The exposed ends of the cabinets and of the island were always intended to be stone veneer. I’ve priced out the cost for the amount of stone I would need and it’s about $500.00. There always seems to be something better I can spend 500 bones on.
Last Fall, Dani’s employer decided that she no longer wanted a large display unit in the salon. She said if I would get it out of there, I could have it. The unit was made entirely of reclaimed barn wood, so I jumped at the chance to snag it. I disassembled it and brought it home, and stacked it under the car port to keep the weather off of it. I figured since it’s super-old barn wood, it would do just fine. That did not turn out to be the case. When I moved it earlier this month, this is what I found:
My awesome barn wood had been eaten. Pretty thoroughly. About 30% of the surface area of all the wood had been badly marred by some kind of beetle, I think. I found oblong-shaped empty eggs in these holes. I had intended to use this wood to make some really nice furniture for the living room, but that option was taken away. Dani had a bright, idea, though. Maybe this would work for the ends of the cabinets in the kitchen. So here is my usable barnwood.
Although I couldn’t find a single bug anywhere on or in the wood, I bug-bombed it anyway. Then I used my compressor to blow out any remnants of anything that might be in those holes.
After a quick photoshop to see how it would look in the kitchen, I decided to give it a go. I cut some pieces and dry-fit them, and I was liking it so far.
So I cut the rest of the pieces, spray a few coats of polyurethane over them, and used my nail gun to put them in. Here’s the results.
I can’t say that I’m head-over-heels in love with it, but I do really like it. It fits the rustic motif and, here’s the best part, it was free. It cost me zero dollars and about 3 hours time to cut, clear-coat, and install.
One more thing off the list for the not-yet-done-kitchen.
