insert your own island pun...

... because I'm running out of them. I've done most of the crap I said I was gonna do in the last post. I ordered, received and installed the roof rack for the Pathfinder, thus allowing me to transport a sheet of 5/8" particleboard home, in turn allowing me to finish "sheathing" the island sides for extra strength. Taking my handyman's advice, I actually screwed a 2x4 across the top while I was doing it to pull the sides in a bit so it would end up straight. You can see the end result above, which amusingly looks more like one of those "Acme" crates you see in a Road Runner cartoon than a kitchen island.

I also purchased a sheet of 24 AWG stainless steel for the front face of the island locally from Curtis Steel (awesome 70s porn actor name). It was a little cheaper online, but the $300 shipping on a $120 piece of metal wasn't so good (once you get past certain dimensions, you can't USPS or UPS, etc). I was gonna do all kinds of extra wood and gluing trickery to mount it, but while researching online I found "J channel" stainless trim which is a simple edge trim that you nail or screw in, then the metal slides in (looks like THIS if you're really curious), so this will simplify mounting. The only goofy part was that the metal place didn't have it- I had to go to ANOTHER metal place in town for that, but lucky for me, it was about 1/2 mile away, and the guy there was nice enough to explain exactly how much it would affect the dimensions of the big piece that I'm having Curtis Steel cut. They tell me it'll be ready early next week.

Once that's installed, I'll start cutting up the mahogany trim pieces for the sides (and a couple wee ones for the front). I still have to deal with the bare wood edges, but I'm actually leaning toward real wood iron-on mahogany edge banding... seems to be the thing a lot of pros use, and the place that sells it is close to the metal places. Once all this crap is sorted, it's time to call the happy counter-top installin' folks at Lowe's.

P.S. Really enjoying my Kreg RipCut circular saw attachment thingee that lets you easily make wide, straight cuts. No, I'm not a paid endorser :P