Me again. Flowerlady I looked so hard at your pictures. You have inspired me to marry two pieces I have making them one and taking up half the floor space. I have two cabinets. One old jelly cabinet or pie safe. Has screen door on front. Second cabinet has glass doors and I am pretty sure was the top cabinet removed from a kitchen. Looking at your tall cabinet with glass doors gave me the idea. I need to build out the jelly cabinet three inches on the sides. The other cabinet is three inches wider. Sigh.They are the same depth. I am going to cheat and just add trim boards top and bottom to jelly cabinet giving it a little wider stance and interest to the square box look. I will draw a soft curved design on the added wood. No worry about anything matching. Paint and glass and old china will cover all eventually. Heheheh I am already having visions for the design. This is going to be perfect. It will live in the guest room/sewing room den and hold all my collection of vintage sewing boxes and actually hold my bobbins and sewing stuff. I am so excited about this project!! And in case inquiring minds want to know. I want the glass door cabinet on top even though I need to add to the smaller cabinet to make it work. The other cabinet holds my craft books.I think it will be a good idea to attach the two pieces to each other. I have about 16+ things ahead of this project but I will pick up the wood tomorrow on my way home from work. This is going to be so fun. BIG space saver and exactly what I was looking for for this room. I just bought the glass door cabinet at yard sale a couple of weeks ago.$7.50 Chris

Hi all - Here is the finished island if anyone is interested in an update! Since December when I first posted, we've been busy with installing hvac, re-working (cleaning and greasing all the window cranks, replacing cracked windows & glazing, scraping, sanding, priming & painting) the millions of windows, rebuilding the retaining wall that holds the hill that we're built into up, etc. The most fun project - by far - was the island! We've been trying to really watch our money on every project & we really got lucky on all the components: Base cabinets we got NEW at Lowe's on a closeout sale. They were still marked kind of high - drawer unit was still $150 - but there were not enough to do a whole kitchen & were just taking up shelf space so I asked if they could do better. We got the units we needed for $30/per unit!! We had to sand off the finish, prime & paint - but we're used to that! DH built the surrounding cabinetry with 2 sheets of plywood & some trim scraps to jazz it up a bit. The island top is made from unused railroad car flooring scraps. It is 2 1/2" maple & looks like cutting board/butcher block. DH routered the edge then we stained it dark & put a satin finish on it. The pieces were $5 each & I think there are 8-10 pieces in the top. We traded some stained glass for the bar stools. Please ignore the red paper on the floor. We were still working on the windows when snapped these shots. Next up - exterior paint. I'll be checking in over at the home decorating forum for some input on that one! Thanks to everybody for the great ideas. We really appreciate it! Here is a link that might be useful: new island!

I agree that the half-bath makes a pinch-point in the foyer. Besides, every time you come down the stairs you are looking at a bathroom lol! Can you move it to the nook at the front of the house, between garage and foyer? Then the door to the garage can move a little further back, which is good. As it currently is, you enter the garage right into the side of a car. That's a traffic jam right there. Also, the kitchen-dining room view. If you are at the dining room table, especially at the front of the house, and look towards the hostess, you have a straight view of the range. I think that you a planning on a sideboard or something on the walk behind the stairs, but if you move the door over there, it's harder to see into the kitchen; what you do see is further away; and from more areas of the kitchen you will be able to see the dining room and out the gorgeous bay window. Kind of like this: oops, I notice that moving the powder room puts it in full view of the breakfast nook. So in the second picture I moved the door to the right, so at least it opens to the sink, not the commode. And, if you put the bench/drop zone across from the stairs, that will block the view, too.

Excellent work! I would like to do something similar for a house recently bought and have a question about dimensions and if I have clearance for a large island. You said your island is 4’x8’ and kitchen 12’x13’, how much space is left between countertops? 36”-40”? Thank you so much, the 4’ wide island is great.