[completed] diy kitchen island

DIY island

Today, Adam and I (and a few friends) finally finished our DIY kitchen island! I put the final touches on the paint this morning, and then just now we (and the friends) put the huge piece of granite onto the island body. We definitely needed the extra assistance to move and maneuver the heavy heavy granite.

The process was (fairly) simple. We bought a unfinished sink base cabinet, attached caster wheels to the bottom of the cabinet (which involved adding some wood to the bottom of the cabinet to attach the wheels to), put unfinished end panels on the sides and the back, attached a toe kick to the front bottom of the cabinet, put corner molding around the back and front bottom corner to hide the edges of the end panels and toekick, primed and painted the island three different colors (chalkboard black for the back, Valspar Mountain Smoke for the sides and front, and Valspar Wet Pavement for the drawers and door fronts).

chalkboard back

The granite was purchased from a local rock shop, after looking at multiple granite shops (and getting $800-900 estimates) and the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore (which had $20 granite remnants but no pieces big enough). At the local rock shop, we got a finished piece (64"x34") with demi-bullnose edges for exactly $300. It was so-o worth it - it looks about a million times better than laminate would have, and was not that much more expensive. Our piece came from a remnant. I wanted a lighter piece of granite, since the kitchen is already covered in black, and I liked that this tan-gold piece had flecks of black and grey in it. Also I loved the giant stripe that runs through this piece.

striped granite

Grand total: Less than $600 for a giant custom DIY kitchen island.

Compare that to the $1000+ premade, less than ideal, assembly-required islands, and I think we did pretty well. Plus it was fun to have a project to work on with Adam!

More pictures to come!