before and after: kitchen island/hutch

I love, love, love a good before and after. I'm just warning you now, there may be a lot of these :)

Right before Andrew and I got married, we got a Target gift card at a shower and bought this:

Looking back, I wish I'd known the joy that comes from hunting for something like this at yard sales, but alas I did not. And it's served us well. As we've bounced around from small kitchen to small kitchen, it's held microwaves, cookbooks, linens and random pieces of kitchen necessities that didn't have a home.

When we moved into our current place (which we L-O-V-E) I had all of my cookbooks lined up on the counter in the corner. It was fun for a while, then it started to drive me nuts.

Clutter. Domino-effect. Clutter. Cooking grime on the spines. CLUTTER.

So I consulted my ever-faithful island and asked what it could for me this time. And this time, I saw it in a different light. What if it held the cookbooks on top, WITHOUT having to be precariously placed to keep from falling over? Oooooh, carpenter, where aaaare you? :)

Enter: The Boy. The greatest, cheapest carpenter and rigger-upper there ever was. We found some scrap wood at the Habitat Restore for about $1 (for realz) and he whipped up a shelf to sit on top. A few coats of white paint to make it look like one piece and I'm in love..

Oh brother, that plate on top isn't centered. But other than that, isn't it so great?? I haven't been able to stop saying, "I just love that!" since I got it set up. That's a fun feeling.

Much to my surprise, the original hardware looks great. I've had my eye on these beauties for a while, but at $18 each, I'm pretty sure they're not in the budget. Oh well, it's still dreamy :)