When we left off talking about the nook shelving, things were already starting to look a lot better, but we were also anxious to add the trim at the top and really complete the whole area.

There’s clearly something missing in these photos. Those dark shadows at the top aren’t so great, huh?

Not to mention when you look closer up at the ceiling and walls behind the cabinets.

So, to finish up this area, I needed to add trim and tops to the open shelving. I started with the tops of each shelving area. They were just going to sit on top of the cabinet and be attached to the trim. So I measured my openings and left them an inch wider. The extra inch allowed them to sit on top of the cabinets.

Like this:

I did this for both the corner (triangle) shelves and the (square) shelves in the middle, making each top piece the same shape as the shelves, just slightly larger.

Then I moved on to the trim that would fit between the cabinets and the ceiling on the front face. Like this:

The only tricky part with the trim was the angles of the cuts. Because of the triangle corner, the angles had to be cut at a 22.5 degree angle. This is because the 90 degree angle needed to be split between two 45 degree joints. Each joint splits the 45 degree angle in half, making the angle to cut on each piece 22.5 degrees.

(If you aren’t great at math, you can ask for clarification here, but I figure it’s unlikely anyone will be copying this exact project in their house so I should go over our method pretty quickly. Feel free to ask about any trim questions you have when doing your own projects.)

Once the pieces were cut, I was ready to glue and nail them together. In our situation, it was easier to attach the pieces together and install them all at one time. I attached the tops to the trim with my Kreg Jig and pocket hole screws. After they were attached, I filled the nail holes and any cracks with paintable wood putty and then sanded it down. This is the plan we used:

(top view)

Because the ceiling wasn’t quite straight, I had to rip the front trim pieces down in several areas to get a perfect fit. The shortest could be  3/4 of an inch wide and the tallest could be 1 and 1/4 of an inch wide. So I glued and nailed the pieces together with the bottom sides of the trim flush. Then I planed and sanded them to fit with the ceiling. Like this:

It looks a little funny on its own, but once it’s all painted, it just blends in and looks nice.

I did a dry fitting (several times) to make sure everything fit as snugly as possible.

With a couple of coats of primer and paint, we were ready to install. Once it was wedged in place, I nailed it in place with a small finish nail gun. To finish it off, I caulked the edges and Melissa painted the caulk.

It really makes the room look complete, like we purchased the entire unit from the cabinet manufacturer and had it installed.

But we didn’t. We really saved more than $1000 by doing it ourselves.

See, much better?

 

The kitchen is really coming along, and we’re really almost done now, I promise. And even though taking out this small wall where the pantry used to be was a pain, we’re really glad we spent the time and effort to do this renovation how we really wanted it. It’s hard to believe we’ve gone from this:

To this:

So much more open and functional. Not to mention light and bright.

It helps to see the before and afters when we get frustrated about this taking a year…but man, we’ve done so much in this one room!

What’s been your favorite project so far in the kitchen renovation? Melissa and I both like the nook transformation and the new pantry area a lot!