Creating A Kitchen Nook

You don't realize all the quirks that are in your new home until you've lived there for a few years. When my home was built, they placed the stove top in the open. In other words, when you make red sauce it splatters onto the chair in the den. It never made any sense to me but I wasn't the one who designed this place. I finally decided to address the issue by building a breakfast nook. It serves two purposes-it catches the splatters and provides a great little area to have breakfast or lunch.

The photo above shows the bar with two chairs. I purchased a four foot long piece of solid Oak in Home Depot. The board cost me $50.00. A lot of money, but a beautiful piece of wood that was very visable in the room. I cut a curve at the end of the board so there would be no sharp edges. I sanded the oak, stained it and applied several coats of clear polyurethane. This little bar was going to see plenty of action so the more coats of poly, the better.

I actually had these decorative wood brackets in my basement so I faux painted them to match my cabinet.

I also had the wood molding shown above which I "velcroed" to the counter so it could easily be removed for cleaning.

From this photo you can really appreciate where the stove top is and how I had to battle all the splatters. Now, it's not a problem . The chairs I looked long and hard for. I finally found them, brought them home and realized they were too tall. I had a very neighbor hack off the feet so the chairs would sit right under the bar. I placed rubber foot protectors on them to protect the hard wood floors.

A great solution to a problem.

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