Alone with the Island

I have longed to buy a new kitchen island, but the smarter side of my brain convinced me to keep what we have and enhance it. When we bought our townhouse four years ago the kitchen came with a small butcher-block top, white rolling island that matched the basic cabinets and doors in the kitchen...

I have had this old cubby cabinet used for the kitchen towels that I purchased from Pier I Imports around thirteen years ago...

Two years ago, I painted and lightly distressed the towel cubby using Amy Howard One Step Paint in the color Linen. Last month we finally tiled our kitchen wall (long story to post later) and it has made me want to fine tune our kitchen, so I decided to paint both the island and cubby to match and tackled the project during the Hurricane Harvey weekend to keep me distracted from how horrible the storm was outside. In Austin we didn't receive much damage, but for two days the wind and rain was consistent, looking and sounding like thunderstorms I experienced during my childhood summers spent at my grandparents summer home in Port Bolivar. For this project I wanted a pale grey with a hint of a sagey-blue in it. I chose to have the Benjamin Moore color Silver Spring custom made into an Amy Howard One Step Paint at Austin's local Ace Hardware store...Breed and Company. It is a chalk based paint and I wanted the ease of adding texture and a faux finish to these two pieces with layering and dry brushing, plus mixing into the project three other AH colors...Luxe Grey, Bauhaus Buff, and Selznick Grey...

I have added these beautiful bronze Fleur de Lis drawer pull knobs from Rocky Mountain Hardware to all my kitchen cabinet doors and drawers...

Here is the side view...

Here they are on the island and a close up of the painted finish...

Here is the complete project before I distressed the stool...

Soon I will use the same technique in a lighter combination of greys on the remaining 15 kitchen cabinets and the pantry and set of laundry closet doors will get a makeover too. I hope we have seen the end of this hurricane season. I pray that all who have been affected by the hurricanes of 2017 will soon recover and find peace in a comfortable place to call home.