My house has (glorious!) steam heat. Cast iron radiators are in almost every room.  They not only heat the house with a long, slow radiance, but also vent steam (humidity) into the air.  In my opinion, nothing is better than steam radiators for heat.

But… they come with one small issue:  There’s all that wonderful heat, with a round surface you can’t put things on to take advantage of it.

So I fixed that.

I built a “cap” that fits the curve on the underside, provides a flat surface on the top, and has a lot of negative space to allow the heat to pass through into the room.  Currently, I have two; a small one in the kitchen (pictured), and a longer one on the larger radiator in the dining room..

In the kitchen, I primarily use it for proofing bread in the winter (I buy frozen dough because I suck at baking). It’s also a convenient space to toss things that I need to take to work in the morning (it’s right next to the back door).  In the dining room, I use it for two main purposes 1) drying my hat and gloves in the winter (bonus: on really cold days, my gloves are pre-heated for my drive to work), and 2) drying bread for breadcrumbs.

Both are made of modern oak in what I call the “Prairie style”–slats of wood separated with small spacers, and adhered only with glue.

They’re great upgrades to make unusable space not only usable, but valuable.