Kitchen continues… African Mahogany



 Things are moving along, sometimes it feels like at a snails pace, and other times like the sped of light. The kitchen project is moving along, at a clip somewhere in between the description listed above.

We have the tile for the walls but not installed, we have decided on a sink and faucet but have not made the jump to purchase in case we see something in the interim that we like better. We have waffled on the perimeter counter top surfaces, and the color for some months because we can’t decide between light and dark.

The one thing we did not waiver on was the surface for the island. From day one my husband and I decided that we wanted to have a wood island custom made, from a wood that we picked out and in our own design.

After doing some research and a few meetings with ” the wood guy” as we called him, we made the decision to go with an African Mahogany and I have to tell you we could not be happier!

Here are a few photos of the counter in progress and then installed.

In Progress

First Look

Small Glitch

For those of you who are not familiar with this process, I will let you know that it is a little bit of a leap of faith. Once you decide that you want a wood counter, you visit the wood worker, and you pick your wood, your finish, which is either food grade, stained and food grade, or natural which is what we decided on.

At this point, your space is measured and then it is out of your hands. The wood in its natural state looks like plain old lumber from the lumber yard, and in some cases, old dirty wood. Even the wood worker does not know until the entire unit is assembled and then sanded what the piece will look like.

In our case you can see that there are variations in the color, some lighter than the other. We like this look, and it is what we wanted, that is why we opted out of having the piece stained to make it uniform. We wanted to be able to appreciate the natural wood and its variations of color. However, we did not want the triangle part to look like it was an after thought!

When we saw this I wave to tell you my heart sank a little bit, not because I did not think it could be fixed but because I wanted to have my island back! I was so tired of being without a space to work in the kitchen.

Judd, our “wood man” felt so bad when he called us to tell us about the counter and the little problem. But after a little discussion and Judd starting over on that half where the triangle is we ended up with a fabulous island!

Out with the old

Nice! This was left by the builders of the house 12 years ago!

Installation

Installation

The finished island

Shadow is from light above



Aerial view





Finished installation

 As you can see the island is installed and the cabinets are painted! Progress!

This island has now been installed for 6 months, and we have not had any problems with it. Although to be honest we do not cut directly on it. I know that  a lot of people have butcher block and use the surface as one big cutting board, we did not go that route. The only maintenance by the way is mineral oil rubbed on once a month. And the color does get darker with age.