Kitchen Island From Reclaimed Wood

Here’s a kitchen island from reclaimed wood that we completed (finally!) early last year. It is made of Pine and has a thick Birch top. It measures approximately 36″ long by 24 inches wide and 34 inches tall. The base has been painted and the natural top has a polyurethane finish. It also features Southwest style icons on all sides of the base.

This has been a project that was a long time in the making. The wood that was used to make it was reclaimed from other pieces of furniture that somehow found its way back to us.

The four beautiful Maple legs and the Birch top came from an old table that came with our previous home when we bought it almost 25 years ago. We used it as a computer table for several years and then it went on to be used as same at our niece’s home. Years later it returned to us and with no one else wanting it we hung onto it. After visiting Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2009 for the 2009 AAW Symposium we were inspired to use the table in a Southwest style kitchen island for our home.

Here’s a photo of the pieces that we used:

The Pine for the base came from two sources, both built back in the early ’80s. . One, from a set of 6 foot long by 7 foot high shelves that we built to store our record collection (remember those? Now they all reside on a 6 X 8 inch harddrive :)) and two, from a ‘crate style furniture’ coach that we built. This too was an item that was passed around the family until finally coming back to us for recycling. The Pine from both of these old projects was almost 30 year old Ponderosa Pine and beautiful. We can remember complaining back then about the it’s high cost at $1.25 a board foot! 🙂

Here’s some photos of the island’s construction:

Here are some more photos of the finished island:

This was a great project and fits in the kitchen quite nicely. It brings backs lots of memories centered around the old furniture and reminds us daily of our fantastic trip to New Mexico. We can’t wait to return to be inspired again…

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