Monday, January 18, 2010

Our Apartment Therapy kitchen island

Woot! I'm so excited about this post! Can you tell???

This is part two of the kitchen island post. Part one is Sneak Peek.

We got this dresser from Grand Repeats in Wausau. When I told Gloria, one of the owners, that I was planning to repurpose a dresser into a kitchen island, she got super excited and showed me a few pieces. This one was out in their garage, which means that they hadn't done any work to it, and sold it to us as is. They were great to work with!

Just as a reminder, here is the dresser after we took out the drawers and knocked off the top:


Since they sold it to us as is, Mr. Wonderful had to do a little work to the structure of the drawers to make them more sturdy. After that we did some light sanding, and I started priming. I also primed the towel bar and corbels that we bought:

After the priming, we did two coats of paint. We chose Behr "Happy Camper." Isn't that the best name for a paint color? I ended up attaching the towel bar before the second coat, because as you can tell from the picture above, it was kind of awkward to paint without smudging it.


After that, we attached the corbels to the back side of the dresser. The back isn't flat, but it still worked.


Meet my handsome handyman:


Handsome handyman did something with dowels in the corbels to attach the top. Boy I wish I had asked him more about this step right now. It involved wood glue, making a hole in the top of the corbel, and.....yeah:










The dresser already had casters, but we replaced them with these antique-y beauties from Home Depot. They are much smoother than the old ones. We decided on casters because you are technically supposed to have 36 inches on each side of a kitchen island and we don't (small house love!). So if we need to shove it over to get around it, it's no problem!





For the top, we found a piece of edge-glued board from Home Depot that looked like butcher block, stained and shellac-ed it, and pieced it together for the top. The thing that made butcher block sooooo expensive for this project was the custom size. Most countertop material comes in a standard width, but since we wanted a breakfast bar, cost was prohibitive. So, Mr. Wonderful used the corbels and some "T" brackets underneath to put the edges together:




Here is a shot showing off the adorable drawer liners I found at the Dollar Store. I love the vintage-y print:




And here is the final product! We looooove the extra counter space and look of our kitchen island. All together, the island cost about $200 and the chairs were another $100. I saw something sort of similar today for $550 WITHOUT the stools or the breakfast bar extension.














Thanks for reading!!!
















31 comments:

  1. Oh Ally, I love what you have done with both the kitchen island and now the crocheted rug. You are so clever! Your daughter Ava is adorable and you look very happy. I hope you still have time now and then to play your cello. Best wishes, Joan Hager

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  2. I love it! You did a great job. I found this through DIY Day, and oddly enough we just did a dresser as an island too!

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  3. Fabulous work. Did you hang any utensils off the side? I've got the AT cart in my inspiration file too!

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  4. FAB-U-LOUS!!!!! I absolutely love this makeover. Great job!

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  5. That is cool. Really cool. I love the green.

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  6. What a great redo! I love the curvy style of the dresser and the idea of using it for an island is awesome. Great repurpose and color!
    ~judi ;)

    the1829farmhouse.blogspot.com

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  7. Thanks everyone!

    Julia, I love the utensils too, but I didn't do it because our daughter will start crawling any day now and would get into them. But I'm thinking about adding a hinged countertop space there for extra seating. Or I also like the chalkboard idea on AT.

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  8. Hi Ally!

    I am not even sure how I found your blog - you know how you click link after link - but I'm so glad I did! We live in a small house also and love it! I am always excited to find new ideas to maximize space. Your island knocked my socks off. I am so inspired and was especially excited when I realized that I have a dresser that will work perfectly to make an island for my little cottage. I was at Lowe's and saw the glue edged boards. Did you use the 3/4" or 5/4" board? I'm torn between the two... Thanks and I look forward to reading more! xo-Mel

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  9. Hi Melissa,

    Thanks so much! That's awesome that you have a dresser that will work already. I love being able to use what I have! I just measured the top, and it looks like it is 1 1/8". So, I guess the 5/4" board? I like the thicker look, but I'm sure either would work. I hope that helps.

    Ally

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  10. Thanks Ally! I was leaning toward the 5/4" because it definitely looked more like butcher block. Thanks again for the inspiration! I am so excited about this project! xo-Mel

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  11. You are a girl after my own heart!! As a collector of dressers (yup - I collect dressers), I always have a softspot for pretty little things turned into BEAUTIFUL pieces. Check out my dresser re-do over at my SERIOUSLY long-past-due post blog. I LOVE IT!!!

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  12. I found it! silly me! When I followed you, your posts popped up in my reader, and I saw the link there.
    great repurpose! Can't wait to see it in print!
    gail

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  13. That's gorgeous! I love it and want to do one too! Thanks for the inspiration. I'm a happy new follower.

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  14. I can't read you're post with the fabric swatches in the picture....:( (I really want to!!!)

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  15. I just bought a dresser very similar to the one you used and I'm going to give this project a go! I'm really excited.

    How did you attach the new top to the frame?

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  16. Oh wow! This is so cool. This will be one of my summer projects! What are the dimentions of yours?

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  17. I love this! I hope you don't mind, but I featured it with a link back to you in my blog post today about kitchen renovation ideas:
    http://themodachromehome.com/2013/07/03/when-you-bite-off-more-than-you-can-chew/

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  18. I have seen this on Pinterest and absolutely love what you did. Printing this out for a family member who is looking to do the same - wonderful job!

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  19. How much of an overhang did you leave for your bar stools? I'm trying to figure out how big of a butcher block top I need to allow an adequate overhang for the bar stools.

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  20. Great job !! Now if you could just rent Mr. Handyman out so he can teach my hubby how to be a handyman life would be great !!

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  21. This is really nice! I have been on the hunt for something to use as a cutting table in my sewing room and this just might be perfect! Already sent this to my sister and told her to be checking thrift stores!

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  22. This is really nice! I have been on the hunt for something to use as a cutting table in my sewing room and this just might be perfect! Already sent this to my sister and told her to be checking thrift stores!

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  23. great post - we are looking at doing this in our kitchen-- not much space so having a moveable island is perfect!

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  24. HI Ally - did you strip the dresser before you painted or did you sand it - I recently purchased a dresser and was wondering --thank you

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