Kitchen Island Progress!

Hello there! How was your long weekend? Ours was great! I didn’t mean to take yesterday off, it was just one of those mornings where I felt like I wanted to focus on my boy, you know? I got more done on the kitchen island too, so this post is a little more interesting than it would have been yesterday anyway. ;)

So there’s a bit of progress happening to the kitchen island! Are you tired of hearing about it? I’m not. :) It’s so fun to see something come together as you had planned it in your head for months. Well, mostly how it was in my head – I’ve tweaked a few things. If you want to catch up you can see my plan for the island here, how I made the wine rack and then how I extended the current island here.

First up, I had the lights over the island installed last week. I was going to wait to do it but I had money left in the budget and went ahead. I picked out these lights from Lowe’s:

They are the Progress Archie lights in bronze. I’m mixing metals in here like I do throughout the rest of the house and I love how it’s looking! The new lights and those over the window seat all have a vintage/farmhouse vibe so they work well together.

I don’t know why the price is so high online – they were $60-something at Lowe’s (on sale). I LOVE them. They are the same style (just a different finish) as the powder room lights. I love that vintage look of the glass shade:

Excuse the ceiling patches that still need to be painted!

They are on the same switch as the other kitchen lights. I’d love to have them on a separate one but that would have involved more holes in the ceiling and I’m kind of over those and need a break for awhile. ;) Maybe we’ll have it done in the future but for now it doesn’t bother me.

They are on a dimmer with the rest of the lights too, so I can turn them down. They offer great light – the shades keep the bulbs from being glaring but they are still really bright. I have 40 watt bulbs in them and it’s plenty:

You may notice another small addition to the island in that pic – I finally got the side “supports” built! They are very basic, I just built them with 1 x 4s:

I attached one flat to the side of the island first, then attached two to the side of that. I cut down two pieces at the length I needed for the top and bottom and attached those with screws, then finished it up with the end piece and the two on the side of that:

Very simple, very quick. I used three pieces of pine for each side, so these cost about $15 so far. By the way, these are not to support the countertop, they are just for looks so they don’t need to be structural. But they are super secure and aren’t going ANYWHERE.

I will wrap one side of them to match up with the sides of the island, then I can start with my planking! I hope to get some of that done today. I can’t believe how much more custom the island already looks. Here’s a before:

And here’s how it looks now:

See?? I think it’s going to look so good! I had originally hoped for a wider island top that would go past the stools so they would tuck under perfectly, but butcher block in that size is incredibly hard to find. By the way, IKEA still lists their island butcher block online but they are discontinued. (They are the only ones I know of who carry the wider size.) Boo.

So anyway, it’s still going to look awesome. The stools only stick out maybe four to five inches and I don’t mind it at all.

I thought of something this morning though – I may adjust those top supports that are attached to the countertop from underneath. If I ever need to remove the top I’ll have to pull everything apart to get to that, which I really, really don’t feel like ever doing again. Ever. :) We only had to take the old countertop off once and that was to move the island, but still. Just in case I’ll probably remove those screws into the top, which will mean making some small adjustments.

But I’m VERY excited to see how it’s coming together…very soon this will look like an actual finished piece. The “art” will be gone, ha!:

I’ve had a few visitors to our house and readers think that the design on the island is intentional – when it’s just glue from the old boards that I had on there years ago. I’m and artist and didn’t even know it! ;)   

So there you go, a bit of progress to share! I’m thinking next time I share this it will be done. No promises though. But I do hope to be done with it by next week sometime!