Home Design Cool

Whoohoo! I’m ready for the weekend! How about you? I’m back with some more details on the island as promised. First up, thanks for all the love here and on social media – I so appreciate when you take the time to comment. :)

Today I’m also sharing one of my favorite tools of all time – it’s such a random one but I use it quite often for random projects.

I knew when I created the little planked area next to the soon-to-be microwave shelf that it would be a perfect spot for a towel rod:

I have to tell you – I’ve wanted to hang a towel from our island for years. It’s such a small, silly thing but it’s one of those little details I’d see in pictures and I fell in love with the idea. It just never really made sense on our old island – the only spot for it was this end and with our table and chairs there it was to tight to add anything. It was just a bad spot for it overall.

This spot is perfect. In the short time we’ve had the larger island I’ve found myself wanting to have one right there…so I was able to make it happen.

A couple weekends ago my hubby was out of town so the kiddo and I made a last minute trip to Cincinnati to visit the museums (for him) and IKEA (for me). OK, actually both spots were for both of us…I love museums and the Bub admits he kind of loves IKEA too. ;)

Anyway, I actually did pretty good this time – I kept the purchases to a minimum (we went in with a list and that helps). One thing I did grab was the Fintorp bar – it’s really for hanging their organizational things like baskets and stuff. I thought it would be a cute (and inexpensive) towel bar instead.

The problem was it was too long – but I knew I could fix that. Enter the pipe cutter. The coolest tool EVAH. I figured out the length I needed:

And then you clamp the tool on the pipe like so:

Mine tightens at the bottom. You tighten it a bit, spin it around the metal a few times, tighten a bit more, spin it around…keep going. I had to use a gripper on this bar because it was slipping out of my hands so much:

As you can see with each tighten it bites into the metal even more. It took about a minute and quite a few turns around the bar but it broke off cleanly:

You’ve got yourself a perfectly sized bar after that!

You can use it for so many things – over the years I’ve used it a ton to cut down my curtain rods (I used to cut down one into numerous smaller rods for non-functioning drapes that I didn’t need to close). It’s impossible to find shorter curtain rods so it worked great for that. You can use it on anything metal that’s round – even plastic, pvc, whatever. Love it!

I had a lot of rough edges to cover after I planked everything and the simple lattice trim that I told you about here hides all of that stuff. That and caulk. Wondrous things:

I didn’t plank the front of the columns or the insides of them because I was afraid it would get too busy with planks all over the whole thing: I like the simpler look on the columns and – and less work! Score.

The only place I could find longer butcher block (at least locally) was Northwest Lumber. I’ll update you soon on the finish they put on there, so far I love it!:

That’s an earlier pic. ;)

I really wanted to go wider instead of longer at first, so the stools would be tucked all the way inside. IKEA used to sell the wider block but they discontinued it. They still had it online though, not sure why. In the end I’m so glad we went longer instead of wider!

A few asked about painting the cabinets and it wasn’t bad at all since I’ve already painted them before. I shared how to do that years back here. I used a wide angled brush for the first coat this time, then remembered my little square brush. It worked SO well to get into the grooves of the cabinets:

I got it on clearance at Lowe’s months back but I can’t find it there anymore. I did find them on Amazon:

I LOVE this thing, it brushes the paint on so smoothly. The bristles are super soft, like buttah. They also have a corner one that would work great too.

I think I’ve covered everything? If I haven’t let me know! I’m so proud of this project and couldn’t be happier with it:

OH! I was going to give you a rough estimate of cost to extend it – I spent about $160. I had some scrap wood I used but that cost includes most of the wood, trim, planking, baseboards and paint.

Here’s a full recap of posts for this project:

I shared my plans (that I adjusted just slightly) here.
The wine rack here.
The end cabinet and more about the butcher block here.
More about the lights and how I built the columns here.
And finally, details on the stools and how I cut them down here.

Here here here. :) So glad this is done!! Have a great weekend my friends!

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Well HELLO! Oh happy day, the kitchen island is done! I busted my butt yesterday painting for hours to get it finished up so I could show you this week. It’s so freaking awesome, I love it! Love it love it love it.

I’m always proud of what I create in our house but this one may be one of my favorites. I keep looking at it thinking, I DID THAT. And it wasn’t crazy expensive either. It’s a wonderful feeling.

If you remember, last year during the family room renovation we pulled up the island to patch the floors. I wanted to move it away from the cabinets a little bit and we had to fix the floors to do that. They had to tear it apart to take it out of the kitchen:

And my “art” project was created. ;) The squiggles are just old glue from past island projects. If you’ve followed along over the years you know this little island has undergone a LOT of redos. This is the last one. I’m not touching it again. Ever.

I used the original island and built off of it – first by making a wine rack out of scrap wood:

I’m sure at this point some of you were like, uhhhh…OK…

You need to TRUST! :)

Next came the cabinet at the end of the island that will house a microwave eventually:

I just built a basic box with screws and wood.

It sat like this for a while – I hosted a party, had friends over…all with the interesting island on display. The best part of it so far was the new size and the butcher block countertop – I LOVE having a larger island. It is fantastic my friends. I added about two and half feet to it in total.

Next up came the supports I built on the side:

I know some of you have mentioned that the chairs are close together – there’s actually five inches between them and it’s plenty for us. I didn’t want to make the island any bigger – that space at the end where the table used to be has grown on us and we love having it open now. (Before it felt massive, so funny.)

Also, in the 11 years we’ve lived in this house we’ve never had two grown adults sit down at the island next to each other anyway (when it was just a two seater). When we have parties one person sits, one leans, and our last party I actually pulled one of the seats off to the side by the new cabinet and sat there so I could talk to people. So the spacing works fine for us – but if you try this you will have to figure out what works best for you!

I planked the whole thing with the same cheap underlayment I used on the fireplace in the family room. And to tie to two areas together even more I painted it the same color – Peppercorn by Sherwin Williams. It ties the whole space together beautifully!:

I’ll take you on a tour of my island. ;) The cabinets were part of the old island, obviously. Everything past that is new. The wine rack is seriously awesome and I need to go buy some more wine to fill it up. (I may have celebrated with a glass last night.)

The new cabinet at the end will have a shelf eventually – I won’t install that until we get the microwave that will go in here. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the bottom shelf – for now it holds cookbooks and I love that we have extra storage!:

I still need to pick up a cover for the outlet, but otherwise the part is done for now. I used plywood for this cabinet since it is cheaper -- you can see the grain of the wood but eventually most of it will be covered with the microwave:

Yes, our Valentine hearts are still up. ;)

I told you more about the stools and how I cut them down here. I was originally going to keep the original color of our island, a lighter blue/gray, but the stools looked awful with it. So I went with the darker and I love it!:

All of those cabinets will be built up to the ceiling and will be painted eventually. In the full light like this the Peppercorn color goes a little blue in pics but in person it’s more gray. There is a definite blue undertone though.

I’ve been trying to figure out a good accent color to use in the kitchen -- I realized in the family room and our bedroom (where I have a wall painted the same color) that I love green with it. So green it will be…with some blue mixed in – I’m loving blue against all the white on the new window seat:

The plan is to take down those cabinets (the microwave will be replaced with a hood) and do shelving in that spot. I think this view will be pretty incredible when that’s done:

I have another idea for that wall that came into my head the other day. I’ll have to see if it will work. That’s like phase six out of ten phases of this kitchen, so it will be awhile. :)

But for now we are enjoying the first two phases that have come together better than I could have dreamed – the window seat and the island:

The new larger island makes me want to cook and bake all the time! I may have to make some brownies to celebrate. It’s so wonderful and turned out even better than I could have hoped.

I found this super old picture and had to share, just because it’s fun to see the changes over the years:

I’ll share a few more details and how I used one of my favorite tools on this project tomorrow! For now, I rest. I may just take a nap on top of it. :)

Want to know more? See all the details of this island redo here.