Kitchen Island

My idea was to create an original kitchen island at a reasonable cost ... I did not necessarily want to make all the cabinet doors, so I came with this project.

I thought to myself, why not buy a cheap pre-made kitchen cabinet and build up my projet around !!

The idea or design in my head consisted of a cabinet, with 3 shelves on the side.

I started by building the shelf frame. It was usefull to have the cabinet allready assemble to defined the width and the height for my shelf frame ...

Wood needed :

(2x) 2 3/4'' x 2 3/4'' x 30 1/4'' lg. for both corner. (Maple)

(3x) 1'' x 4'' x 24 1/2'' lg. (Pine)

I used a biscuit joiner and glued everything together in clamp.

Seeing that the cabinet had only a cardboard sheet behind and it would appear as a central kitchen island, I had to cap it with something stronger. To have a clean surface finish that look as the other parts of the cabinet wall, I used a laminated pine board. After the work was done, I could use MDF instead since it was planned to paint it ... it could have been even cheaper. Always room for improvement :-)

Again, I used the biscuit joiner and glue to fix the back board ...

Material needed :

Laminated pine board 3/4'' x 30 x 28.5

It was time to join everything together. Again, the biscuit joiner was helpfull ... I wasn't sure if the biscuit would work good on melamine board but finally, the joining went good !

Material needed :

-Cabinet

-Shelf frame

- (6x) 1'' x 4'' x 10'' lg (acting as cross bar and shelf support)

After the assembly was done, I noticed that there was not enough room to handle the stuff on the shelves properly. I had to thin the top support to give more space. I made this operation using the jigsaw ... it would have been much better to do this operation before installation.

I painted all the wood white to match the cabinet.

I used pearl finish to make the cleaning easier since it will be a furniture in the kitchen

It's easy to find bamboo board at cheap price today ... I found one perfect size for my situation ... 25'' x 72'' lg.

I needed a piece 48'' long for the counter top, and 2x 12'' long for the shelfs. MAGIC ! :-D

The shelfs needed to have a little cut-out at each corner to be able to insert them in place.

I used my circular saw to cut the bamboo ... it worked great.

and glue + clamping to fix each board

I used a special oil to treat the bamboo board ... reassemble the cabinet door et VOILÀ !

A nice kitchen island for about 350$/can buck ...