Cabin Fever and a Strange Little Alcove

My new apartment has a lot of strange little alcoves.  You may remember the one in my kitchen, where I store my dishes.  I live in an attic apartment, which accounts for all the strange angles.  The cupboard doors in this alcove were non-functional.  You could only get them open a crack because they hit the ceiling.

 

Since I've been spending more time at home due to the freezing weather, I finally got around to this project.  Here's what the area now looks like, with the doors removed and shelves painted.

All the boring details are below, if you are interested.

Here's how it looked with the doors removed before paint.  There was water damage.  I used Kilz to eliminate the stains.

I usually prefer flat paint, but since this is a kitchen I chose a high gloss paint.  High gloss is easier to clean.  The color is by Behr and is called Blue Jewel.

The counter was a bumpy ugly mess that was difficult to get clean.  I decided to cover it in contact paper.  I chose a faux leather look from Home Depot.  Contact paper is hard!  I had a heck of time cutting the corners.  But it turned out pretty good.

Then there was the problem of this ugly pulls.  Anthropologie has a great selection of pulls and knobs, but there is no Anthropologie locally and I was too impatient to wait for a mail order.  I searched all over town for knobs.

I finally settled on these ones from World Market.

I'm fairly  pleased with how the alcove turned out.  I'm not that good at DIY projects.  I get good ideas, but execution is a problem for me. 

I filled the shelves with white dishes.  I like the way they pop against the color.  I'd like to put one more small shelf above the top shelf, but that's beyond my skill set.  So I'll probably buy a tall piece to balance it out.

This beautiful coffee pot from Le Souk would fit in nicely.  I'd love to have it.