Pantry wall makeover

We have a really cool pull-out pantry in what would have been just a plain old wall if I hadn't had an epiphany during our kitchen design process.

This pantry is a godsend since our kitchen cabinet space is relatively little since we opted to have windows on either side of the stove instead of upper cabinets. Last year I upgraded the pantry with an interior organization system (more on that here), but the outside was feeling a bit unfinished. It was totally unfinished above the top cabinet where we filled in the space with a piece of wood before installing the crown molding. We couldn't decide whether to paint it white or yellow so we left it primed and unpainted for a year. Yikes. I stopped noticing it after a month.

So, we had to do something with that space and while dreaming up some solutions, I started thinking about how the yellow on the sides made the cabinet look kind of dinky on the wall. Adding molding on the sides seemed like the obvious choice. I originally considered window trim but it didn't look right. Then I thought about our front door with the fluted molding on each side and thought it might work perfectly. Handy Hubby brought home two pieces of 4" primed fluted molding. 45 minutes later we had this...

He also added a piece of trim molding to match the rest of our kitchen crown molding across the top edge of the cabinet where it meets the tiny strip of wall above. There was a small space between the molding and the edge of the cabinet. Jim caulked the crack between the wall and the cabinet. Once painted, the space looked like another contour on the trim. At the bottom, he removed the top piece of baseboard so the fluted piece would butt directly into the baseboard without an overhang. Here's a somewhat blurry picture to explain what I'm talking about. He did a little 45 degree piece to butt it back into the fluted piece.

I spent an hour painting out the new trim on Monday night because I swore I would not get through the weekend without painting that trim for fear it would be another year before I got around to it. We had the paint left over from the crown molding in the kitchen. It's Benjamin Moore color matched to the color of our cabinets. I brought one of the doors into the store with me!

 Here's a close-up of the molding.

 Now a quick before and after...

What do you think?

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