Kitchen Island Makeover

As mentioned in a previous post, my husband and I are working to get our home ready to sell at the beginning of the year. We live in a town home and it has been a great first home for us. But when I converted our one storage closet into a craft room, we officially reached capacity. Now we feel it is time to move on.

We have a list of projects to be completed and it is great that we're starting to check things off that list. The first big project was to makeover our kitchen island. Our kitchen does not get a lot of natural light as the only windows are the glass doors in the dining area, so we have been doing what we can to brighten the place up a bit. That was the original intention with this project.

Our cabinets were originally knotty alder and a few years ago, we upgraded our flooring from whitish linoleum to a cherry laminate. It was a major improvement, but left the kitchen feeling darker and like there was too much wood.

To transform the island from knotty alder to white, I decided to use beadboard wallpaper. This stuff is great! It is affordable and easy to use. The biggest issue we had with it is that it is not hard like normal beadboard, but has a foamy texture, which means it can be easily dented.

I have never wallpapered before, but it only took me approximately 45 minutes to apply all the wallpaper to the island. I papered both sides and the front (pictured), then papered the small area below the cabinets on the back side.

We prepped our cabinets and drawer fronts by filling the knots in the wood and thoroughly cleaning all the wood. Then, we painted them white. After three coats, they were covered and we added some poly-crylic over the top. This gave the cabinets a nice sheen while also protecting them from chipping. The last step was to add trim along the top and bottom edges, as well as the corners. Here is the result:

I absolutely love how it turned out! I still need to fill in the nail holes and do a final coat of paint on the trim, but that won't take long. This was an inexpensive and fairly easy makeover that makes a big difference on the overall feel of the kitchen. What do you think?

{Linked on Huckleberry Love, Carrie This Home, Sew Can Do, Uncommon Designs, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, All Things Fee, Serendipity and Spice, This Gal Cooks}