adourn: kitchen island

i can't BELIEVE its almost been a month since i've done a post!!! i've had alot of people ask why i haven't done any lately....well...we've been pretty busy trying to get things done at the house. most of the trim is now put back on upstairs and i finally (after a long break) started caulking and priming it again this week. i've also been putting swatches on the exterior to find the color for the main part of the house... and just doing some final detail work in the house.

our duct work isn't completely in yet...so the last few days have been SO awful at home. i'm really hoping we can get it all installed by this wknd, so we can get some air conditioning in there!! although, with all of the broken windows, and missing windows with poly or plywood over them...we'll lose more than we put out. but it'll feel at least bearable!

anyways...on to what i intended the post to be about... the kitchen island! i knew i wanted an old piece of furniture for the island. we brought one home, it was in amazing shape..had beautiful legs and lines to it and LOTS of storage...but it was too big. i really wanted it to work! but when i decided to rearrange the shop and completely re-do the check out area...i decided to use it as my desk/check-out! painted it my favorite color and i love it!

so i went down to the basement at the shop to go 'shopping' and decided on a smaller buffet that a sweet older gentleman had given me...it was nearly falling apart and had to be rebuilt, but it had such pretty curved feet and it was the right size!

husband rebuilt it and we decided to use more of the ship lath boards we found on the exterior walls to make a reclaimed wooden top for it. i wanted a bit of an overhang so we could pull stools up to it. i painted the buffet with milk paint, because i wanted that chippy, old finish to it! i custom mixed a few colors and it came out to be shades of greys, beige and chalky white. i love it! once we got the top on, the wood was too light with the paint color...not enough contrast, so i stained it a deeper, richer nutmeg color. and that will blend so nicely with our wood floors in the dining room (once they're done!!). i wanted to add a touch of color, so i found some dark coral colored knobs, which is one of the accent colors in the kitchen and they look really pretty on there!

i've been trying to find a place for a kitchen towel...i've been hanging it over the kitchen sink, but wanted to actually hang one somewhere....so i found an old rolling pin and decided to mount it on the side of the island as my 'towel rack'. we went to menards the other day, so i started scouring the plumbing section and hardware section to find something that would work to hold it in place, keep it pushed out about an inch and looked somewhat decent....i found these metal bracket things...have no idea what they're actually for, but they work great!

the stools that i have for the island don't have foot rests on them...and once we used them at the island, we realized it wasn't very comfortable to keep trying to find a place for your feet. so we decided to build a foot rest on the island. i thought something sort of industrial looking and very simple would look good...so husband came up with the pipe idea. we found all the pieces we needed, put it together and attached it....its perfect now! i LOVE the look of the antique buffet with the reclaimed wood top, with the contrast of the new more modern cabinets, and stainless steel in the kitchen.

and it still had an old tag attached to the back of it...and i've had other pieces with the same name on it...R.L. tollefson. from what i've found from researching, he/it was a furniture manufacturer in rochester mn around the early 1900's.