Week 4 Update - $100 Room Challenge Kitchen Island Countertop
Ever have a big project, and leave the most daunting, most challenging part to the very last?
That's been me both times I've participated in the $100 Room Challenge (if you are just joining in, you can read all about the challenge here). Last time, when we were making over our entrance way, I left the bench until the very last week (you can see how that turned out here). This time around, I left the countertop, and the whole back of the island until the very end.
Before shot ...complete with air-drying dishes in background
I kind of have a good excuse this time around in that I really didn't know what I was going to do to improve this portion until a few days ago. I had had a few different ideas for the space, including just adding some edging, or painting it - all of which could have worked.
Instead of going with one of these perfectly adequate, if not exciting options, however, I decided to make my life (and that of my poor husband) much harder!
My dream for the island was to eventually get a beautiful butcher block counter, but knowing that wasn't going to happen on a $100 budget, we were trying to decide on a temporary solution when it dawned on me...we could MAKE one!!!
The previous owners had operated a sawmill on the property, so we have a few stray bits of lumber that was cut on our land lying around. In our basement, where they had had some electrical space heaters attached to the wall, there were four such 2x6'' boards that - I thought- would work great as a countertop. I also love the look of waterfall counters, so I thought we could do that with the lumber as well, just cutting it so it continued down one side.
The boards in their before location
And so we got to work. These boards aren't your typical, regulation size boards, and they were a little warped, so we started by running them through the planner quite a few times. And then, unfortunately, we broke our planner *insert dramatic music and all the sad faces here*
Without the planner, this job became much more daunting, and a lot harder to do the way we had planned. The boards were still a little bowed, and the couple boards we bought to supplement still needed to have their rounded edges planned down. With less than a week until the reveal, however, we really had no option but to plow ahead as best we could.
Included in this picture is our GIANT bag of oats...yes, we eat a lot of oatmeal.
So here's where we stand so far, the 45 degree cuts were made for the waterfall effect, and we've glued and clamped the boards.
There's still quite a bit of work to be done before the big reveal, and I hope we can get it all done, but I'm already loving our updated space. The fact that we were able to use wood that came from our property to use on the island is so special, and worth all that extra effort.
Here's how everyone else is fairing in this last week of progress reports.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have some frantic diy-ing to do before the end of the month!
Until next time,
God bless
~Cheryl~
