Repurposed Kitchen Island

Seven years ago, I had just moved into a house with a fairly large and open kitchen. There was a lot of open floor space and not a ton of counter space, so I decided I needed an island. I wanted one with enclosed storage; I had nothing to display but plenty of stuff to hide.

I found the one below. White beadboard with butcher block type top. It was about 4 feet wide, had two shelves inside, and two doors on each side for easy access. It also had a bit of an overhang, so I got barstools and the kids sat there for many a meal and play session.


Here it is in a much smaller kitchen. The boys are getting ready to erupt a volcano.


Fast forward to the current house. A lovely kitchen, but it is several steps from the refrigerator side to the side that houses the dishes. It would be nice to have a landing pad in the middle. We started out with the island, but it just took up too much space.


So I set Handsome to work. He started the project back in the fall and took oodles of photos of the process in case I wanted to blog about it. Now that I want to blog about it, the photos are nowhere to be found. Grr.

Anyway, my design, which Handsome carried out, was to cut the island in half, just wide enough for one door on each side.

On one side, I had him install a cabinet handle from IKEA as a towel bar. They were on sale or something when I got them, because I got a pack of two for $6.99. If you've looked at cabinet hardware of this kind, you know that that's a great deal.

I also wanted wheels on it, so he cut the legs down enough to keep it the original height once the wheels were applied. He just got to the wheels and towel bar in the past week, and that's why I'm just now blogging about it. There are a couple of leetle things left to do, like replace the wooden pegs in the screw holes, and get new knobs for the doors.


Awesome! It doesn't take up too much room anymore, and it turns out it's very handy to be able to roll it around. The kids want me to put the food on it and wheel it up to the table and and say "Dinnah is served" like the butler. Fat chance!

Making what I've got work for me Works for Me! Check out Rocks in My Dryer for more!