#DIY Kitchen Island Cart

Today, I m excited to share the design and plans for our kitchen island cart.  As we worked through the kitchen renovation we often wondered if we would indeed have room for an island.

After a few weeks of trying out boxes and such in the center of the kitchen as place holders, we decided that functionally, an island was a great solution for storage and convenience.  If you look closely at the photo above you ll notice there are no drawers next to the range.  I found that to be very disruptive to the way I cook.  While the cabinet to the left is a handy sheet pan rack, there s no other function there. To the right is a hinged door for the corner cabinet and it is very cumbersome to open and close.  The more I worked in the kitchen, the more I knew I needed a handy drawer for spatulas and larger cooking utensils.

Initially, we thought the top slot you see above would be taller, but as we worked through the design process of the island we let design trump function in this one area. The chunkier legs gave more substance and was chosen over a larger shelf along the top.  Turns out this smaller shelf is still super handy for my pot holders and cork trivets, which were previously kept in the awkward corner cabinet.

And because we ended up with less open shelving in the kitchen than I had initially planned, we opted to have an open end on the kitchen island cart for our daily dishes. We love just reaching down for our bowls and plates as we serve food.

I m sure you ve noticed the beautiful wood on the top by now.  I blogged all about our little trip to Southern Accents to acquire the rough cut walnut a few weeks ago.  I love that it is a unique approach to an island top and think turned out just gorgeous.

The other salvaged part of the island is the base cabinet.  It was saved from the desk area that was removed from the portion of the wall dividing the kitchen from the living room.  We opened this area up to add an pennisula counter.

For building your own kitchen island cart, you could easily pick up a cabinet at a Habitat for Humanity store or buy one at your local home improvement center. Other than the legs, the walnut for the top, bead board and one piece of wood for the shelf, the remaining pieces were scraps we had in the garage.  This is why I can t give you a price for the whole project, but I am confident yours will be much less expensive than buying new and you can be confident that it is a solid piece of furniture.

Here s a diagram of how all the pieces fit together.

I have to apologize for the photos below.  I was not willing to have my DSLR camera in the garage while we worked with all the saws, resulting dust and plenty of opportunities for it to get knocked around.  So these photos were taken with my phone.  I do think they are still a good reference for how construction progressed almost step by step.