Kitchen Island

This was a great project. We needed a more functional small desk next to our kitchen door so I built one based on Ana's Kitchen Island plan. I wanted a table top which shows the beauty of knotty wood and I'm happy with the redwood (2x6) I've chosen. The body is cheap whitewood (2x4 and remaining pieces of the 2x6 redwood for the short sides) and the racks are furring strips (pine) 1x2. I modified all the dimensions to fit the available space. I also decided to use 2x4 (instead of 2x6) for the long sides to not lose too much height for the actual rack space. The "rails" of the racks are 2x2.

The tabletop was heavily sanded (100 to 400), stained with Minwax Honey (~5 minutes), and is enjoying about 5 layers of satin polyurethane (sanded in between). I wanted the redwood to shine and just add some depth with the staining. A couple of fruit flies were driving me crazy and took a couple of baths in the fresh poly. :)

The body has a double coating (sanded in between) of white latex paint. The thickness of the paint was pretty annoying and I realized after I was done I should have considered a thinner.

This is my first actual furniture piece (after building a headboard) and I very much enjoyed building it. Ana's plans are a pleasure to follow / get inspired by and I'm happy to have found a new hobby.

Let me know what you think!