$100 Kitchen Island Idea- Repurposed Sewing Table

Using vintage furniture is a great way to add character to a room,especially in a kitchen. I am excited to share this $100 kitchen island idea with you from a repurposed sewing table and marble slab.

 

We had been using an old desk as our kitchen island for a few years, with a marble slab on top. While it worked, I always felt like it was a little large for our cozy kitchen.Of course, I wanted something new, but didn’t want to spend a lot.Here you can see the old island. The slab on top only covered part of it, and food would constantly get trapped underneath. At one time the top was painted, and I painted a faux marble top. That was great for a while, but then as time went on, the paint was chipping, and it just got kind of gross.    You can check out this post to see our kitchen remodel for about $12,000.

I wanted something that was 37 inches long, but only 20 inches wide so our marble slab would fit right on top. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, so when I came across this vintage sewing table on Craiglist, I felt like I found a unicorn! It was the perfect size for what I had been looking for, and it was wood, which was even better! At $100, it was the perfect price point for a repurposed kitchen island! It did need just a little bit of love. I gave it a good clean up, and sanded off the old finish. If you have a similar piece and it has wood carving on it, see how to fill those in here.

For a sealer, I gave it a few coats of white wax. I love sanding a piece of furniture, revealing the wood underneath, and waxing it to bring out the natural beauty.

If you’ve ever wondered if you should finish a piece of furniture with paste wax or polyurethane, this post is for you. To give it height, and make it more mobile, I flipped it over, and and drilled holes in the bottom of the legs to add casters.

You can find different sizes at Home Depot. This way it can be easily moved out of the way to clean the floor, or for parties if needed. After I added these, I realized I wanted locking wheels, so we ended up taking them off the old island and swapping them out.

After that, I placed our marble slab on top, and my $100 kitchen island was ready to go!

I love that the slab fits right on top, so that food will stay where it is supposed to.

I might even look into getting a slightly bigger remnant slab of marble. This one I scored on a resale site years ago. Though if we get a bigger slab, we will need to find away to secure it.

I love how much it opens up the kitchen, and even thought it’s slightly smaller, we didn’t lose that much prep space. Not too bad for a $100 kitchen island!