Our kitchen island is the hub of our house. It’s where everyone gathers to chat about their day or have a cup of coffee. It’s also where my family gathers with friends to play games every week. Meals are prepared there, served there and sometimes eaten there.
If you saw my Kitchen Reveal video, then you probably already know what the island turned out like but I thought I’d take you for a trip down memory lane to see what the island (or wall) looked like before, during and after.
Do you remember this tiny, dark kitchen? I do! It was hard to work in –we were cramped and the floors were like a rollercoaster.
The wall between the kitchen and lounge was made of tongue and groove paneling. It didn’t go all the way up to the ceiling and it had a weird door at the other end which served no purpose at all.
We thought long and hard about preserving this wall, but we decided that we should be able to enjoy the view while working in the kitchen. Also, we just really needed to expand the size.
So, the wall came down. You can see a video of us removing the cabinets here.
And so, our wonderful kitchen island was installed.
Note the floors. I’ll write in more detail about replacing the floor in a later post.
What makes our island special is the paneling around the base. We recycled the tongue and groove paneling from the wall we removed and reused it on the base of the island.
To create the tongue and groove paneling around the island, first we cut all th eboards to size. We measured carefully and measured again. We put them all inplace to ensure that they would fit.
You can see here what it looked like during the installation process. These boards aren’t nailed in, they are just sitting there waiting for their paint.
We numbered each board on the back, so we knew where they went once we removed them.
We got smart about this and decided to paint prior to installation. This makes it so much quicker to paint the boards and you get a much better finish.
Because some of the boards had never been painted, some were stained dark and some were painted white, we decided to prime them all with Dulux 1-Step Prep so that when the paint went on, we got a nice even finish.
As you can see, I used a mini roller to do this – one of my favourite tools when it comes to painting. I primed the front and sides of each board. This is what they looked like after priming. After priming them, I filled the holes and then sanded them lightly to remove any roughness from the filler and any bumps.
I got a production line going. I set up a table in my kitchen and covered it with a plastic cloth. I lined up the boards on the table – I could fit about 15 on the table at a time.
When I had finished each coat of paint, I would move them out onto the deck to dry while I painted the next batch. I was able to get them painted really quickly working in this manner.
When I finished the coat (for example all of the primer) I started again with the paint. We applied two top coats – we used Resene Meditation to paint the boards.
One of the best things we did was put an electrical socket on each end of our island. It’s an excellent place to plug in small appliances or charge your phone.
During the fitting process, while we were figuring out which board went where, we cut a hole in the board where the socket would go.
Once the boards were all painted, we fitted them back onto the island and nailed them in. I then went back and filled the holes and touched up the paint.
Finally, we installed baseboards and trim.
We chose a high baseboard to put around the bottom of the island. Even though the skirtings in our house are small and square, we felt it went with the tongue and groove, and also our coastal theme.
We pre-painted the baseboards as well. We mitered the corners and installed them. Then I filled all the nail holes and joins.
The last thing we did was install a piece of quarter round trim at the top between the base of the island and the countertop to give a more finished look.
We chose engineered Purestone for our island countertop in the colour Oriental Bay. It is 30mm thick and has a beveled edge. Unfortunately, the colour is no longer available, however, Lake Ferry and Somes Island are both quite similar. It is a fantastic product and we are incredibly happy with it.
Now, we have the most spectacular island.
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February 25, 2021
Hi, my name is Carol Karl. I live in little old New Zealand. My family and I strive to live the most ‘real’ life we can – by that I mean that we eat real food, we live real lives and just generally be our most authentic selves.
