Kitchen island frugal crafting?

[ethicalcannibal.livejournal.com]

I have completed my rolling kitchen island. I still need two crates for the shelf, for pots and pans, but that will have to wait.

I actually only paid for the grout, mortar, and tiles because the wood and molding was donated by family as left over scraps. So I don't think it's too bad for a $20 project. The tiles were $1.97 for each 12"x12" thingee, and I only needed five because the top isn't that big.



This is how I started. My father-in-law slapped together some boards he had laying around. I then added the center shelf, and wheels left over from an old dead office chair. I knew those casters would come in handy! That's me working on it, and the cat trying to stop me.



Then I wrapped molding around the top and bottom, and the sides of the center shelf. I taped off the center so I could paint it all.



I only had some light blue paint left over from my bathroom, so that pretty much dictated the color. The two crates in the bottom shelf were done by my mom, and she didn't use them any more. I figured they matched my whole stars and moon kitchen motif, so that was one less thing to paint.



Then I put in the tile with a bit of thin set mortar. That went really easy. I had this funny space on both sides, so I broke up some left over tiles and mosaic'd them in so there wouldn't be any weird spaces. So now that's a "design feature".



Then I put in the grout. I had thought I would get black grout on the off chance I ran into some cash down the road and could afford to paint the island lacquer black. I was completely unprepared for the gigantic mess that black grout could be. It gets everywhere when it puffs out of the bag in powder form! Not to mention it takes forever to sponge off the surface of your tile! I was covered in black sooty nastiness from the whole experience. Next time I will not do it in the kitchen! I had to scrub it off everything. Heh. Smart am I!




So that was my little experiment on how I made a rolling kitchen island for less than $20. I sure wasn't going to pay what they want in stores for them!

(I also posted this in my journal because I was so damn proud of myself!)