New York Renovator

Since I had to change my initial plans and install a full wall (instead of a half wall) in the kitchen, I decided to make lemonade with lemons. A little background: after opening up a wall that the kitchen and conjoining dining room share, we decided it looked great, and wanted to keep the area open, with just a half wall/pass-through type of deal. However, I discovered that I had nowhere else to place the refrigerator, so we had to rebuild a full wall. The wall is a thick void, built to house a huge cast iron drainpipe in the corner. The rest of the wall is just wasted space. So I decided (on a whim) to bust out the dining room side of the void, and install a broom closet next to the bathroom door. I have NO IDEA how to make these things… after a little thinking, I just started whacking, lol. It didn’t turn out half bad…

I don’t know if you can tell in the photo, but here I removed a wall stud and installed a header about 7 feet up.

Then, I installed blocking to support the plywood walls I would soon insert.

The blocking is a little haphazard. I wanted to use up the scraps of wood we had lying around the house. It doesn’t look pretty, but it works. AND it uses up the scraps instead of wasting them.

I had to meticulously measure the plywood panels and nail them in, to create a box. That bottom piece is a small scrap piece of expensive plywood that would have otherwise been tossed out.

We installed sheetrock around the walls.

Now, I have to find some doors for the thing. I didn’t take into consideration that I might not be able to find doors that fit such an odd measurement (the opening is 22 inches wide and 78 inches high). I may have to make my own, or buy two small stock doors and fit them in just right. The dining room walls will be deep red, so I expect I will stain the doors a cherry or mahogany color.

I’ll have a small shelf or two at the top, to hold various household stuff, like vacuum cleaner belts, water filter supplies, light bulbs, etc. Our house has virtually no storage space (the basement floods and we have no attic space for storage), so little closets and cabinets around the house are valuable real estate.

In other news, we are FINALLY making progress with the sheetrock. WHAT a job. It’s just my daughter and I right now. We hope to have a small crew here Sunday to complete the job (am praying). If all goes well, next week we spackle and paint. Then— CABINETS!!!!!!