Shortly after moving in to our house BGD and I took a trip to the Mill Store, my favorite unfinished furniture store to buy an island and 3 stools for the kitchen. It sat in the kitchen all summer, unfinished. Finally, week before we picked up Daisy, I tackled the finishing. I definitely work better with a deadline.
For the island, I stained the top and shelves cherry to match our cabinets. The body of the island I painted Benjamin Moore's Palace White, which matches all the trim in the house. Originally I wanted to paint all the kitchen cabinets Palace White. I really want a white kitchen. And one day I will have one. But I decided priming and painting all the kitchen cabinets was way too much work (they're in fine shape). So I changed out the hardware and called it a day. Now that the island is all gussied up, I'm really liking the contrast.
I also painted the stools. It took me a while to figure out which color blue I wanted. I think I drove the folks at the Lowe's paint department a bit nuts. I think we adjusted the color about 3 times. I had some sort of Peacock Blue in mind, sort of like this blue wicker stool from Pottery Barn. That's not exactly what it turned out to be, but I do like it (it's a bit darker than it appears in the pictures, but not much). I hand painted the No. 1-3 with a white paint pen. I really like how they turned out.
Of course the kids kept asking me why the stools say "No 1, No 2, and No 3". Then I explained that No. is an abbreviation for Number. They sort of understood. But not really.