Make a Kitchen Island For About $100 Bucks In Just a Few Hours!

When my husband and I bought our first home, a lot of our friends and family were shocked about our choice--and understandably so! The house needed A LOT of work, to say the least. Since then (it's been 6 years now since we bought it!), we've poured our blood, sweat and tears into it just to bring it up to a condition that was safe and healthy for our family.

When we first moved into the house, the kitchen had the original 1978 dark oak cabinets, basement carpet for flooring, and a broken microwave that was functioning as a medicine cabinet for the previous owners. It was pretty gross. We tore the kitchen down to the studs and with a little help from family and friends, built ourselves a new kitchen. We bought discontinued pine cabinets on clearance from Ikea, installed natural slate flooring (inspired by my friend, Michelle's kitchen), and finished the walls with textured paint and a color wash. Then we built this island with a leftover cabinet and the leftover butcher block from my mom's kitchen. Here's how we put it together, but you can take my idea and change it in anyway you want to fit your style and kitchen.

What you'll need:

• a floor cabinet (we used a 21" wide one)
• butcher block countertop
• side shelving (Ikea Perfekt End Base Unit)
• metal legs

You can get all of these items from Ikea for very inexpensive.

You'll also need:

• Wood paneling

You can buy this at Lowe's for about $10. Click here to see it.

And:

• Wooden corner moulding

Again, available at Lowe's for just a few dollars.

To put it together:

Follow the instructions in the package for putting together the floor cabinet and shelving. It's easy to do this, especially if it's from Ikea. From the inside of the cabinet, sink a few screws into the shelving, being especially careful not to use screws that will go all the way through the other side. For extra support, we screwed a couple of straight metal brackets on to the bottom between the cabinet and the shelving. From the inside of the cabinet again, sink a few screws to attach the butcher block. Screw the legs into the bottom. Finish the back of the island with the paneling and corner moulding (we used liquid nails to attach). Voila--a custom kitchen island made almost entirely out of left over materials. It only took us a few hours to complete this and it was sooo cheap! View plans here.