A Pot Rack in Its Proper Place

And there are other factors to keep in mind beyond publicly exposing your dingy cookware. Dalia Tamari, owner of Dalia Kitchen Design in Boston, advises anyone going into a pot rack purchase to avoid these pitfalls:

Blocking light. "A pot rack's a minus if you hang pots and pans where they block the light source from above or a window," says Tamari. "Of course, if you incorporate lighting into the pot rack, you get back what you lost."

Obscuring a more beautiful focal point. "So many [people] are opening up their kitchen designs to the dining room or family room, and making something like a copper range hood the focal point of the open arrangement," says Tamari. "A pot rack doesn't look like much in your hand, but loaded it's a big element, and you don't want it to block a focal point or artwork."

Hanging cookware you don't use often. It will start out looking great, but after a while it accumulates dust, which is not a display you want at the center of your kitchen design." At the same time, says Tamari, "To get the effect you see in a chef's kitchen with the copper racks, your cookware on display should be clean and sparkling, not burned on the bottom or stained and crackeds."

Dangling pots and pans over a cooking area. "The only thing above a cooking space should be a vent," she says. "You see those glorious pictures of copper pots hanging above the stove, but that's where it would get all the grease from the cooking. The best place for a pot rack is above an island you use for prep work."

Hangin' too high. "You don't want to get out the stepladder to reach your pots and pans!" says Tamari, a frequent guest on HGTV's Kitchen Designs. "Instead, you should be able to reach the pans without stretching too much, without running any risk of getting hit in the head with a pot."