{ Getting an Island }

No, we didn't buy a piece of land surrounded by water...we are talking about the KITCHEN island today and I am SO excited to show you whats going on now that I FINALLY found all my pictures (yay for smart techy people). Remember WAY back like f.o.r.e.v.e.r ago when the kitchen looked like this?

If you are just reading for the first time let me explain...all that stuff is NOT ours. It was the previous owners and these pics were taken prior to us purchasing the house. I didn't get some good photos of the room all cleaned out before we started ripping it all apart but as you can see it had dark cabinets, a dark orange ceiling, dated flooring, dated counter tops, dated lighting, and whole lot of really pretty curtains, you agree? ;)

Mark has done SO much work in this room. You can read all about those changes here and here.

So back to the main reason why I am sharing the kitchen with you today... the island. We started out by putting two of the base cabinets into the middle of the room. We knew from the beginning that we were going to re-work the layout of the cabinets and I really wanted an island. It's going to be tight in there once we get the table in but I don't really care as long as I have the island.

 I wasn't sure how I wanted to trim it out but then I saw this on pinterest 

Original source not found. See on my Pinterest board here.

I sent the photo to Mark and when I got to the house THAT NIGHT he had this completed

What the heck! It took a minute for my jaw to be off the floor. I was literally like, "wow Mark, I had no idea that you were going to make my inspiration picture into reality on the SAME day that I sent you the photo!" Then a whole lot of squealing went on too (of course). 

It is gorgeous! Absolutely exactly what I was envisioning. I started filling in the nail holes the next day with paintable caulk. 

I've never used a caulk gun before. That photo above was Marks caulk line after he gave me a little tutorial. Here's what my line looked like...

Ya, not good. Lets just say, a whole lot of sanding was in my future.

After a million hours of sanding (that may be a slight exaggeration) I was able to get the first coat of primer on

Did you also notice in some of those photos that the cabinet door are back on. I still have to do a light sanding on each of them and a last coat of paint and then get the pulls on. 

I am going to be painting the island over the weekend and then the kitchen cupboards should be all done. Later down the road, I would really like to get new cabinet doors in a more modern style but for now, until we can save up, we will be working with what we have and I am pretty happy with how they look.

We picked up the sink and counter tops yesterday and hopefully those can all get done over the next couple of days. Things are really starting to come together and we are so excited to wrap things up in here. We plan to move in very soon and continue to work away at things that we want to get done as we live there. Exciting things happening here!!

{ Cabinets Are Back }

The cabinets have all been put into their new places in the kitchen. These guys have been  all over the house and beyond. 

Initially the doors were taken off and put in the barn for sanding and priming. (Yes, that's grass in that photo below. I hardly remember what the stuff looks like since we are having the never ending winter here in Michigan this year)

While the doors were drying, I went back inside and applied one coat of primer to the cabinets. 

Then they were completely removed . We relocated them all over the house depending on what room we were working on at the time. They've camped out in the living room, the nursery, our master bedroom, and now they are finally back where they belong - in the kitchen!

If you follow me on Instagram @kaseyrawson you already saw this photo. The base cabinets were put in first. 

The arrow is pointing to where the dishwasher will be. The flooring didn't go all the way over because we knew we would have that wall lined with cabinets but we have extra flooring that will go down in the gaps where the stove and dishwasher will be, it just isn't in yet. 

Mark just put the uppers back in last Saturday.

There's a very small gap between the upper on the left and the wall. I'm still debating if I want to do a few small open shelves for cook books and such or if I want to have a filler piece of wood placed in there to close it off. I'm leaning more on the filler piece than the shelves but who knows, these days I change my mind a million times before making a decision.

It's exciting to see the kitchen going back together. In the scheme of things, this is a small accomplishment but each small step leads to a finished product and for this I am happy. 

I still have to prime a few spots. Since I primed while they were still on the wall a couple of the sides didn't get done yet. I bought the paint for the cabinets on the wall. So I am hoping to fit that in very soon. As for the island, I'm going to paint it grey. Have you guys heard of Cabinet Transformations? My friend had purchased a kit and ended up not using it, so she gave it to me. I am looking forward to trying out this kit. There's a lot in the box even an instructional DVD, so I'll be watching that soon to learn all about how to use it. I'll be sure to post my thoughts. Have any of you guys used Cabinet Transformations? 

For the sake of before and after comparisons the kitchen is looking a million times better than what we started with!

Lots to do in here but it's getting closer and closer! Next up after painting will be the counter top installation, after that new sink and faucet, and after that we can move our appliances back in! Sounds so easy right?!