Anyone built a kitchen island?

How hard could it be?

IF the sale goes through, our new place has a tiny kitchen. It needs more cabinets for sure. We really don't have room in there for permanent cabinets. We need an island, and it really needs to be on wheels. I've been looking at what is available at Lowes and Ikea, and am not quite seeing what we're looking for. So I'm thinking, how hard could this be? Find 2 cabinets on Craigslist (must have doors and drawers on top), paint them, put some beadboard on the sides and back, casters underneath, and a wood block on top.

Am I underthinking that?

In reply to mtn:

I built one for our place in IL from some reclaimed cabinets from the old bank in town, though it's not a mobile island(wouldn't that be a "ship"? ).

You'll need to decide how you want to finish the back of the cabinets. For mine I had extra/old bead-board that matched the rest of the building. Keep in mind too that if you're countertop will have an overhang for seating you may want/need to support the weight from it. For that matter, the weight of the countertop will also somewhat dictate the size/shape/wheels needed for stability.

petegossett wrote: In reply to mtn: I built one for our place in IL from some reclaimed cabinets from the old bank in town, though it's not a mobile island(wouldn't that be a "ship"? ). You'll need to decide how you want to finish the back of the cabinets. For mine I had extra/old bead-board that matched the rest of the building. Keep in mind too that if you're countertop will have an overhang for seating you may want/need to support the weight from it. For that matter, the weight of the countertop will also somewhat dictate the size/shape/wheels needed for stability.

No overhang. No seating. It will be going up against a sliding glass door or in the middle of the kitchen; either way there is no room for seating.

I have not done exactly that, but Ikea cabinets are completely modular and lend themselves well to custom projects. In my old kitchen I used Ikea cabinets and put uppers as lowers on the back of a peninsula for added storage, put a single 30-inch drawer in place of 2 15-inch wide drawers, put a shallow drawer under a cooktop where there was just dead space, etc.

What you are trying to accomplish could probably be done with just one Ikea lower cabinet wrapped in their "trim panels" and topped with a piece of butcherblock.

At one point there was a website called Ikeafans with an active kitchen forum where folks shared their hacks, customization and ideas. Ikea in their infinite wisdom shut the site down for trademark infringement - crazy considering that site was the greatest unpaid advertising a company could ever have hoped for.

A friend of mine did exactly what you're talking about, except for storage at his office. He bought unfinished cabinets and finished them himself, but otherwise it looked really easy to build and came out looking good.

I built one out of old kitchen cabinets for my garage. It works well. Build thread here about halfway down

My buddy built a smallish one for his kitchen. They are easy to do and incredibly useful. Keep in mind that you can quickly put A LOT of weight of dishes, pans, glass, etc into a single cabinet, and also, the larger you build the harder it is to get everything to line up perfectly.

What kind of flooring do you have? That will determine your wheel choice. On wood, you would want non-marring and something wider to spread the load, on tile it might just be a forgeddaboutit if the grout spaces are large.

Also, refinishing cabinetry to look good (ie repainting) can be way more difficult and time consuming than you think. I would definitely strongly consider new cabinets finished from the factory the way you want just for the time savings over trying to re-do used ones.

Robbie wrote: I built one out of old kitchen cabinets for my garage. It works well. My buddy built a smallish one for his kitchen. They are easy to do and incredibly useful. Keep in mind that you can quickly put A LOT of weight of dishes, pans, glass, etc into a single cabinet, and also, the larger you build the harder it is to get everything to line up perfectly. What kind of flooring do you have? That will determine your wheel choice. On wood, you would want non-marring and something wider to spread the load, on tile it might just be a forgeddaboutit if the grout spaces are large.

Cheap laminate "Hardwood".

In reply to mtn:

That should make casters significantly easier then. Still consider the weight, but it should be easier on laminate.

I did that. I bought some basic cabinets of various sizes and arranged them into a bit of a triangle. Then i cut some doors from a nice veneer plywood and used the glue on veneer wood to cover the end grain. I put some shelving in the areas where the cabinets didnt line up. Then i built a top from plywood and arborite, ran a nosing all the way around and put a pattern in the top edge with a router which also trims the arborite to size. It was very easy considering I'm NOT a carpenter and it looked awesome.

Just for reference, the one my friend made is 2 of these connected together with casters on the bottom:

Menards

mine doesn't move, but it's basically 3 cabinets bolted together with a solid surface top. Made a good size overhang, a couple of stools and voila - island with eating area. Get cabinets with plywood guts, not particle board. and poly - wheels so you don't wreck the floor.

During holiday parties people live around our island.

Funny memory burned in my brain. Our neighbors went on vacation and had us come in and let out their dog.

My wife is a neat freak with one bowl of fruit on her island and was shocked to see the neighbors island completely covered up (southern term) and stacked up high. She gagged when I pointed out a jock strap on the island. We're not even allowed to put the US Mail on our island (too dirty).

I saw a super cool island in a Dwell magazine some time ago. I'll try to explain: figure a rectangular couple of cabinets. On one end, make a pivot-they just used a couple of snug fitting pipes, but bearings, whatever. On the other end, a couple of fixed castors were angled to approximate the curve of the circle. The island was basically the radius of a circle. You could push it out of the way, but it was fixed enough to not run away from you.

Alternately, how about a big butcher block. I just took one to Goodwill.