19 Amazing Homemade Kitchen Islands

Hi All  - I was asked again by Hometalk.com to curate a board. This time it was to feature DIY kitchen islands, including my own. Here is what I cam up with...

Click on the image to explore all these amazing kitchen islands. And if you have not yet seen my creation here is a link.

Dresser into Kitchen Island

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Dresser into Kitchen Island: Part 2

Hi all. Myself and my father have finally finished the kitchen island. I think it turned out pretty great. I use it everyday and am currently writing this post at it right now. I am going to pick up where I left off at the end of Dresser into Kitchen Island: Part 1 and show you how we finished up this fun and sometimes frustrating project.

When I left you we had finished building the inside, installing the mdf backing and painted the whole piece. Then there was a hiatus, because we had to order the laminate for the top from Home Depot and my brother came to visit from Chicago.

Once we had the laminate for the top, my Dad took it to his house and cut the laminate, glued it to plywood and added the trim to the top. To adhere the laminate to the plywood he used contact cement. He said this was a two person job because once you set it down there is no picking it back up to make adjustments. He had my Mom help him with this.

We had to raise the dresser so that it would meet the height of the existing countertop. To do this we attached 2 x 4s to the inside of the legs of the dresser with screws and then attached them together with boards to give it even more support. We needed all the support we could get because the top is quite heavy.

After that my Dad attached finish pine board to the base to hide the 2x4s. Then it was time to attach the top. We drilled 9 pilot holes through the top of the dresser. Then because the drill would not fit, my Dad screwed the top on with a screwdriver. After all 9 screws were in we could tell that the top was going no where.

My Dad then created two doors using hardwood plywood and molding. My husband attached the doors and handles and I finished it off by adding fun contact paper to the shelves and drawer. I also added some inexpensive storage options from the Container Store in the drawer.

This was not my most inexpensive project, coming in just under $500 (that is including the 2 counter height chairs that I got from Target for $138). But, it is really nice to have a custom kitchen island that I use every single day. Plus now when I cook I can face my kids in the living room and see what they are doing.

I look forward to many years of memories at this island.

Dresser into Kitchen Island: Part 1

Ever since we planned to take the wall down between our kitchen and our living room, I knew that I wanted an island in the kitchen. Check out my taking down the wall post for more on that project. At first I thought that I would just extend our existing counter top to create the island. But, I quickly realized that this would be a costly and time consuming. So, on to plan b, create an island from an old dresser.

I decided to use an old dresser that we originally got from my husbands parents back when we moved into our first apartment. This is a child's dresser, our kitchen is not so big so it works well in our space.

I always forget to take pictures at the very beginning of my projects. So, if you can imagine this dresser originally had 4 drawers. We left the top one in, took the bottom three out and created two shelves. The shelves will ultimately be covered with doors that my Dad is making for me.

 The next step was to sand the piece to get it ready for painting.

 We also drilled the second holes for the handles on the top drawer.

We added a sanded plywood backing to the back for the dresser to give it more durability. After I painted it, the plywood did not look that great. We decided to take off the plywood and replace it with 1/2" MDF from Home Depot to get a really smooth surface that would more closely match the dressers wood.

I finished painting the base of the dresser, this took about 2 coats of semi-gloss paint. 

I hope to have the rest of the transformation and the finished project ready to post in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned...