Kitchen Island Redo

This weekend I drove up to Kaufman to see my girlfriends and to help my friend Crystal out with a project.  Crystal is one of my dearest friends and a very talented artist.  She is an inspiration to me and a constant resource of knowledge!  Now, a few years ago, without going into detail, she and her husband, Ben, were going through a crazy rough time in their marriage.  She had every right to walk away, to call it quits, but she felt the Holy Spirit was telling her to stay.  So, even though she was devastated, she stayed.  She allowed God to redeem their marriage and He has, in a wonderful, unbelievable way.  They are happy and healthy and very much in love.  But it has been hard work.  Why am I telling you this, anyway?  I know we are storing up treasures in heaven, but I think every once in a while, God says, "Thank you for trusting me.  Thank you for obeying.  Here's an earthly blessing."  Well, this time God was just showing off.  Look at their new home:  they got an AMAZING deal on it and she has always, always wanted an older home.  This one was built in 1887 and is on 16 acres.  This place was so stinkin' awesome, I just can't explain it.  I needed a hoop skirt.  If you'd like to gawk at more pics of their place, click here.

This is their kitchen.  Just so you can be more jealous, know that the entire left wall is also windows looking out over a beautiful backyard.  This is the old furniture, not theirs.  Crystal wanted to distress the island and change the tone of it. It was positively mint.  Not a blue green mint, just light green mint.  Pristine finish so you would notice every speck of dirt or scratch the kids added to it.  She wanted to rough it up.

So we did.  We distressed and then mixed Annie Sloan's Olive paint with AS clear wax and went over the whole thing.  Then we went back and added depth with AS dark wax.  If you don't like the distressed look, I'm sure your'e wondering why we would mess up a perfectly good paint job, but if you do like the distressed look, this turned out pretty cool.

Column before:

After:

 Cabinet before:

After:

Bar before:

After:

In addition to getting to visit some of my closest girl friends, I also brought a trailer up there and Crystal loaded me down with free antiques to refinish!  She gave me a 10 foot long church pew that I think I will keep for myself, but the rest I will refinish to sell.  Can't wait to work on them!