Making the most of odd spaces: Part 1

We celebrated Adam's birthday with his family last weekend, and his parents kindly offered to keep Hannah for a couple of nights. With the toddler out of the house, I was able to tackle a couple of projects on my 'to do' list, including this:

You see, this side of our kitchen used to look like this:

And when we moved in it looked like this:

(Unfortunately I don't have a 'before' shot of the other opening. It was basically a big hole.)

Adam moved the outlet to the back of the opening for me, and I built a new box to frame the bump out in the brick. I painted it white to blend in with the brick as much as possible. The top is made of three pine boards that I cut to size, stained, sealed and screwed into the existing wood frame.

I left the brick inside the opening as-is for now. The plan is to add a second shelf down the road (that step requires renting a hammer drill) and I think the natural brick could look good, especially with some green things (plants) in the mix. That said, the first picture in this post makes me think I should paint at least the sides white (the two sides in the opening with the microwave were mostly cinder block, so I painted those white).



The opening with the microwave will get a shelf too (and maybe a small piece of trim to hide that chipped brick). This is such a weird area that our plans for it are constantly evolving. The good news is that it looks better than it ever has and I'm pretty proud that I (mostly) knocked this project out myself (including all the cutting).