If I had an island I would paint it black.

Oh wait. I do, and I did!

The cabinets in our kitchen are this awful walnut color and the stain is peeling in places. They look awful! While I have big plans to paint ALL the cabinets I thought I would start small with the kitchen island. I decided to paint the island black, add paintable bead board wall paper to the ends, and add ORB drawer and cabinet knobs.

Here is the island before. {And in true Ryan fashion I forgot to take a picture before I took the doors off. Whoops.}

I started by removing the doors and sanding everything down. I really didn’t want to sand the island with my electric sander because of all the dust it would create. I talked to the peeps at Lowe’s about using liquid sander instead. They assured me it would work. The island has been painted for a few months now and it appears to be holding up just fine. Score!

This is what I used. I poured some liquid sander on a clean cotton cloth, {recommended by the peeps}, and gave the island a good wipe down. Then used a tack cloth, {again the peeps suggestion}, to wipe off any dust left.

I purchased the paintable bead board wall paper from Lowe’s. {Home Depot doesn’t carry it}. I also purchased a foam smoothing roller to get all the air bubbles out from under the paper.

I just followed the instructions on the back of the paper and dove right in. I have never hung wallpaper before but I can assure you it was not hard all. I would definitely do it again. On one side of the island I had to cut a hole for an outlet. Again, not hard.

Since I wanted to paint the island black Griff had to change out the outlet to black so it would all be the same color. With Griff being an electrical engineer this was no sweat for him. But if you are not blessed with a Griff in your house then I suggest hiring an electrician to make this happen.

I bought the outlet from Home Depot. I also bought a black outlet cover to replace the white one.

Then I got to paintin’. I put 3 coats of black paint on everything. I had to wait 24 hours for the wallpaper to dry. I hate waiting. I also didn’t bother to take anything of the drawers before I started. Professional I am.

Once everything was painted black I drilled holes for the drawer pulls and cabinet pulls, which I bought at Home Depot. I LOVE the drawer pulls. Actually I just love having something to grab other than the drawer or door itself.

Then to finish everything off and where the paper met the edges we added some trim molding and painted it out. It looks fantastic!

And here is the finished project! I absolutely LOVE it. We plan to paint the kitchen cabinets a lighter color so this black island will really ground the space.

Before & After.