DIY Butcher Block Kitchen Island

This post has been a long time coming.  It all started with a girl that dreamed of a butcher block countertop island for her kitchen and a husband that scoured Craigslist daily for weeks.   I posted about my plans for an island HERE.  When we built our house we had the option to put in an island but the choices weren't what I envisioned for my kitchen so we decided to not put in an island and to make one ourselves.  We were lucky enough to score my mom and dad's old cabinets after their kitchen remodel but it still left us without a butcher block countertop.


Here are the cabinets before we started working on them.  They were three separate pieces and pretty rough looking after having the countertop ripped off.







We considered making a butcher block countertop but the wood was crazy expensive.  We also considered the butcher block countertop at Ikea but it was just too small to cover all three cabinets and leave an overhang.  Finally after much searching, my husband found a post on Craigslist for a bowling alley that was going out of business.  They were selling the wood from the lanes!  He rushed over there and cut this giant slab of thick wonderful hardwood and brought it home.  He spent the next couple weeks sanding several inches off the top and sides.

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When that was done we carried in the three cabinets and screwed the insides of them together.  Chase also added boards to support the weight of the countertop. 

Then we added shiplap to the back and the sides and trim to the corners and I painted the whole thing Behr Ultra Pure White.   We carried in the very heavy countertop and laid it on top of our cabinets. We bought corbels from Etsy HERE and he screwed them in at the top on either side and took out the drawers and put a screw in through the inside of the cabinets.

I changed my mind about the drawer pulls and got these ones from Amazon HERE instead.

This project took us a while to finish and it was a lot of work but I'm so proud of us!  I love my husband for bringing my vision of an island to life!  Now, to paint our cabinets and add a backsplash!  A homeowner's work is never done, am I right?!   Thanks for stopping by friends!