I didn’t care for how the peninsula closed off the kitchen from the dining room and made a narrow space to come into the kitchen.

We had Cooper remove the peninsula and decided to have an island instead. My dream for the island was to have it look like an old piece of furniture, not another kitchen cabinet.

I wanted it to have a slab countertop and be dark on the bottom light on top. The opposite of the rest of the kitchen.

While researching, I came across this photo on Pinterest.

The perfect design. It had the feel of an old piece of furniture but would be sturdy enough to support the weight of a slab top.

Now it was time to send the photo to my Dad and say, “hey can we make this?”. Crickets….well not really, but Dad was a bit concerned about how to translate the picture into furniture.

Not long after I sent him the photo, the following image came up on my Pinterest feed.

Nina Hendrick had designed an island just like I was wanting…AND…she made building plans available on her blog. Happy Dancing ensued. The best part, her inspiration for making this island was the same photo that I had originally seen on Pinterest (shown above). Yep, this was meant to be.

With a set of plans Dad was much more optimistic that we would be able to pull this island together.

I gathered the supplies and we met up at my Dad’s shop to begin the building. The first few steps of the process we worked on together, but the majority of the building and assembly my Dad did while I was busy with other house projects and moving. He rocks!!! One disclaimer on the building plans from Nina’s blog…we had trouble with the cut list for the cross beams for the top and bottom, they were listed too short. So if you plan to make this island, don’t just go with the cut list as is.

A few pictures of the building process…

All built and now comes my part of the process, the finishing. My Dad loves to build, but he is not a fan when it comes to finishing, so this was a solo project.

It took quite a bit of experimentation to get the color that I wanted, but the end result was worth every hour of wiping stain on and off.

The build is complete and now all we had to do was transfer it to the house, get it inside, and wait for the countertop people to put the slab on. Thankfully it fit in our car and while it is extremely heavy we were able to get it in the front door and into the cue for measurement.

The slab is on!! Oh my gosh it is so cool to see this project come to completion. It was months of research, building, and waiting to get it to this point.

One last step, get it into place in the kitchen. Oh the waiting is hard, but thankfully with the magic of technology (and waiting to post until it was really really complete) you get to see the island in place now…

I love it so much. It turned out exactly as I wanted and fits the space so well. I cleared it off for the photo, but typically it has all sorts of daily kitchen activity happening on top. A perfect addition to one of our favorite rooms in the house.

Here you can see how getting rid of the peninsula really opened up the space and allowed this island to have a home in our home. Happiness.

Thanks Dad for making this island possible. You are awesome!!!

Until then, here is a shot of Maisy from last week and our first snow storm.

When we bought the house it did not have a garage. It was actually one of our biggest concerns before we made an offer. Can we have one built? We are the kind of people that like to have our car in a garage and it really would be a deal breaker for us on a house.

The neighborhood has alleyways behind the houses so all of the car access to the house comes from there. The property had enough space for a garage, but would the city permit one to be built, that was the biggest question. We chatted with the city and our builder before we put in an offer and the consensus was that it was likely going to be no problem for the city to permit it. So we took a chance and made the offer.

Thankfully the prework and investigation proved to be true and the permitting went without trouble or delay.

The garage beginnings…

Here is how it looks today. We are just waiting on the electrician to finish the lights and the opener and we will be ready to go. Well, it still needs to be painted, but that is a story for next year when the whole house gets an outdoor makeover.

Life has been a roller coaster crazy ride for the past four months and I have not taken the time to keep up with posting out here.

The remodel is still moving forward. During the remodel our daughter graduated from high school and got started/settled into college life, we had to put our beloved dog down, I have done two art shows and am preparing for two more, we moved into a temporary living space with all of our possessions in storage, and we began our remodel projects to be completed before we call this house our home.

Posting became a very low priority. But now I would like to catch you up on the last few months.

My last post shared that demo had begun. If anyone has done a remodel then you will understand my next statement, the house only gets worse after demo. The construction dust, debris, and supplies multiply over night and before you know it the whole house is a train wreck. I just want to take a minute right here to say THANK YOU to my parents who have let us live in their home during this crazy time. I can not be thankful enough that we do NOT have to live at the house during this insanity.

Over the next week I will share photos of progress and some of the highs and lows of the process to date. Then we will get back to current time and what is happening right now at the house.

Stay tuned!

The day has come. The dumpster has been delivered. The permit has been issued. Our construction crew has begun demolition for the interior projects.

I am so excited that the bathroom has gone from this…

to this…

The 1980’s have taken their tile back and the bathroom is now clear to have tile and a tub that will work for a 1907 home. The pedestal sink will be coming back once the new tile is installed. (The built-ins that are visible in the before picture are still there and will not be removed, they just didn’t show up in the after photo.)

The peninsula in the kitchen has been removed along with the cork flooring that was damaged and pulling up from the subfloor. The kitchen is so much more open. There will be a few cosmetic updates to the kitchen (lighting, backsplash, flooring) but the layout will not be changing, except for a custom island. I will share more about the island in an upcoming post.

Downstairs in the semi unfinished side of the basement, work began to prep the space for new built-ins and plumbing pipe rework.

Up to this point all of our work with Cooper Design Builders has been on paper and a few house walk throughs. This week we got to see their work in action and I have to say that once again we are very happy to be working with a crew of people that know what they are doing, are easy to communicate with and are professional (and still fun) every step of the way. The next four months of construction will be stressful at times, but working with this crew will make the headaches much easier to work through.

I was a bit nervous to go to the house after demo had started. I thought it might be too much to see things in this “demo” state. The reality though, I love the house even more. All of the pieces that I didn’t care for have been removed and it leaves room for possibilities.