Kitchen Island: Frame

I know it’s been ages since I showed you all the plans for the Kitchen Island.  I’m happy to say that we’ve finally gotten around to working on it and officially have a frame!  We wanted to give you all a status update on it with a little information about the how-to process.

The legs were ordered from here.  We bought the 3″ pre-turned legs and cut them down to 33″.  The 2″ butcher block top would bring the whole thing to around 35″ high which is the ideal counter height.

Since we want the dimensions of the island to be roughly 18″ by 54″, we were conveniently able to cut front and back shelf face pieces (parts 8 and 10 in the diagram below) to 12″ and 48″.  Here’s a refresher of our whole plan if you’re needing one:

Something we changed from the diagram above was to add side apron pieces for added support and uniformity (they’re the 1×3′s at the top of the two skinny sides of the island in the picture below).  The apron and main shelf face pieces are 1×3′s.  The bottom shelf face piece is made with 1×2′s.  We attached these outer frame pieces using pocket holes and screwing them to the legs.  To add a slight offset, we used scrap pieces of drywall found in the basement (roughly 1/2″ offset).  All of these visible pieces are pine to match the legs.

The frame for the part of the island that will hold the small scrap trashcan has sort of been a trial and error process.  Remember we’re putting a hole in the top of the butcher block top to be able to toss scraps while we’re chopping for easy cleanup.  I created a basic side frame with 1×2′s that screwed to the inside of the main frame.  I’ll add face pieces to the front and back with 1×2′s.  For the sides and back of the trash bin area, we bought some beautiful pine paneling which we’ll tack to the inside of the frame – an idea I got from this picture from The House of Wood blog:

Photo Credit: The House of Wood

Starting to see how it’s all going to come together now?

Pocket holes are your best friend people.  And SO EASY to do.  Just just drill the holes using your pocket hole jig and drill bit.  And then use the other provided drill bit to screw the boards together.  No more visible nails and your pieces are so much stronger.

This is definitely a slower process than I was expecting.  Things slowed down even more significantly once neighbors moved in next door.  We were lucky enough to not have neighbors on either side for over a month, so I didn’t mind sawing and hammering at all hours of the night.  Unfortunately, I just can’t do that anymore, so once we get to close to 9PM, I’m either calling it quits or doing what I can with our quieter tools like the drills.  So after my commute home, feeding the cat, watering the garden, making dinner, and eating… well there are just some nights where I don’t get the chance to work on it at all.  Sad day.

But we’ve certainly been busy elsewhere in the house.  We snagged a free futon from one of the Mister’s coworkers which we managed to wrangle upstairs in the study.  We’ve painted the living room, dining room, and kitchen.  We’ve also bought tons of artwork recently, so we’ll be doing a lot of frame building and hanging soon.  Slowly, but surely, things are coming together.