For the Love of Character: Kitchen Island Reveal!

I remember looking through our house during a showing and telling our realtor that this kitchen was screaming for a kitchen island. It is a large kitchen for our neighborhood - which was definitely a selling point - and there was a big open space in the middle. The way the cabinets lined the walls and doorway placements, it seemed awkward to have a kitchen table. Plus, storage and counter space were definitely still a need. For entertaining, we hated that our guests had no where to sit while we prepped food (or as my friends are probably thinking, Mary rarely cooks, she needs a place to sit while others make the food!). Here is a look of the before, right when we bought the house:

Definitely dark and needing some life. Our first makeover, seen here, focused on getting the cabinets and walls painted to lighten up the space. Then after a couple years of back and forth on how we wanted to do the island, we finally decided to tackle the project ourselves! We wanted it to be a permanent structure, not a cart, and for it to have a lot of storage. Budget was also important and why we decided to do most of it ourselves (with the help of Dustin's dad - the best!). Find the details of cabinet purchases and mounting here and here. Since we saved money going with unfinished cabinets, we were able to splurge on the Cambria Torquay Quartz countertop I'd been dreaming of. The countertop details can be found here. We wanted an island that looked finished, pretty and had the touch of character we love so much. To finish up the island after our last updates, Dustin and his dad added the corner pieces and put trims along the floor. We purchased them at hardware stores and had to make sure they were the correct size for our look. Definitely wasn't the easiest project we have done and it took some time, but in the end, we couldn't be happier with the results!

It completes our kitchen. I honestly can't remember what it was like not having the island in the middle of the room. The many months of having unfinished cabinets in our way, painting the cabinets, waiting on the countertop, etc. were totally worth it. We are in love and have enjoyed prepping meals with our new space and eating together in the kitchen. I am happy with the choices we made and how they mesh with the rest of the kitchen. One day down the road we will probably update the other countertops and add a back splash, but for now we are very content and happy with our space. Now we just need to have some people over, so we can entertain! Maybe I can convince one my friends to teach us how to cook something delicious or have my grandma teach my friends how to make pies! I feel a Love of Character workshop in the making...

Couple extras, I wanted to share what I like to use to quickly clean up our kitchen space. For the safety of your countertops, you want to find an all purpose cleaner that is safe for your specific material and that smells clean. Since our other countertops are granite, I use granite safe cleaners. The smell of the JR Watkins All Purpose Lemon Cleaner is perfect. Extra touch, light up a favorite candle. Mine currently for the kitchen is the Voluspa Prosecco Bellini candle - who doesn't love the smell of brunch bubbly? I also wanted to share that Teddy got a dish upgrade to go with our new kitchen space - didn't want him to feel left out.

Special shout out to Dustin and my father-in-law for all of their hard work on this project. They made it happen and did a beautiful job with the finishing touches. It looks like a custom island built perfectly to fit our kitchen - and fitting a kitchen with uneven floors is no easy task!

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