Painting the Kitchen Island

My kitchen is so dark. Sure, the cabinetry is beautiful, but I've been wanting to paint the island foreverrrrr and now that I have all of this time in quarantine, what better time to do it than now! Let me take you on my journey!
Here is what the kitchen looked like to begin with.


After researching lots of different paint, I went with Fusion Mineral Paint. It's zero VOC so it is practically odorless, doesn't require a ton of sanding, and has a built in top coat. I watched a bunch of youtube videos from Fusion Mineral Paint's channel before I started. I used the color Little Whale for the island. I bought all of my paint from The Vintage Hive in St. Francisville. I did the entire island with just one pint of paint!
I started by cleaning the cabinets well and sanding them down a little with a medium grit sandpaper. After wiping all of that off and cleaning again, I started with a really really really thin coat of paint. It looks TERRIBLE after the first coat because it is completely uneven, but give it time. I let that dry for a good while and then did a second and a third coat. I sanded lightly with a fine grit sandpaper in between coats.
At the end, after the last coat of paint had dried for 24 hours, I used the fusion mineral tough coat so that the area would be well protected. I applied that with a large auto sponge. I did two separate applications of this about 24 hours apart. After that, I put the cabinets back on and all of the hardware and pulls, and then decorated the ends! Overall, I am SUPER happy with the way they turned out!
I am still trying to decide whether or not I want to paint the rest of the kitchen. At first, I was dead set on doing all of the cabinets, but now that I see what it looks like with the pop of color in the center of the room and how it contrasts with the darker cabinets, I LOVE it.

I personally LOVE the ending product! Let me know what you think!