Kitchen Island

The kitchen island has become the natural centre of the kitchen if not the whole house. It's large enough for several people to hang out around while meals are being cooked, gives us lots of prep space and will actually seat four people comfortable once I find or build some stools. The top is about 3 feet by 4 feet 1-3/4 inch thick maple. It's pretty substantial. I knew I would flatten and do the initial preparation for finishing with handplanes but once I got into it I decided I'd finish the whole thing by hand. It was time consuming but very enjoyable. The results are not perfect. The surface has gentle undulations that are quite nice and some tear-out in places too but I'm pretty happy with it.

Shavings after fore-planing:

The tools I used on this job:

My James Krenov smoother:


The finished top after the first coat of oil and wax:

We're in!

We managed to move in over the Christmas break. As a result I got what seemed like nothing done. Nevertheless we are all very happy to be here and the trim will slowly get done and the cabinets will someday be finished. Here are some random settling in shots.