Do-It-MYSELF Kitchen Island... part one!

While the hubby's away this girl will play... with power sanders, wood stain, and paint!

To distract myself from my boredom and the overwhelming anxiety about whether I got the job I interviewed for last week, I decided to reconfigure a few things in our home and make my idea of a kitchen island a reality.

Our house is small. When I say small, I mean it's at or below 1000 square feet. So obviously, we have a rather small kitchen with very little counter space.

Please ignore the clutter on the counters... I had dragged the piece of furniture I planned on using in there and immediately started styling it to get an idea of what it might look like. When I decided it would work, I couldn't wait to get started! 

The table I have in mind is a little on the big side for the space, but I think when I get it finished, I won't mind how big it is. I think the extra work space will be a huge plus, actually. And on top of that, I'm going to add stools for extra seating! I know you're probably thinking it seems pretty impossible with a space that small. Maybe it is... but maybe it isn't. 

So, here's the table I am using for the project. I had already started working on it when I thought to take pictures throughout the process but you can still see what it looked like originally. 

My parents gave it to us when we first moved here. For the first year or so, we used it as a dining table. However, this table is actually a desk and was always way too narrow for what we were using it for. So eventually, I found a dining set I loved for a great price and this desk got a new home in the garage as my laundry table. Then after a while, I decided to refinish my old desk, and the table came full circle and was used in our office as a desk for a couple months... until today. 

I had to rearrange some furniture, but I figured out a way to make it all work. I love the new set up of our office, now. I hate it before - it was WAY too cramped. I wish I had taken a picture of it with that table in it, all crammed in this tiny little room with next-to-no walking space. Well no more! I replaced the table with a much more narrow card table we got - nothing fancy. But it is serving the purpose really well and taking up so much less space... and of course I get to steal the table and make it into an awesome kitchen island. Win win! 

So I sanded away furiously for a while. By the way - you should wear a face mask and goggles or protective eye-ware of some variety while power sanding. I did not and I can feel all the tiny little dust particles in my lungs... plus I've been coughing it up for an hour. Stupid mistake but I was just way too excited to stop and think. 

When I finally got the top all sanded down, I was gunning to stain it right away. I have a lot of the stain I used from the dresser project and was eager to use it for this project. I love the deep, dark finish it gives. 

So gorgeous, right? 

I got a rag out and went to town, tickled pink with how quickly everything was coming together. 

When suddenly...

Noooo!!!!

Apparently, I didn't sand off all of the finish like I thought I had... so this was the result. A very patchy, not so gorgeous finish. 

There were a few really deep scratches that I tried to sand smooth that the stain made look even worse.

I denied it for at least 10 minutes. I kept staining and thinking, more stain, more stain, it will fix itself. Blend, blend, blend...

After about 20 minutes, I stepped back and realized I had pretty much failed. I refused to let this hiccup stop me, however. 

I knew the only way to get the result I wanted was to sand off the areas where the original finish was refusing to die Die DIE. 

So I allowed the Kona stain to sink in and dry and then readied myself to dive back in. This time, I wore a bandana to avoid another enjoyable hour of coughing up my lungs. 

After sanding it down some more, I set out to fix one of the wobbly legs... which is how I discovered how to use this thing: 

Annnd it got me pretty excited. Learning things and figuring out how something works, all on my own, is a liberating feeling. I would so much rather tinker until I figure it out myself than have someone tell me how it works. 

After I got the leg wobble fixed, I figured out how I wanted to go about the whole process. 

I did a little research and tried measuring... but it was a big fail. You can get the idea of what I was doing, though. I used chalk to mark out my lines.

I used an Exacto knife and sliced away until I had a quasi-chevron pattern. Not perfect, but it was as close as I was going to get.

And then I painted! I used Zinsser. It's really magic stuff. I didn't bother with a second coat since I painted it on pretty thick - I plan on doing a few coats of polyurethane since this will, after all, be a used work space in my kitchen. 

After the paint was somewhat (not really) dry, I peeled off the tape. I'm still looking at it and thinking... hmmmm. I plan on painting the legs the same color as my old desk, which is sort of a teal color. I think colorful legs will bring it all together but I'm not sure. I may even just leave it as is and throw on a few coats of polyurethane. We'll see... 

It's something different, and I love different. I also love a good chevron pattern.