What Should I Do with This Hole?

When I bought my condo 12 years ago, it came with a fancy Italian washer/dryer combo. In principle, it was brilliant: put in a load of laundry, and a few hours later, your clothes emerge both washed and dried.

In practice, it’s been less than ideal. It’s a small machine, so you can only fit a partial load of laundry inside. During spin/dry cycles, the machine would shake so much that I could hear and feel it several rooms away. And eventually the dryer portion just stopped working.

More and more I found myself just using the free, full-size washer and dryer machines down the hall. The final straw came last week when I put a small load in the combo unit, and the clothes emerged smelling like an electrical fire. I figured some internal circuitry had gone bad, and I was one load away from the whole thing going up in smoke.

So today I had the entire thing hauled away, leaving a large gap in my kitchen counter. Here’s what it looks like:

  • Drawers: My kitchen has lots of cabinets but very few drawers–why not add some?
  • Slurpee machine: I love Slurpees!
  • Popcorn machine: I also love popcorn.
  • Storage: Okay, this is less fun, but more storage would be nice.
  • Cat panic room: Protection against tornadoes/zombies/small children?
  • Trash/recycling: Currently these are located elsewhere, but the right configuration would fit well in the hole.

What do you think I should do with the hole? Name one practical and one outlandish idea.

15 thoughts on “What Should I Do with This Hole?”

  1. Jamey,

    I can’t be the first person to think of a cart full of great titles curated each week for your Game Night..

    Cheers,
    Joe

    Reply
  2. I had a similar hole after expanding the countertop in the utilityroom. I put in a minifridge for game nights, but pretty much is just a wine cooler now. You might also consider a safe for keeping all your Stonemaier collector’s edition games!

    Reply
    • Denise: That’s a great suggestion, though I should have mentioned that I have a dishwashing machine. 🙂 The escape hatch would be awesome! I would have to get permission from my downstairs neighbor.

      Reply
  3. I would love to say something for the cats, but giving them a box will be cheaper and they will engage more with it hahaha. I built something for my cat last year, he went inside one time and never used it again 🙁

    Reply
  4. Assuming you go the storage route, there are some interesting ideas:
    https://www.pinterest.com/explore/under-cabinet-storage/
    https://www.pinterest.com/pin/514888169876814796/
    https://makespace.com/blog/posts/kitchen-storage-hacks-solutions/
    They’re not all ideas for the particular space you have, but they might be appealing in your kitchen overall. Sidenote: Googling “kitchen storage” returns far more relevant results than “what to stick in an extra hole”.
    As an alternative, you could just slap a cheap door on the space and invite Tolles to move back in to the condo. The space isn’t that much smaller than the room you and he have both lived in. Need a trivia answer? Open the door. Need legal advice? Open the door. Need a string of expletives or a rant about politics? Open the door.
    Sidenote 2: Did you stop reading to google, “What to stick in an extra hole?”

    Reply
    • Thanks Trev! There are some really clever ideas among those links. The lazy susan in the fridge is brilliant!

      As for the Tolles idea, I’ll run it by his wife. I’m sure there won’t be a problem.

      Reply

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