Harold's Renovation Blog: #102: Are Islands Ruining America’s Kitchens?

Islands are a staple of most modern kitchens, but this week we explore why not everyone is a fan (including what we realized is a negative about the island situation in our own kitchen). Plus, we’ve tiled our fair share of backsplashes, but our recent project at the beach house kitchen taught us an important lesson about preparation, patience, and imperfection. John’s also sharing a new technique for helping you pick the perfect paint color, Sherry finds a new favorite beach accessory, and, well… Chad!!!

You can download this episode from Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and Spotify – or listen to it below! Then use this page to check out any links, notes, or photos we referenced. Note: If you’re reading in a feed reader, you may have to click through to the post to see the player.

What’s New

Here’s are photos of our beach house kitchen backsplash, as they were when we recorded the episode. As you may have since seen on Instagram Stories, we finished grouting last week. Pictures of that to come!
We ended up using this 15 cent subway tile from Floor & Decor and this mastic to adhere it directly to the drywall (after roughing up with sandpaper). Such a cheap project! Including stuff like grout and a new trowel, the entire thing clocked in at around $200!

If you don’t have a Floor & Decor near you, they sell nearly identical (and identically priced) white subway at Home Depot, ours just didn’t have enough in stock, which is why we went through F&D.
You can check out this step-by-step backsplash installation guide to see the steps we followed for this project.
You can also see how we landed on this backsplash plan, thanks to tons of photoshop mock-ups that helped us decide (as seen in the GIF below).

Here’s the Wall Street Journal article about “Why Kitchen Island’s Are Ruining America’s Kitchens.”
Above you can see our kitchen island at the beach house (with the sink in it) and below is our island at home.

And what do you guys think?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

Chad Rohde (aka John’s Doppelganger)

That’s Chad and Travis above, of Rohde Construction in Dallas, Texas. You can also follow Chad on Instagram.
You can also read more about Travis and Chad’s work together in this D Magazine profile. Below is a sample of a project they worked on, just so you know they’re legit.

Like Sherry said in the episode, to truly understand how we came to have them on the podcast, you have to watch our “John/Chad” highlight on Instagram (the part where Chad trolls us and poses the same way in an extremely similar outfit had us both laughing out loud).
The most important part, besides all of the hilarious DMs we’ve gotten from everyone, are the side-by-sides that Sherry cobbled together using photos she could find of the two of us in similar poses. I call that top left split screen “Chihuahua Versus Pecs.”

We’re Digging

Above are the Spot On Removable Paint Decals we used to figure out the paint color for the duplex shutters. They look a little lumpy because it wasn’t a smooth surface that we put them on (and the shutters are louvered anyways) but on a regular wall we could’ve smoothed them more. You can also spot my little black initials in the top-left corner of each one to indicate the paint color.

Here are the SwimWays Spring Floats that we bought to bring to the beach, since it folds up to be such a compact size and doesn’t take much effort to inflate (only 10 blows according to Sherry). I feel like the graphic from their website below does a much better job of illustrating how it collapses.
Oh, and here’s the baby version we used to have for our kids.

And lastly, a big thank you to Room & Board for sponsoring this episode. You can check out all of their furniture and schedule a FREE design consultation at roomandboard.com/YHL. You can also sign up for their free catalog at the bottom of the page for zero-dollar inspo that comes right to your mailbox.