I’m sure when it comes to the kitchen, I sometimes sound like that annoying kid in the backseat saying, “Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”. Luckily, things are starting to come together. Finally! Now that we’re at the “finishing touches” stage, I’m trying to focus on one area at a time. This past weekend, I made a few updates to the peninsula. Greg and I always call it the “island”, but technically I guess it’s a peninsula. Right?

First of all, here’s what this area of the kitchen looked like before…

It was in need of color, and with all of the slick surfaces, it could definitely handle some texture too.

First thing on the list was to put something inside the huge two-gallon jars sitting on the counter. For now, we’ve got one filled with flour and the other with apples. And yes, before you ask, they’re fake apples. Truth be told, I’m normally not a huge fan of fake fruit, but these guys look insanely real, and they add some needed color. I’m contemplating adding a third jar, but I’m not completely sure what I’d fill it with. I also added this cute set of salt and pepper shakers. I found these at Michaels for $1.50 a piece. I love how the simple white pottery look gives it a little bit of Jonathan Adler vibe.

Now to the island peninsula. It’s massive – so much more massive than it looked like in the drawing when we ordered the cabinets. But we’re definitely not complaining! It’s an awesome work surface to have; not only for cooking, but for house projects, too. On the other hand, when the countertop isn’t being used as a project surface, the wide open space is pretty empty looking. “…room to make her big mistakes”. Sorry. Old school Dixie Chicks moment. Anyway, I didn’t want to fill it  with a ton of clutter, so I was on the look-out for something simple, long, and at least slightly colorful. I also wanted something thin enough so someone could comfortably use either side of the counter without having to move it. Luckily, I found this guy at Home Goods…

It was long, had clean lines with a semi-rustic touch and, for $29.99, it fit the bill. Done!

Now it was time to address the book shelves on the end of the peninsula. Up until now, we hadn’t paid much attention to them, but every time I went to rearrange something, it would never look right. It drove me crazy! Then, it dawned on me… less is more!

There’s Rufus, Bentley’s BFF, trying to photobomb the picture. I took out a shelf (duh!) and, after a few minutes of stacking and rearranging, here’s what the bookshelves look like now:

I stocked the top shelf with cookbooks, a kitchen timer, and a small jar (that used to be on the counter with the two large ones) filled with cookie cutters. The bottom shelf could probably use a little more in the future, but for now we’ve got a silver ceramic pear (an oldie from ZGallerie) and more cookbooks held up by a wood recipe box.

Here’s a fun detail shot for kicks…

And yes, that is indeed a Star Wars cookbook. As for the glass cabinets…

I added a few little pops of color to the glass cabinets with a stack of small red baking dishes (from Home Goods), a butter dish (from Anthropologie), a set of vintage Pyrex bowls (from my mom) and a few ceramic farmer’s market baskets (also from Anthropologie).

Oh, and a few of you asked for a photo of the cabinet side of the peninsula, so we made sure to sneak one in…

Yet another step closer to being “done”. Someone get me a pen and paper, I need to make a list! Again… ; )

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Slowly but surely, we’ve been trying to add dark elements to the kitchen here and there to ground some of the “light and bright”-ness. We added artwork with dark frames to the wall of white subway tile, but the stove wall was looking kind of bare.

I’d had my eye on these zinc letters over at Anthropologie for a while. On the other hand, I’ve always been a fan of the colorful fabric “EAT” letters on in the kitchen on the set of Cougar Town. By the way, if you haven’t seen the show, it really has nothing to do with either kind of cougars. The only problem was that the zinc letters from Anthropologie were too light (we have enough light already!) and the fabric letters (also from Anthro) aren’t available anymore. Plus, I think the colors/patterns would be a little much with all of the subway tile. Not to mention, having fabric wall art over a stove seems like a bad idea. So I decided to combine the two concepts and get my DIY on! Here’s what I ended up with…

I picked up these paper mache letters from Hobby Lobby for $2.47 a piece and gathered some oil-rubbed bronze spray paint, acrylic craft paint (gold and black), a couple of brushes and some satin finish polyurethane – which I already had on hand.

I started out by spray painting the letters with Rust-Oleum Metallic Oil Rubbed Bronze Spray paint…

They actually looked really good after just this one step, but I wanted to distress them a bit to give them a weathered metal look. I added a few small dabs of black and gold paint here and there. I fully intended on using brushes, but for the most part, I just used my fingers. While the paint was still a bit tacky, I used some fine grit sandpaper to dull down the finish. By sanding the letters while they were still tacky, the finish ended up looking a lot less intentional.

You really can’t mess this up… just go with what you think looks good. If you mess up, just spray paint them again and start over. Come to think of it, giving them a light second coat of spray paint might make them look even more layered/weathered.

Since these were going in the kitchen right over the stove, I wanted to make sure they would be well-protected from possible food splatters. So I sprayed them with a light coat of Rust-Oleum satin polyurethane. This stuff dried super fast, and the letters were ready to hang within minutes…

We hung them on the wall using handy dandy 3M picture hanging strips (just like we hung the art on the other side of the kitchen).

You might not be able to tell in the photos, but the finish is really cool. It looks different at every angle (and in every photo) and you wouldn’t guess they were paper mache. Greg and I both really like the way they turned out! It adds some much needed darkness to the stove wall and keeps with the whole “clean lines with a few semi-rustic accents” thing we’ve got going on.

Speaking of the kitchen, we’ve got even more kitchen-related goodies coming your way tomorrow. We’re getting closer and closer to that big “Kitchen reveal” post. Ahhh, that will be a happy day for us!

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