Living Areas Projects & Advice

A wall niche is kind of cubby hole carved into a stud wall, usually to house display shelving. These days, they are often seen as prefashioned inserts with an arch shape and Greco-Roman styling in higher-end housing, often with classical statuary within the niche sides. The niche shown here is a rather different animal. It is simply a wooden box that you slip into a hole in the wall and then trim out.

One great way to add cozy charm to a room is to build a window seat. Not only do window seats make a room more inviting, they provide functional benefits as well, particularly when you surround them with built-in shelving. The window seat shown here has a base built from above-the-refrigerator cabinets. This size provides just the right height (when placed on a 3” curb) to create a comfortable seat.

The irregular space beneath a staircase can be used for a variety of creative built-in projects. Because the dimensions and angles of understairs areas vary widely, finding stock cabinetry that fits the space is difficult. However, the design shown here can be built to fit almost any area.

If there’s one place in the house that collects everybody’s stuff, it’s the bathroom. Towels, clothes, cleaning supplies, even laundry. But some fancy design work using a couple of refrigerator wall cabinets and some cool carpentry create a niche spot that can provide a central location for all kinds of different items.

A room divider, like a partition wall, separates one large room into two usable spaces, each with its own specific function. But unlike a partition wall, a room divider adds storage space to your home, while letting you retain the open feeling of a larger room.