I descend from a long line of women who never closed a kitchen cupboard, dishwasher, or closet door and a long line of men who were driven crazy by it. Picky, picky we women would say. It only takes a half second they would reply.
Each of us learned our lesson about the dishwasher after a few barked shins but we were intractable about the closets and cupboards. It wasn't that all of them were always open, just those we had used since the last male sweep of the area.
Recently, however, I realized that I was heating and air conditioning the insides of cupboards, closets, and the dishwasher. Pretty dumb; a winter coat or a Tupperware bowl need to exist in a 50 or 90 degree climate and I do care about that energy bill.
Granted, it isn't a lot of space or a lot of money, but being green is about plugging up those small leaks in the energy dike. The average upper cupboard contains about 5.6 cubic feet, lower cupboards around 6.5 cu. ft. An empty dishwasher holds 6 cu. ft. Hall type closets are around 40 cu. ft, a bedroom closet about three times that.
A quick measure of my kitchen determined there were 78 cu. ft. of space in the cupboards and dishwasher and I calculated 480 cu. ft. of closet space through the house for a total of 558 cu. ft. A room in a typical home measuring 12x12x8 contains 1152 cu. ft so, by listening to my inner dad and grandfather I can painlessly remove one-half a room from my heating bill and will no longer have to hear doors slamming and muttering from my son when he comes to visit - yes, each of my children inherited the appropriate gender-dependent gene. I'll pass this tip on to my daughter, her husband is picky too.