While we are on the topic of creating cleats in the kitchen (see last week’s post on the refrigerator cabinet cleat), we also made one for a “useless corner”. I’m not a fan of the lazy-susan corner cabinets – for some reason, they always seamed a little creepy to me as a kid. We were going to have plenty of storage in our kitchen, so we created our lower cabinet layout without needing to utilize the space in the corner. I do kind-of feel slightly bad for “wasting” cabinet space, when other people have to use every inch they have in their kitchens. But, our layout without a corner cabinet allowed us to have the arrangement we liked best: a tall cabinet next to the refrigerator. (In the future, we would still be able to use the countertop in this corner.)
Here’s Spencer making a 2×4 cleat to support the countertops:
Here’s the same corner – now with the tall cabinet installed. We needed to address the gap in the corner between the two cabinets.
The solution: create a filler strip using toe-kick that matched the Gnosjo doors. It was a bit of a debate initially: to use the black-brown Gnosjo color of the left lower cabinet, or the high gloss white of the Abstrakt tall cabinet to the right. Ultimately, we decided that the dark color would help the corner just disappear visually. We basically just cut the toe-kick to a proper length (now height) and secured it together with L brackets.
The position of the new filler strip in the corner between cabinets:
We hot-glued the strip in place. Yes. Hot glue: it’s stronger than you’d think.
While were on the topic, we did a similar thing in another area of the kitchen. We placed three cabinets in the existing window nook. They fit almost perfectly, but they were a few inches too short on both ends. Since the walls were not perfect, we scribed the toe-kick to the wall and inserted them on either side of the cabinets.
Due to an outlet, we needed to push them back farther than we would normally have. Again, this area was originally an eat-in-kitchen-nook, so the outlet wasn’t originally placed in a location that would accommodate cabinets.
That’s pretty much it: toe kick as filler between cabinets. The material was wide enough, the color matched, and we didn’t have to buy another more expensive side/cover panel to create these pieces!