Goooood morning! I hope your weekend was great. Ours was really productive, which always feels good. Bret and my sister traversed the city for some Craigslist scores, including the handsome gent you see above, I organized FOUR separate closets from chaos to approaching functionality, and we managed to squeeze in several playground, farmers' market and food truck trips. Not too, shabby, eh?

But let's focus on the new kitchen island. I told you guys how we'd relocated my original dresser-into-island to the baby's room to become our changing station. In its place, we tried the thrifted dresser that had been holding our clothes (as dressers often do).

Failed dresser as kitchen storage attempt.

But it just didn't really work out for us. It offered significantly less storage than the first dresser, and it looked awkward in the space. So we decided to move it (hold on to the edge of your seat for its new location) and invest in more traditional kitchen island. I spent some time on the usual suspects - Overstock, Amazon, Ikea - and even looked at some pricier options like West Elm and Crate and Barrel. It became clear that anything worth getting, which would meet our needs storage-wise, would cost a pretty penny. So I went ahead and switched over to Craigslist, where I found this gem, discontinued from Ikea. It's not necessarily beautiful, but it is big! It's counter height, which is awesome, and it offers 12(!) drawers for storage.

Oh, and did I mention the butcher block top? It's not in perfect shape, and I'm looking into refinishing it, but it's nifty.

We just got the island last night, and I've been busily loading stuff into it, but there might be some more updates in its future: maybe lining those translucent windows with some pretty paper? Changing out the knobs? Nothing too dramatic, and it's certainly just fine for now. In the meantime, because it's so much deeper than the last two dressers we had in here, we are getting used to a narrower kitchen space. But so far, we're more than happy with the tradeoff for counter space and storage.

You can see that I also added the bar cart at the end here, where it fit perfectly. I'm adjusting to it, but I think will look nice and provide even more storage, either for bar cart-related goods or other gear. Overall, I think we made a really good call going with something that's meant for kitchen use - it's meeting our needs really well so far. I'll let you know as things progress! In the meantime, I might have some closet photos for y'all later - and definitely a nursery reveal. Thanks for reading and I'll see you Wednesday!