DIY Kitchen Island

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   Kitchen storage. Is there really ever enough? In my case the answer to that has always been NO! Enter the DIY kitchen island project that upcycled our old furniture into something crazy functional.

   We’ve lived in so many different spaces and even the ones with the biggest kitchens still lacked enough storage to house all my kitchen supplies. I realize I may have more than the average person (and even most foodies). But! Being a food photographer as my “day job” means my kitchen doubles as my office. All my tools, dishes, thingamabobs, etc double as my props. Do you see why a DIY kitchen island was the first project we tackled upon moving into the loft?! Right. 

The Pieces

 When we moved across the country we decided to use Upack to move the majority of our household goods. The company drops off a container, you fill it, they drive it across the county, and eventually drop it off at your new home. Simple and super budget friendly. Only hitch is you have to pack it all yourself. We’ve moved a lot in the last 10 years of making homes together. And yet we’ve never packed for this big of a move and never with this kind of container. We did our best and man did we pack a lot of junk items into that space… maybe a little too much. At least weight wise. And maybe a little too much on top of what used to be our dinning room table…

When we finally unpacked enough boxes to uncover the table we realized the wood completely split(insert super sad face). At first my mind started to wonder how we could repair it. How we could alter it. How we could start some new woodworking projects in the middle of our new place. Quickly I realized that was too crazy even for us! 

   So we pulled the legs off and figured the top itself could make a great desk top or even just another backdrop/surface for my shoots. We quickly changed that train of thought  too! Once we unpacked another stack of kitchen boxes we realized there was a serious needed more storage. Obviously  a DIY kitchen island would be perfect in the space. 

The Assembly

We already had a few old expedit bookcases and some metal legs from a previous configuration. (Obviously its been a while since Ikea stopped making these…serious bummer! Luckily you can still grab a copy cat version online!).

 To assemble the ‘island’ we just tipped the bookcases on their sides, arranged them back to back, attached legs to the bottom, and threw the old table top on! Yes, it was that simple.

The Accessories

   After a few more days of unpacking and I added the lid holder to the far side. We rarely walk around that way and its relatively hidden. A bit more unpacking and magazine holders were added to corral those annoying water bottles which are always too tall to fit in apartment kitchens.

   I also added some fabric storage bins to hide some of the less attractive items. As much as I love seeing pretty kitchens with open storage and all white plates and pottery… thats just not realistic for me. I have a variety of sizes, colors, and shapes and when you try to use open storage with multiple colors it just looks messy and visually cluttered. So fabric storage bins for the win!

 After a few days of using the island we added some rubber feet between the table top and the book cases to help with the small amount of shifting we had. We didn’t really want to attach the top with brackets or other hardware because it seemed like overkill and would look messy. So far there haven’t been ANY issues with shifting but I’ll come back with an update after it gets a little more use. 

Update: after nearly a year of use we never bothered to add additional hardware. The rubber feet were plenty to keep this table top in place!

   So DIY project #1 for this loft is officially complete! What DIYs do you have planned for the weekend? You know I’d love to hear all about it in the comments!