My Adventures On Windy Hill: My new Kitchen Island,,and Cat Buffet...

This Blog, brought to you by: My nagging Daughter Duchess Zaney, who insisted on photos and the story...

They said it couldn't be done, they said it would take too long. They were right about the too long...but it WAS done.

My kitchen is notorious for not having cabinets, and the cabinets it does have are rickety and not so pretty. I seriously need some counter space and some storage space.

I wanted a nice kitchen island...I looked them up online...they are expensive. I don't want one that bad...but I dooo.

Sooo, cue the old bathroom vanity.

Two Bathroom Cabinets Nailed together

Side-view

We took two old bathroom vanity cabinets and nailed them together. Then Added a top (plywood)

Before the top

We had to ad some shelves to the vanity of course, because as you know bathroom vanities have no shelves. We also had to add a lot of inner wood to make that cheap whateveritisboard strong enough to be part of our kitchen. Next...paint.

Starting the painting process

Okay...the part that Duchess Zaney has been waiting for....are you ready Duchess?

The marbled top...

The Finished Product!!

The little piece on top of the island is a Marble cutting board. I know it still needs some handles, and I have to put the casters on the bottom. But I am very proud of this ~ it has really come a long way! Finally, I know the large door on the left needs to be hung the other way so it opens left. I will get to that as well.

close up of the top

Another close up of the top

Taaadaaa!
The Island was much more difficult to do than the Cat Buffet. Why do I call it a cat buffet you ask...or maybe you don't care and just want to see the photos. (Duchess) I call it a cat buffet because that is where I put the cat food so that the dogs can't reach it. The cat food was moved into the "no dogs allowed" living room briefly while these items were painted, dried, etc.

SO...now for the Cat Buffet

Cat Buffett before

Cat Buffett Before ~ close up.

Yes, I know ~ these are not great photos. Listen, I wasn't planning on posting to the blog (because I am lazy and don't have time for this happy /posty stuff. However, my loyal fans nagged ~ I mean begged, so I remembered half-way through the whole remodel to take the photos. However, if you look closely you can see what rough shape this thing was in. This was actually the top portion of some sort china cabinet that was left in the house when we moved in. I got rid of the falling apart bottom part, and let this part lay around in the kitchen to hold tools while we worked on the rest of the house. Then it sort of gained squatters rights in the kitchen, and the cats really liked it...so it has been here in the kitchen ever since. I promised myself that over the Christmas break from school I would get several things done around here...well getting rid of this eyesore was one of them.

testing the painting

This is the bottom of the cat buffet. We added 2x4's to the bottom to elevate it just a little bit, and while it was upside down, I tested some paint patterns on the 2x4 that wouldn't show.

Handles from the Cat Buffett

When we removed the hardware from the Cat Buffet, I noticed how very heavy the handles were. Hmm....they were completely black, totally....above you can see the back side of one of the handles they were all even darker than that! The one in the white dish is mid-soak in flour, vinegar and salt. The one that is face-up is wiped off and looking pretty coppery!

Putting on the doors

Sneak peak at the marbled top and the pretty cleaned up Brass Hardware ~ the doors were being put on...I was practically hopping up and down with excitement...much to the annoyance of my assistant who just wanted me to hand the screws to him on command!