1. We have decided that there is no point in painting our cabinets (they are honey oak) because the entire kitchen needs to be updated as the function is poor. and right now we don't have the money to remodel. Then I had an interesting idea. After reading yet another story about the great drawers ikea has, I thought perhaps we can just do a new island that has better storage configuration. We have a freestanding island that we tweeked a few years ago. So swapping that out should be easy. We could then paint the existing cabinets to match the island. So I would love to see your super amazing ikea island ideas.

The cabinet to the right is a add-in so we can store a bunch of stuff. The island seating is important because we don't have a dining room. We used to have a pullout in the island for recycling and garbage but no one really used it because you had to open the door and then pull it out We got rid of it and now just have a garbage can in the cabinet. Not the best use of space. And the recycling gets piled on the counter beside the toaster. On the other side of the island one side is the 2 door cabinet and the other side is drawers. The top drawer is a junk drawer extraordinaire. The second drawer is full of vitamins and other junk. The bottom drawer stores pans.