The access to the above space is the problem. They must have done this either before or during the process of adding a second floor. Now, above the kitchen is no longer an attic, but a bathroom with a tiled floor.

Miacometlady, The Incredibles is a wonderful movie! NO CAPES!

From what I can see (and what a number of electricians have proposed to do with other older wiring parts of my house), wire molding seems pretty common with trying to get grounded electricity into the older parts of the house without destroying the walls and ceilings. Again, I'm pretty new to all of this and will bringing in another electrician later this week, but figured I would see if anyone else has ever dealt with this situation. There used to be an older cabinet covering it, but it was just too small to fit a reasonably-sized fridge.

I am in the U.S (South Carolina). Just mean the metal raceway. Electrician that came to give us estimate for other parts of the house didn't seem to have an issue with this particular outlet (we had a few outlets that had reverse polarity). My main concern is just to get any ideas to either cleaning up or hiding the particular outlet because it just sticks out. We're getting ready to renovate the whole kitchen, but cutting into the ceiling was something we were hoping to avoid. Raceways are one of the more affordable solutions they've proposed for bringing grounded electricity into my office versus drilling through the exterior of my house.