After we got the dishwasher in, I remembered how much I hated the look of it. We've decided to hold off on getting a new stainless one, since it's not very visible and the one we have is working and free. But it's white and cheap looking.
(Oh yea, we also got the faucet installed. I've wanted a bridge style faucet, and I got a good deal on one on amazon.com.)
Building the surround required that we drill into our newly installed marble floor - but that went a lot easier than I had anticipated. And that damned ugly dishwasher -- I opened it up and saw that the front was attached by a few screws, so I took it off --
I was inspired by my daughter, who spray painted the doors on her washer and dryer -- so I used some silver hammerite finish spray on the panel, and used satin black on the plastic top part and kick plate. I used Rustoleum satin - it bonds to anything and the finish is great.
After putting it all back together, it isn't perfect (I had to leave the instruction part of the controls white, and I totally forgot to spray the latch, but after I put it back together, I realized it looks OK). Anyway, it'll do until we get our new one down the line. It sure beats the ugly white. Maybe I can figure out a way to spray the rest of it black and add some decals or something for the controls. That purple wall in the background is where our pantry cabinet will go in the near future --- 
sink inspected and approved by resident help
I've been working on getting the molding all cut to size, and stained and finished and ready to attach. This is a longer process - applying stain, using steel wool to smooth the finish, more layers of stain, then a coat of poly -- all with 5-6 hours of drying in between, but now it's ready to go --
So since then, we've been working on cutting the panels to fit the outside of all the boxes. This turned out to be a lot more complicated than I thought it would be. Some of the panels we had were 3/4" thick and some were 1/2" thick - and we had to piece them for the longer sides and the center of the seating area. It was a pain, but we like the way they came out:
The seams are not horribly noticeable -- I did have to mix a custom fill to match the finish, but it's nearly invisible --
We added an outlet to one side of the island for any appliances we might want to use (mixer or blender). You can see the faint seam here, before I've filled and cleaned it. It's pretty slight, and it nearly disappears when I get the filler in.
I'm looking forward to working on getting the molding around the base done - that will help enormously in tying the whole thing together. We've had all kinds of second thoughts about the layout of interior space in this island -- we ended up returning the shelves we had originally thought to put on the sink side, and instead went with three drawers. Right now everything is pretty full because we still have a major pantry cabinet to install, but since that takes some exterior work (we're bumping out one of the back walls to enclose the pantry cabinet), we're just using what we've got at hand. One of the things I really like about these IKEA cabinets is the versatility - if we decide to return to shelves and a door, it's just a matter of pulling out the drawers and putting in a new configuration. We've been taking off the doors when we go to add the side panels -- click click and the hinges click off. So easy!
Anyway -- it's getting closer to looking somewhat like a real kitchen. Not that we don't have a ton of work left, but at least it's functional now. I made actual dinner twice this week! Love having my sink back.
1 comment:
Love the dishwasher! Amazing what a little paint can do! Its all looking really good. Can't wait to see it all done!
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