Here it is!  The long awaited kitchen island renovation.  We started work on the island in April.  I planned out two weeks without a dishwasher and island and Mark worked hard to get us working by then.  I think he did a great job!  Regardless, we didn’t get it fully finished until May.  Even now, we need to install our disposal button and fix a little bit of a leak.

So before:

The wonky angled sink and the the extremely high bar made the island counter space pretty much useless. (note our sweet Sunny girl who passed away at the end of May.  She was our sweet baby.)

And close to after. Right now, the floors are all torn up…new flooring is going in this month.

Here’s the process:

Getting the tile in.  We used white ceramic tile and some beautiful hand painted talavera tiles.We bought the cabinets and Mark started the planning process

Yes, I would have loved a farmhouse sink, but we found this one and the size and style was perfect.  We thought we wanted a double sink, but we did a lot more research and talking to others (i.e. surveying friends and Facebook peeps) and realized a large one bowl sink may be what will work.  After using it for over two months, I am in love with it.  We go the largest and deepest sink and it’s great for our large pans and dishes!  It’s also going to make a sweet bath for baby Tobin!

Industrial?  Commerical?  Sure, but it was just the style I wanted.

Demo day.  Mark got the bar granite removed while I was away but I got to watch the rest of the island come down.

Bye, bye crazy island set up.

Putting the cabinets in place. We did very little moving of the plumbing and Mark built a box around it to make it easy to get to if needed.  Saved us thousands of dollars in plumbing re-location.  One of the joys of a concrete slab. Since I know next to nothing about how to construct things, I got to paint.  See, I’m the visionary and Mark is the one who makes it happen.

The night before we tiled the counter, was spent arranging, rearranging and sending pictures to friends for approvals and ideas.

Finally decided what we wanted.

The next morning, we go to work.  I did most of the tiling.  Mark did a lot of the cutting.

The couple who grouts together, stays together…right?!  After we finished grouting the whole thing, we we went out on our cruise.  We were exhausted but it was the perfect way to relax.

Mark turned gray from a day of cutting tile!

My parents have a lot of stuff because they have an antique booth, go to estate sales, and are frequent auction attendees.  As such, when I mentioned I needed drawer pulls, my mom told me to shop with them first.  And I did.  I found these brass and ceramic pulls that I thought would look great with our already decked out island.  Just needed some slight updating.  

A good ol’ cleaning eraser and some oil-rubbed bronze spray paint….Ta Da!  Brand new drawer pulls.

This island has been wonderful!  We have plenty of room to do meal preps, and all the other things we need to do.  Because we took out the bar, and set it at a proper rectangle, we also have a much wider space.  Our living room looks huge!  I can not wait to get the floors in and see it all finished up (and to get my house put back together.).