The Den of Slack

Back in August, I thought building a cabinet for the Mansard Victorian’s kitchen sink would be a quick diversion before I dove into finishing the nursery. Little did I know it would take me the rest of 2025 to finish. Daisy’s gift to me was spending three hours calm in her crate today while I (mostly) finished the project — it’s a Christmas miracle!

The first task on the to-do list was to hide the cracks of light showing above the upper cabinets.

Since covering the top of the cabinet with crown molding hadn’t worked, I decided instead to build a fake ceiling in front of the cabinet. I found a piece of wood thick enough to cover the crack.

Like with the crown molding, you can see light over this. The opening isn’t square and because of how the bump-out is situated, I just couldn’t figure out why the wood wouldn’t fit flush with the ceiling.

But that’s okay, because now the crack will be hidden by the trim.

I covered the wood with a piece of the scrapbook paper I used on the walls, wrapping it around the end to make sure no bare wood would be visible.

The edge is a bit sloppy, but it’ll be covered up.

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I’ve slowly been making progress on the cabinets around the sink. It’s been frustrating, hence the very long delay in getting this post up.

Since the bump-out is hard to see and reach into, I decided to glue the backsplash tiles onto a piece of wood that “stands up” behind the cabinet — this way I don’t have to worry about trying to glue in two separate backsplash pieces in exactly the right spot to make them level.

I started by tracing around the top of the sink.

Then I drew lines to indicate where the window trim would go.

Here’s what I ended up with. I thought it would be easier to glue the trim to this piece of wood than to the wall. The XXX part is a sliver that will need to be cut out above the bottom piece of trim.

I started at the top edge so I wouldn’t end up with slivers under the cabinets. These tiles are made from scrapbook paper cut with a 1/4″ x 1/8″ punch (read more about it here).

Since this piece of wood goes behind the cabinet and sink, the tiles run behind the sink corner and the countertop, so there’s a neat transition.

And here are both sides finished. I trimmed the tiles hanging over the edges with nail scissors.

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