Thinking about such a room, simply have to When you think of storage, it's not just the bedroom that comes to mind, but also the kitchen. But there are plenty of other spaces in your home that are great candidates for sneaking in a little extra functionality. Is there one spot that's underrated? A hutch or built-in dining area with storage for glassware, plates, cookbooks, coffee bars, cocktail bars, and more. With wall-to-wall dining room built-ins, a chic coffee bar, and an MCM-inspired wet bar, dining room storage is worth it.
In the dining room of Stephen Bennett's 1926 home, the cabin was acquired (pardon the rhyme) and hand-built by Stephen and his wife, Katie. “We had this awkward wall in our dining room,” Stefan explains, adding that the china cabinets and similar furniture felt inefficient and clunky, but without them it felt empty. I added. Stefan and Katie thought that built-in could be the perfect solution here for a variety of reasons.
“The original kitchen cabinets are great, but they don't leave much space for anything other than kitchen essentials,” Stefan explains. “There are other built-ins throughout the house, and the dining room seems to be desperately seeking some attention to enhance the space, make it suitable for entertaining, and create useful storage for the eyes.'' I felt it.
Stefan and Katie's project consisted of two phases. We first built the base buffet and then added storage above to display glassware. “We decided that if we could find a base cabinet with the right dimensions for the space, it would make more sense to use that than to build something ourselves,” Stefan says. After several months of searching, the couple found a large base cabinet at a salvage store that fit their criteria.
“Although the cabinet was ‘topless,’ it was only 10 inches shorter than the full width of the wall and taller than a traditional base cabinet, making it perfect for a buffet,” Stephan says. He paid $95 for the base cabinet and another $60 for the plywood top. He created the built-in look by adding wood trim to the sides and moving the base molding on the wall to the front of the new buffet. This allows the built-in and surrounding walls to blend together. “It helped that the style of the cabinet doors was very close to the original kitchen cabinets,” Stefan says. “If you give it a good sanding and apply plenty of primer and paint afterwards, it's hard to tell it wasn't there in the first place.”
Stephen used Benjamin Moore Brilliant White for the hatch and trim. His best advice when it comes to painting is to “take the time to sand and prime so the final product really stands out,” he says. “Also, allowing the paint to cure for several days is very important for overall durability.”
Two years later, he moved on to the more luxurious part of the project: the upper cabinets. “I had a growing collection of barware and wanted a little more ‘fancy’ space to store it,” Stefan explains. Is the answer here? Cabinets with leaded glass doors – all assembled by Stefan. “The key was to recreate the sides of the kitchen cabinets, which have a unique curved design that flows into the countertop, and the overall face frame structure without a bottom frame,” says Stefan.
For the front glass, it was all about trial and error and finding the right material. “With no previous leadership experience, I went to YouTube to figure out what I needed to buy and how to make it happen. Each pane took several hours and it was a bit difficult to cut the glass perfectly to fit the design,” says Stefan. “It wasn't very accurate, but it made it feel older than it actually was and made it look very familiar.” He turned to Sunshine Glassworks to supply the lead and windows, and the hardware ( (including ball tip hinges) and under cabinet lighting.
Stefan says the antique-style hinges and (imperfect!) leaded glass help the units feel true to the period of the 1920s home. And he is proud of the focal point he has made in his dining room. “The whole space somehow feels much larger and taller than before,” he says. “It's strange how, even though it takes up almost the entire available space, the cabinet is taller than anyone else's, so the eye is drawn to the top and things feel more open and spacious.”
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This post originally appeared on Apartment Therapy. Look there: Before and after: Give purpose to an empty dining room corner with an $800 DIY built-in.