In deciding to open up the wall between the kitchen and dining room, you’ll have another decision to make: What to do with the wall? You could remove the wall completely, make a serving ‘window’, or make a half wall with a countertop.

If you want to install a countertop, the next question becomes, “What kind?”.

There are a multitude of options for countertops these days and for an application such as this where it is away from the water and food prep areas you can be even more flexible.

Some people might want to match their existing kitchen counters which are solid surface in this case. However, in my last three projects like this, the homeowners decided to instead have a custom-made wood countertop made just for their kitchen.

I get my friend Chris Barber at Barber Woodworking to craft these fine counters for me. He is an artisan to be sure with most of his projects involving custom cabinetry of some kind. If you’d like to see more of his woodworking art check out his website at www.BarberWoodworking.com.

At this current project, the homeowners wanted to coordinate the counter with their maple kitchen cabinets and a maple table in their dining room. Chris once again did a fabulous job and the homeowners were quite pleased with the result.
Now, it’s time to finish things out with some trim and paint.