Will the top of the desk come off and you can build a new top, using the same counter top material and put three drawers across the top. A cupboard with a door can be built to cover the knee space. Great space for a coffee bar.

beesneeds, I agree that the top cabinet frame is a solid piece. That's why I'm stumped - I can't easily remove the niche area. I think you're right that the niche was custom back in 1968 when the house was built. Thanks for your response!!

The curvy niche actually has its own kind of charm, imo. You could try doing something fun with it where you paint the front surface as and leave the beadboard as wood, or paint it a contrasting color. Or, maybe you want it to be less noticeable and paint it all white or whatever!

Can you just remove the curvy sides?

If you could remove the curved sides, but if you can’t it won’t have that much impact. I noticed your island was painted and wonder if you painted that area, defining it as a work space. Leave top original to have a connection to rest of kitchen, add a padded note board and a nice chair. Not only will it look cute, but could be useful as well.

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Can the scroll around the shelves be removed (even if it had to be sawed off)? That way you can use the shelves for glasses or other things you would need above the new beverage center. Your fridge looks rather new, but a counter depth one would be so much better as it would not stick out so much into your space.

Take a look inside the cabinets adjacent to the niche and see if you can screws holding on the niche in place. That scroll cabinet is attached somehow and since it's a step back from the flanking cabinets, I'm wondering if they screwed it from the inside of the adjoining cabinets. Also look closely at the back of the niche and see if you can see where it may have been screwed to the wall. It's possible it was and the screws were recessed and covered with wooden plugs. It's also possible that the paneled back (wood veneer over luan paneling all the rage in the '60s) is an overlay on top of the actual niche back that's covering the fasteners.

You could also trim back as much of the scroll work as possible and install a new 1 x frame on top of the scroll work. You don't have to trim the scroll but doing so allows you to install narrower framing. You won't be able to match stains but you could paint that new frame and the inside of the niche a satin black that would look intentional.

rebasheba - I can see how painting the inside a different color might be fun. Thanks!

jlj48 - I don't think I can easily remove the curvy sides easily. See the photo - they're solid with the frame of the cabinet. Maybe a carpenter could cut it down with a dremel but I don't think I'm capable of making that look good.

Maureen - Thanks for your thoughts. The opening to the desk is so small and narrow that I just can't see anyone actually sitting at it. We've lived here 8 years and no one has, so I'm guessing no one will . But I agree that your inspiration photo looks great.

Design Girl - Maybe a carpenter could carve off the scrolly portion of the trim, I don't know, but it's part of the frame so it's no easily removed. (See photo). The fridge is actually a counter-depth fridge. Maybe older cabinets are less deep? I don't know, but I agree that the fridge would be better flush with the counters.

missenigma - It appears that the entire upper cabinet piece is one piece, meaning that I can't remove individual cabinets. But I love your idea of adding new trim on top of the scroll trim. Great idea.

Another idea I had was to completely cover the niche with a piece of wood so that it was flush with the trim, paint the cabinets and niche-cover, and then hang some art over it. Attached is a BAD photo my kid took to give you a poor visual.

Would you consider taking all of the upper cabinets out? Add floating shelves on the sides of the refrigerator and buy a ’hutch type’ piece of furniture for your bar area, either in the same color as the cabinets or in a different fun color. Good luck with your project!

@kansas_jennie That's another great idea that gave me a few more.

You could completely cover the niche with wood and paint it with chalkboard paint or cover it with dry erase material and you'd have a message board. You could also cover the board with galvanized sheet metal, the kind they use in HVAC for cold air returns. That would be magnetic. In either case the board could be framed out. Depending upon how handy you are, you could also hinge the board so you could still access the storage behind it.

Another idea is to use a decorative acrylic panel ( like you see here https://www.lumicor.com/products/collections) or a nice piece of decorative glass (for example, reeded or rain glass) or a stained glass piece framed to fit the opening. Getting really ambitious you could backlight it. Check out Etsy.

You could also get a cabinet door on line in a custom size to cover the opening. Instead of using like a door, install it as a panel (although you could install as a door). Since you're thinking of painting the cabinets you don't have to worry about matching stains.

Looking at the close up niche picture you posted, it looks like that niche was built in place. It looks each cabinet flanking the niche was ordered with a finished side and installed with the niche opening between then. Then the niche was site built. The brass shelf standards were attached directly to the flanking cabinets. That fixed bottom shelf and those scrolls are attached somehow and I'm guessing they are attached through the sidewalls of the flanking cabinets. The back looks to be a sheet of 1/4" or 1/8" thick sheet paneling applied to the back wall.I don't think it will be as difficult to disassemble it as you might think. But I'm not there to be able to exam it closely. If it were removed, shelves could easily be installed between the flanking cabinets flush with their face frames. When the cabinets got painted, everything would look like that's how it was from the start.

I'll throw out an idea. Measure the knee opening of the desk and find a small wine refrigerator that fits in the space. Use the shelves to hold wine other glassware and the desktop for an ice bucket and maybe a bar set. You could also add a backsplash to further define the area. It could look something like this.

I like your plan to remove the desk and add cabinets. I, too, think the trim on the upper is charming, but if you don't want the curves, it appears you have the depth to cover them with straight pieces, then paint all to match:

Just throwing out an idea... wine shelf?

You could see if any of these 4 sizes of a frosted glass and white aluminum frame door would fit.

With an LED puck light inside, the frosted glass would look great above your new beverage center. Oh, and it's IKEA so it's a budget door despite the good quality and warranty.

Ikea Justis glass door

lisachew5

5 days ago

Would you consider taking all of the upper cabinets out?

Hi - I'm sorry it's taken me so long to respond. I would consider taking out all of the upper cabinets. Based on my measurements, they are a weird size and I'd need custom cabinets for the ones that need replacing. I like your idea of adding a hutch. I've thought of doing a full-size china cabinet there - like this: