I’ve given furniture “haircuts” to make it fit into a smaller space, but I think this was the first time I’ve taken a piece of furniture and “grown it” into a larger piece.

It all started when I was standing at our kitchen peninsula, staring at the back wall of our dining area and trying to decide what I could do to like it more. You can see this wall from almost our entire main level — from the front door, from the kitchen, from the living room — which is the curse of open-concept living. It needed to be a showstopping wall.

The wall was pretty blah, with just our hutch and our son’s computer desk.

We received our hutch as a hand-me-down when we moved in eight years ago, and it’s looked great since we painted it white.

While I still loved the way the hutch looked, there was something “off” I couldn’t pinpoint. There was all this wasted space between the top of the hutch and the ceiling, and I just wanted to … I don’t know, stretch it up!

Hmm.

I’ve heard of people raising their kitchen cabinets up and hanging them directly under the ceiling (I begged, but Handy Husband said no) because it “extends the eye” and makes the room feel taller.

Could I do something similar to our dining room hutch?

Continue reading in my weekly DIY column, My Handmade Home …

… on pin this post and come back to it later!