We Built an Island

Ever since we moved into our house in May, I have wanted to add an island to our kitchen.  Our kitchen had a very open floorplan, and we wanted to add some cabinet/drawer space and some seating. So we built an island.

We started with some unfinished stock cabinets that we bought at Lowe's. One single cabinet and one double cabinet.

The sides of the cabinets were not finished - they were made of a cork-like material.  So we used beadboard paneling to finish off the sides.

We covered the three sides with the beadboard and caulked around the seams (more on caulking later).

We also decided that we wanted to add a bookshelf on the outside end to give the island some character and a customized look.  We actually had some 1x10s laying around the shed, so we constructed some shelves.  We placed a scrap piece of  2x4 vertically under the bottom shelf to keep it up off the floor.

Next, we placed baseboard moulding around the bottom of the three sides and corner moulding down the four corners.  We also added a piece of decorative moulding to cover the seam between the cabinet and the bookshelf boards. Then, we caulked everything - and I mean everything (make sure to use paintable caulk).  We caulked around all of the baseboard moulding, corner moulding pieces, and all of the bookshelf boards.

Then, it was time to prime and paint.  I used two coats of Kilz primer.  The beadboard was already primed, so I really just primed the front of the cabinets/drawers, the bookshelf, and the moulding.  I used two coats of Valspar paint, waiting the recommended amount of time between each coat.  The recommended full cure time was 7 days, so we waited 7 days before putting the doors and drawers back on.

close up of the different mouldings

decorative moulding between cabinet and shelves

For the countertop, we used a 3/4 inch thick piece of oak.  We measured it to hang over 1 inch on 3 of the sides and 12 inches overhang for the bar side.  We used a bowl to mark the curved corners of the top, and used a jigsaw to cut it.  I used two coats of stain and two coats of polyurethane.  The cabinets came with braces with screw holes to attach the countertop with.  We used wood screws to attach the top, making sure that the screws did not go all the way through.  

We also added some decorative support braces under the countertop.

Last, we added some door handles and drawer cup pulls, and finally we were finished!!

This was a very long project that we worked on for over a month.  There was an unfinished island with no countertop in the middle of our kitchen for a very long time.  But I am very happy with the result!