Bookworm Cottage Style

A pain point in our previous apartment was the daily kitchen traffic jam that occurred with all of our coffee making equipment, microwave, sink, and dishwasher clustered around the same outlet and same tiny patch of counter space.

When home shopping, the previous owners of our home had staged this nook in the dining room with a decorative bookcase. But once we noticed the wall outlet and the close proximity to the sink, the wheels started turning. Transforming this roughly 3 square feet of real estate into a functional coffee bar was one of our very first house projects after moving in, and one we’re still enamored with a year later.

The first step was finding a cabinet that was roughly counter height (36”, give or take a few) and was the right width to fit within the nook. I first searched on Wayfair by typing my desired height, width, and depth ranges into their dimension filters. Once this striped cabinet caught my eye, I copied the product name into google and ended up getting it for a better price from Walmart. Inside the cabinet is where we keep coffee filters, cloth napkins, vitamin supplements, and ibuprofen.

From there, I ordered two customized-sized floating shelves from Ultrashelf, which my dad kindly installed. Everything else we had on hand, so it was just a matter of styling.

One day down the road, I’d like to get a zellige-inspired subway tile installed on the wall inside the nook, inspired by this. In the meantime however, this remains one of my favorite little corners of our home.

Sources:

• Pitcher: Farmhouse Pottery Silo Pitcher, Large
• Glass jars: Anchor Hocking Montana Glass Canisters with Acacia Lid (also recently spotted at Costco and BJs for cheaper)
• Coffee and Tea Canisters: West Elm Utility Stoneware Kitchen Canisters
• 3-Tiered Mug Shelf: Container Store Large 3-Tier Bamboo Expanding Shelf
• Drinkware: Le Creuset Vancouver mugs, cappuccino cups, and espresso mugs
• Coffee Pot: Chemex Six Cup Classic
• Floating shelves: Ultrashelf White Oak Floating Shelf in Nature stain, depth 12”, thickness 1.75”
• Coffee Machine: Nespresso Essenza Mini in Lime Green and Nespresso Milk Frother (older model, no longer available)
• Coffee Bean Grinder: OXO Conical Burr Coffee Grinder
• Kettle: Fellow Stagg EKG Electric Kettle in Stone Blue with Maple
• Cabinet: DecMode, purchased from Walmart (no longer available)