

The stiff challenge is when you want all the storage space, but without the boring look of most modular kitchens. Consider some of these ideas, and see what might work in your kitchen.

Open shelves We are not suggesting that you do away with cabinets altogether, but you would do well to consider a nice balance between covered cabinets and open shelves. Perhaps just a few, to display some pretty cookware, or to place frequently used ones for easy reach. Open shelves also make the kitchen look more open and bright.

Glass panes for cabinets Replace opaque doors with glass doors on your cabinets. The interior could be painted a bright, contrasting color to make it interesting. A few cabinets could even have pot lights installed inside, making them both practical and pretty. Very small kitchens will also do well to have mirror-finish doors on the cabinets for a roomier appearance.

Sideboards If space allows it, sideboards are great addition to your dining area, even if this is only a corner in your kitchen. Get a classic, retro sideboard for your crockery, add a touch of class to your kitchen while finding more storage space. Sideboards change the entire look of your kitchen and can change the boring kitchen into a

While planning the cabinets below the counter-top, ensure corners don’t go waste corner cabinets are a must if you want to do justice to the space afforded by your kitchen. Also, some of your pots and pans don’t really need to be hidden in shelves. Consider creating a hanging-display over the island or the counter-top. Especially if you have old-style copper cookware, this arrangement can lend a charming look to your kitchen, while opening up tons of shelf space for other items.

Whatever you do, remember that the countertop is not storage space. However constrained you are for space in the kitchen, you will do well to remember that classy, well-kept kitchen have clean, bare countertops. Nothing screams clutter like appliances lined up on the countertop.