Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Stranded on an island

While I repeatedly dream of being stranded on an island - with a 4 star resort conveniently located there - and no children allowed - the truth is that this post is about my kitchen island.

Or "The Dump". Because no matter how hard I try - everything gets dumped there. Mail. School projects. Broken toy bits. Receipts. Shopping lists. Bread. Moldy bread. Pens. Crayons. Headbands. Purses. Water bottles. Bug spray. Plastic jewels and Stickers.

Are you with me?

So, by some miraculous twist of fate, I decided, I need a kitchen make over. Ok...I don't need it but man it would be so nice to have more cabinet and counter space.

I know...it will just spread the island castaways across other parts of the kitchen but perhaps it won't look so cluttered then?



(Like my attempt at a fake floral display in the center, as if that would mask the clutter? Ugh.)

The kitchen redo conversation started when I happened to look to the left of that island one day and realized I had two huge kitchen windows. 5 feet high by 6 feet long. The people who owned the house before us added a family room and redid a lot of the house and must have planned on putting in a drive thru because that's the only real reason I could imagine for having so much window in the kitchen, and so little wall.



What if the lovely - albeit HUGE - windows turned into one normal size kitchen window and we put walls back up? That could hold cabinets? Like a kitchen is supposed to do? Then we could do a lot of fun stuff like move all of this out of our garage and into the kitchen, to live where the other kitchen things live (without spiders and car exhaust fumes):






What if we moved the sink under the window, where a sink is supposed to be, and I could use the space where the old sink is to make a new "island" bar for stools thus more seating? Brilliant.

So I took a quick poll on Facebook - to keep or lose the island!

Women I haven't spoken to in 20 years responded with "Keep the island", "Long Live the island", and "You are never going to actually go through with it so leave the island alone!" I actually made that last one up, because when I started adding up what it costs to put up and replace cabinets, match or choose new granite and put in a new window...let's just say it's cheaper to get a cleaning person to organize my island clutter for the next 15 years than to get a new kitchen.

I guess I'm off to clean the island - again.

4 comments:

Fairly Odd Mother said...

Too funny b/c I am planning to redo my entire kitchen just so I can have an island! I would just love to have a work surface that is my height and not worry about bonking my head on a cabinet!

Julie said...

I love my island, and don't have a clue how I functioned with out one for the previous 20 years of my life... (I figure I started cooking around 13....)
Of course, the dumping ground for us is the counter over the dishwasher near the phone. Somehow it doesn't matter how many times I go through all that junk it just returns, and its summer, no school work!

Suburb Sierra said...

We got some preliminary estimates last night and my dream is quickly fading. If we didn't need any plumbing or electrical we'd be good :)

I don't have electricity at my island which stinks, and I have open space next to my sink w/out cabinets to bump into and I tend to use that a lot more in prepping, etc.

Aarrgh...decisions, decisions :)

Sarahviz said...

I long for an island...both kitchen and tropical...