Stranded on an Island!

YAY!  I'm so excited that we finally got unstranded from the island!  The kitchen island that is.   This project was a long time in the making.  It is part of the l------ooooo-----nnnn----g kitchen makeover that we are doing. 
Anyway, it had been so long (before Christmas to be exact) that we had started working on replacing the island.  This is what it looked like before:




I know.......it was pretty bad!

 

At Christmas this year, I had to do improvise and camouflage!  I covered it up with a tablecloth
"Where there's a will there's a way"!  Right?!

I am so happy to say that the above is gone!

It has been replaced with this:

Trust me, it took a while to get it to this stage! 

The island top was made from raw, walnut lumber that was cut down off our property about 6 years ago and had been "curing" for all those years.  It was taken to a woodworking shop to be "planed" and made into what you see above.  Because of  an unheated building in winter weather, there were a couple of problems which delayed the finishing of it for several weeks.  It became a joke between my husband and I.  "Island? What island?  Oh, THAT island!"  It's so good to be able to laugh about things, isn't it?!





Here she is with the serious team of "surgeons" trying to figure out what to do about the split that occurred!

The walnut top was done in a wood working shop, but the rest of the island, my husband redid.  He put bead board around the bottom of it and then painted it, of course.  Already looks better!



Our cabinets are not "real wood".   I'm not sure what they are but they are very 90ish.  They were beautiful when we first built the house, but not so much now.  Some of the doors started turning a yellowish color.  That is one reason why I removed the doors and just have open shelving.  Also another thing that has started is the pressed on plastic has started coming off.  This is what happened to the drawers here on the island.

You know what we did?  We just pulled it off and then painted it.  It worked great!  It actually looks more like real wood now.  We might try to do this to all the cabinets.  I might be calling on some of you to help on that one! 

Anyway, we are happy with the way it has turned out.  There are a couple of more things still to do.  One is to put a corbel on each end and two in the on the side opposite the drawers.  We were thinking of putting legs on it, but don't think that is going to work.  I'm happy with it the way it is!  More pictures:

There you go, the story of how I landed on an Island!

I'm linking with Beneath My Heart's  DIY party.