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  • Hi, I’m Emily

    Emily Fazio

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Kitchen island revamp

November 16, 2010

The “kitchen island” that I found curbside lived in my house for about 15 months before I was in the right frame of mind to rehab it. I use the term “kitchen island” loosely because I’m fairly sure that the previous owners used this table as a planting surface or basement storage area. I lysol’ed the heck out of it and let it work for me as an extra surface in the kitchen, until just recently, when I decided it was time to do the envisioned fixes.

My kitchen island-to-be. Yeah, I did eat dinner on it the day I brought it home (after a good scrub).

The original table had some interesting elements that I liked – built-in shelves and dowel details on the sides, cute scalloped legs, and a generally nice frame. The height was an issue. I’m a tall 5’8″, so I couldn’t easily do much slicing and dicing on the low tabletop surface.  The vinyl tabletop was also an issue – old and eternally dirty, let alone the fact that it didn’t match anything I owned.

What’d I do? Tore off the top of the table and trashed it. I’m pretty sure I found mold in there too (insert completely horrified face). The remaining frame was carefully disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled in such a way to re-purpose the shelves on one side and dowels. New legs (1″x3″ and 1″x6″ boards) cost approx $15 from Home Depot (I even sprung for higher quality lumber) and the height of the new table matches the height of the countertop, so it’s perfectly comfortable to work at now.

Cautiously destructed the kitchen island.

 

Reassembled the island. New long legs make it counter-height.

Butcherblock would have been a PERFECT new top to this table, but I couldn’t afford a new piece, and decided that I wanted to paint the surface white eventually (there are too many types of wood in that kitchen already), so I headed to Home Depot to see if I could find any inspiration. I found some tongue-and-groove flooring in a clearance area that I decided to try – it seemed sturdy when I laid it together in the store, and I ended up only needing three-10′ boards ($9 total, since they were on sale). I thought some 1″x2″ boards might suffice as a trim/casing for the tabletop. We glued, and let that dry for a day, trimed the edges even, applied some underneath support (with Pete’s new nail gun!), and sanded, sanded, sanded.

Nail gun! Adding support to the underside of the tabletop.

 

He's a more patient power sander than me.

The final table will need to be painted (probably white) again, but I’m leaving as-is for now.

New kitchen island, assembled!

 

Close-up of the tabletop (made of tongue-and-groove floorboards and 1"x2" trim)

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DIY  / Kitchen

Emily
I'm a home improvement enthusiast, living a very merry DIY lifestyle. You can find me writing for HGTV and DIY Network, follow me on facebook and instagram, or drop me a note if you'd like. I love notes.

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  • HI, I’m Emily

    Emily Fazio

    I'm a home improvement enthusiast, living a very merry DIY lifestyle. Follow me on facebook and instagram, or drop me a note if you'd like. I love notes.

    Thanks for visiting!

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