Before you resign yourself to the carpet, ask around about remnants at a few large carpet installers--you can get really large pieces of carpet at pretty low prices, and just cover all of that mess...

Two steps, the first for practicality and the second for aesthetics. The books are all organized by subject (poetry, fiction, philosophy), but within those categories I just tried to make the arran...

Not to worry--it's meant to be mounted above a stove, and has an exhaust fan in the unit as well. :)

Thanks for all the comments! I found the contact paper at Home Depot, in their paint/home dec section. It's faux leather, but once it's down it looks like a standard slightly textured countertop fi...