Island Shopping

Bonjour from Campagne Maison

Island Shopping

In order to establish an open floor plan between the kitchen and dining room, I dismantled the L-shape bar area of the kitchen cabinets and repurposed the base of that section to make a center work island. Believe it or not, deciding on the paint finish was the most difficult decision of that whole process. Every color that I thought would work--you know those vivid sun drenched colors of the South of France—just did not! After about a month of trial and error, the thought occurred to me that I should just paint the finish in brown wood tones. Would somebody just slap me? Sometimes I give way too much thought about things. It must be the sign I was born under—you know, the one that says G-E-N-I-O-U-S…..kidding only!!

I found the grape motif brackets on clearance at Lowe’s for 42 cents each (yeah, I bought the whole box; it was the thrill of the find). The fleur-de-lis was purchased at Hobby Lobby while I was still living in AR. I have forgotten the price of it but I am sure, being the frugal shopper that I am, it was less than $ 10.00. Both the brackets and the fleur-de-lis were sprayed with a nickel finish to match the cabinet hardware. The black tiles that were used on the island top were also close-out finds. I got an entire box of those for $ 8.00. I had to purchase the black grout and the concrete backer board but the trim moldings were leftovers from other projects. If my calculations are correct, the total cost of this project ended up somewhere around $ 40.00.

In addition to being a functional piece for the kitchen, it fits in perfect with my French Country farmhouse décor. Some savvy shopping skills added to some lucky clearance finds, mixed with a plan and a little elbow grease equals a whole lot of “Island” pleasure. And, that is worth staying at home for…..

Au revoir,