New Furniture

I'll admit, this one is not my handy work- but it is my design. Last year I saw an idea in Better Homes and Gardens for, what I called, a free floating kitchen island. It was two sided (meaning cabinets on both sides) and was on wheels to be pushed around when needed. So I talked to my daddy, who recently retired and I didn't want him to be bored (yeah, that's it), and he told me to draw up some plans and he'll see what he can do. This weekend he delivered it. I'm so excited!! I love it!

Here is what it looks like in my kitchen right now.

Before we get into too much detail, here's what you need to know.
I LOVE being in the kitchen, well usually. I enjoy taking my break from the children to bake or cook or jut have fun in the kitchen. When we went looking to buy a house a few year back, the one we loved (and eventually bought) had a very small kitchen :( It was the only down side we could find though. Everything else we liked. So we've created a few storage solutions to help. First we changed the coat closet that was next to the kitchen into a pantry so my overabundance of cooking supplies all had room to stay and we had room to store food- because without one there is no use for the other, right? We also had a set of black metal storage shelves (that were never intended to stay) that collected all the things that we didn't have counter space for (I disassembled them once they were empty before they had the chance to collect anything else, you can see the pieces by the garbage can on the right side of the above picture).

Now for my custom island!!
The easiest place for me to sew is in the kitchen. Hopefully, one day, I can have a craft room and I'll have my own space, but for now that's just a fantasy. So the kitchen is the place that we can easily keep the little ones out of, and therefore is best to keep the sharp scissors and needles when in use.
So I planned on one side holding me sewing materials and the other to replace the black metal shelves. And since we were at it, having extra room to allow a desk space for the kids, or a snack table, or etc. seemed like a great idea. (I have purchased, but not yet received bar stools that will sit in the middle section).

Here's a few more pictures:

This is the sewing side, notice the long shelf on top to hold the ironing board, and I threw the 4 ft straight edge and longer cutting mat up there too because they're too long for the cabinets.

This is just a close up of the sewing side with cabinet open so you can see. I've got to make/buy some cute boxes to hold my fabric (right now, the cardboard box on the bottom shelf there is just my scraps and smaller cuts), my larger cuts aren't even in the cabinets because there are too many to fit. The top shelf has my patterns and the blue box there holds my needles, and feet, and pins, and chalk pencils, and etc. etc. just a bunch of the small notions. The iron is next to the blue box, and behind it is a plastic container that hold all my bias tape and elastic, and a few other small accessories that I don't even know how to classify (most of which was handed down to me from my grandmother).
In the cabinet that is closed holds my unfinished projects on the top shelf and the bottom shelf holds my recycled fabrics (old shirts and sheets mostly that haven't been cut up enough to get moved to the scrap box yet.

Here's an open cabinet shot of the "front" of the island. This side is mostly craft supplies (the top and bottom shelves) and the middle is the collection of tools that seem to be kept handy for when needed.
The other side is mostly empty. It's got my husband's lunchbox, but that will probably end up staying on top, as well as a few small boxes I like to keep in case I need to send a box somewhere (like out of state birthday or Christmas gifts), and a few recycled plastic containers that are waiting for a use. As well as the liquid starch that I forgot to put in the sewing side, so it'll be moved next time I pull the island out (if I remember).

That's all for now,
Jo!