The Island

Our new old island

The hold-all box. We keep oils and such in there

The maple work surface and cherry shelf on the stainless base

It's always been our plan to build a kitchen island to round out the space and utility of the room and give the area a gathering point. Up till now it has felt a little too spacious because there has been that central piece missing. So it was something of a coincidence that my sister called us up and asked if we'd be interested in borrowing their old kitchen island for the indefinite future as they work on selling their current home and make plans to build a new house.

We jumped on the idea because although we fully intend to create an island when the time comes, its not currently at the top of our list since the kitchen is functional enough without it and things like shelves, screen doors, and places to store our clothes are a bit more pressing.

So, I went over earlier this week and picked it up and my 4 year old niece Solveig helped me load all the parts into the car.

It is turning out to be a really great addition to our home and I said to Randy on the phone after we'd got it in place that our motivation to go ahead and build our island just decreased by about seventy-five percent. It matches the wood types we have in our kitchen: a maple countertop/cutting surface, and a cherry shelf that matches the cherry cabinets. It fills out the general area of the kitchen really nicely and answers to what was a significant missing element in our overall plan.

Randy had this island put together after asking a restaurant supply house if they had a metal base that might work as an island and Liza found the cutting board at a yard sale, although it was a little to short to fill the full length of the base, so they had their friend Johnny built them a hold-all box to fill out that remaining space, along with the cherry shelf down below. I would never have thought to put in a box like that, but its great. It keeps the stuff you use all the time right in the middle of things and keeps the work/eating area of the cutting board clear.

The island also gives our groovy industrial stools something to gravitate around. They fit together well with the style of the the island.

Ready to finish floors

Jeremy setting nails last week

We've been busy preparing for the floor finishing crew that arrives tomorrow morning to sand and then polyurethane the pine floors we put down last week. The most time intensive aspect of getting ready has been setting the nails. It's just a lot of work and the kicker is that when the finishing guys showed up this morning to drop off some equipment they said we had to set them deeper then I thought we would, so we had to go back over it all this afternoon. Luckily for me Randy showed up to help out and made a long hard job manageable.

Otherwise, we are ready. I'll be back to working on the kitchen cabinets this week as access through the house will be pretty limited until the floors are done, which should be Thursday sometime. This means Nancy and I'll be living in the yurt again for the week.

Some Old Snapshots

I found an old box of photos that miraculously seem to show the day's events... a planning meeting with Nancy; a visit from Randy and Solveig, and the light coming in on the new floor.