One of my favorite parts in designing our home was making sure every corner was built to suit us and the way we use our space. Our coffee station is a perfect example of how we transformed a small corner into one of the most used areas of our main floor (anyone who needs coffee to live will understand!).
In our first set of house plans, we had a dead space between the kitchen and our master bedroom that our architect made in to a broom closet. I asked to remove the closet and just leave it as an open space where I figured we could add shelves and décor. Then, as we started designing the kitchen and allocating cabinet and counter space to our various uses, I decided to include some millwork in that nook – the goal was to make it feel as though it was an extension of the kitchen but still its own space. From there, the concept for our Coffee Station was created!
We worked with Sebo Woodwork for all of our millwork. We chose their custom color, Clamshell, for our kitchen island and shelves and then brought that color into several areas of our home, including the coffee station. We integrated lighting into the first shelf that we often turn on in the evening for ambiance.
We went with basic matte black handles to mimic what we used in our kitchen island. The goal here was to keep the hardware as subtle as possible so as not to compete with our bolder bronze hardware that we used throughout the rest of the kitchen.
We used the same backsplash in our coffee station as we did in the laundry room (which you can see here). The counter, however, was chosen to match the counters used in the kitchen.
What makes this space so useful is the organization that we included in the cupboards. I am not one to hoard coffee mugs but there was a time where my collection of mismatched cups was keeping me up at night. So when we moved in, I got rid of all mugs that didn’t “spark joy” and only kept what we use regularly.
Because this isn’t a big space (it’s 30″ wide), I have to make the décor on our open shelves work double duty – pretty and functional. We store our extra coffee pods in the glass pitchers on the second shelf; our sugar/cream set are on the first shelf along with some purely decorative pieces. On the counter, we have our Nespresso machine and the ground coffee that Paolo likes is in the white jar next to his French press.
All in all, I’m so happy with the coffee station that almost wasn’t. We use this space a ton and I love that I don’t have to allocate any kitchen real estate to my mugs or coffee products.
I will say, however, that if you are thinking of creating such a space in your home, give yourself a decent amount of room between the counter and the first shelf. We left the standard 18″ height which is perfect for a Nespresso machine but if you have a fancier espresso machine that has the coffee beans grinder incorporated, you would need to pull out the machine each time you wanted to add coffee. It’s not a big deal for us since I do enjoy my Nespresso but it is something to keep in mind when designing a space like this.
Additional Sources
Clear coffee cups and Black Spoons (colored mugs are from Home Sense)
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