My Dream Kitchen Part 1: Painting our Island

When we were going through the process of looking to buy a house, then deciding to build, I was so excited to get the kitchen of my dreams. At night I would literally dream about it…white cabinets, beautiful new counter tops, an island to sit cute little kids at…it was all planned perfectly in my mind J

Then we went to the Design Center for our builder and reality hit. Wait…you want how much for white cabinets?!?  I was so frustrated that my simple little dream wasn't actually simple, and the DIYer in me and my husband refused to pay so much for something we knew we could do for so cheap (plus I was just really mad at the moment and felt like I couldn't give them the satisfaction of giving in..haha!). We ended up going with the Base Level (free) cabinets with the intention of painting them white ourselves.

Alright, that was a long introduction to today’s topic, my kitchen Island Re-do, but I seem to be flabbergasting everyone when I tell them I’m paint my brand-new cabinets. It was my intentions to do so before we even moved in J.  I did decided to play it safe and do the island first, and it might be just enough white to hold me over…for now ;)

Here are the before pictures of our island and kitchen:

 

I hated how it felt so dark and couldn’t wait to get started! After sanding down the island we tarped off the rest of the kitchen to keep everything safe from overspray.  

We took all the cupboard doors and drawers off and painted them out in the garage. We taped off the inside of the cabinets to protect them from overspray as well.

After everything was safe we went to town spraying the island white! J Here is a quick summary of the steps we take when painting:

1.        Sand with electric hand sander
2.        Prime
3.        Sand; from here on out whenever we sand we use a fine grit foam pad sander. Doing this will ensure that your finished product is a lot smoother and glossier to the touch!
4.        Paint color—in this case white
5.        Sand
6.        Paint
7.        Sand
8.        Clear protective coat, we use polyurethane.
9.        Sand
10. .    Clear coat.

I know it seems like a lot of steps and a lot of sanding, but it actually goes really fast. And when doing the sanding step in between coats of paint(after the paint has dried), you just go over it really fast and lightly, it only takes a minute!

We also decided to add legs where the countertop hangs over a bit. We used railing (staircase) spindles. For some more detail we added base trim around the bottom of the island and the final touch was adding some wainscoting all around for some fun detail…and I may have a slight obsession with wainscotingJ.

I absolutely LOVE how it turned out! I couldn't be happier.  And I feel as if it added enough white and “ME” to our kitchen that for now I am fine leaving the rest of the cupboards as they are!