Idea: A kitchen island.

When K and I thumbed through the new Ikea kitchen catalog, we stopped on this page:

We loved that island. The cabinet fronts match the ones the previous owners installed, with the exception they're grey. 

That'll be a nice contrast, since those same previous owners didn't seem to appreciate the impact of contrast, what with all the white. Ikea cabinets come in two depths (24" and 15") and a bunch of different widths (12", 15", 18", 24", 30", and 36"). To get a feel of how big we wanted our island and of walking around it, K taped some dimensions on the floor while I grabbed some leftover cardboard and made a template.

We'll shamefully just copy this design. We like it that much. The waterfall countertop, open wood shelves, and yep, the matching-not-matching grey cabinet fronts. Well, we'll likely use a different countertop. That remains to be seen.

We're close to landing a size. Then we'll (sigh) have to make a trip across the mountains to pick up everything and get to work. Since it'll be free-standing, held in place by its own weight, we're going to forego the extra effort of pulling power to it. So this project should be pretty straightforward. We're excited to upgrade from our temporary island to something more substantial.