Kitchen Reveal – The Peninsula

Hi everyone!  For the last couple of months, I’ve been showing you different features of our kitchen that we changed during our home renovation last year.  Today, we’re going to talk about the peninsula and what we did to upgrade it.

When we first started our renovation, I wasn’t going to change anything about the peninsula except to paint it white.  You know what happens when you renovate, right?  Nothing goes as planned!

Here’s what the peninsula looked like before the renovation.

There was something about the peninsula that had always bothered me ever since we had our has built 18 years ago.  Do you see the problem?

The peninsula was covered with a sheets of faux oak paneling type material.  The oak grain is running horizontal on the long side of the peninsula, but up and down or vertical on the end of the peninsula and on the oak cabinets.

To most of you that’s probably not a big deal, but it had always bothered me!   Silly, right?

Since I was going to paint all of the cabinets and the peninsula –  problem solved!

One of the first things our contractor did when our renovation started was to take out all of the flooring in our kitchen, living room, entry and hallway.  He wanted to do it while we were on vacation, which was better for him and us.

This is what we came home to.  A big mess.  The person who laid our blue and white vynal floor glued and stapled the flooring to the subfloor.  That flooring wasn’t going anywhere!

Because the subfooring was in such bad shape, we needed a whole new subfloor all through the house where the new wood floor would go.  Which meant that all of the cabinets in the kitchen would have to be pulled out until the new subfloor and wood floor were installed.  Yikes!

Here’s a picture that shows the old and new subflooring looking down the short hallway from the kitchen into the living room.

Here’s a picture of the peninsula taken out, and the new subflooring has just been put in under all of the cabinets.

Unfortunately, when the peninsula was taken out, it was slightly damaged.  Nothing major, but it got me thinking about ways that we could cover it.  I was also a little bit worried about trying to paint the laminate paneling that was covering the peninsula.  I hadn’t given painting laminate a try yet, but I had read horror stories about paint peeling off, etc.

So, we decided to cover the peninsula with V-board.  I was excited because I knew it would give the peninsula some interesting detail that it was sorely lacking before the renovation.

V-board is a little bit different then bead board.  It has a V groove every 4-5 inches, and I love that it is simple and not too fussy.

Here are two of the 3 sheets of V-board after they have been painted in our bedroom.  It was too cold to paint outside or in the garage, so we painted in two of the the bedrooms.  Notice the lovely decor.  Just keeping it real!  Looking back at the pictures of the renovation, I can’t believe we lived like this for months.

I painted the V-board with the same paint that I used for our kitchen cabinets.  Pittsburgh Paints Breakthrough paint, and the color is L4.  (It’s a match for Benjamin Moore’s color White).

We had plenty of V-board left over, so I also used it for the back of the inside of our upcycled TV cabinet.

I also used the V-board for the new inserts for our painted dresser.

Finally, after being painted and the peninsula reinstalled in the kitchen, the V-board was installed onto the peninsula!

Originally, quarter round trim was going to be added around the bottom of the peninsula and under the bottom cabinets, but we decided to continue the baseboard trim around the whole kitchen.  I love how it turned out!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this peak at our renovation saga, and how our updated peninsula came to be!

Here’s what we changed in the kitchen (and the posts with further details):

White Kitchen Reveal

Soffit
Painted Cabinets
Painted Cabinets Update
Cabinet Knobs
Pantry
Pantry Update
Microwave Cabinet
Countertops
Backsplash
Stools
Peninsula
Roman Shade Valance
Hardwood Floors
Painted Trim

I’m joining these parties!

Savvy Southern Style

Between Naps On The Porch