I know that for many awkward spaces can be terrifying. It’s fine if you have the budget to build something custom made to suit the tricky space but let’s face it we don’t all have those kind of budgets. So we end up either ignoring the space and leaving it empty and unused, or filling it with something random, often quite useful, but bizarre in the space.

We had this very challenge when moving into our New York apartment. We were presented with a rather dingy kitchen and this quite large seating area. But why would we sit in the dingy kitchen to eat our meals when we had a bright dining room just next door? Shall we put a table in there anyway just because it would look ok? No no no my friends. Do not just fill a space with what society has told us we should have in that space. Everyone lives differently and has different needs, fill it with something you will actually use! In that case of our awkward kitchen conundrum – we often find our evenings center around me doing the cooking and my husband ‘finishing off a few emails’ – and then I present the meal, he puts the laptop away for 20 minutes while we eat and then after dinner goes back to the laptop. The whole cooking process is fun (I love cooking) but lonely…so I decided to build a mini work/bar station – so that he can still do those last-minute emails, but at least we are in the same room! That way it doesn’t feel like I am drinking alone at least.

A $14.99 shelf from home depot, hefty metal brackets and a lovely handyman called Nick later, and we have a bar, which I adore. So don’t be afraid of tricky spaces – make something quirky that works for you!