How to build a modern kitchen island - IKEA Hack

IKEA Hack - modern island out of Lagan countertop

My husband Bryce is a financial controller (CPA/accountant). One might stereotype him as nerdy, boring, stuffy, left-brained. Not so. He's a wooly-headed and bearded Ginger, often gregarious always sarcastic. What most might not guess is that he's also wickedly creative.

Our u-shaped kitchen is strategically set up so that the stove is central with an island so people can sit and admire us foodies (Bryce and myself or often my guest starring parents) working our magic. Yes, I am boasting profusely, and I apologize, but it's what we absolutely love to do. So Bryce designed this kitchen perfectly for us.

Our modern aesthetic needed something unusual for the island. Enter Bryce's fantastic creativity and $80 worth of IKEA materials. We made a gorgeous modern island out of 2 $39 IKEA Lagan solid wood countertop.

$39 Lagan countertop surface from IKEA

So we cut small pieces of the Lagan to serve as the T for the island and attached these to a full piece of the Lagan (~50x26" but there is a longer piece available too at 96x26" for only $59). You can see in this photo that at the joints, we filled with wood glue and sanded to create a seamless joint.

Attach small pieces to the large counter top

Then we attached the T to our island wall with L-brackets.

Attach T to island wall

With the rest of the 2nd piece of Lagan, we created an L and made a "leg." We used L-brackets again to brace the 2 pieces of wood.

L-brackets connect the 2 counter surfaces

Pocket-drill into solid flooring and then fill with plug

Where the "leg" meets the floor, we did a Kreg pocket drill directly into the floor. This sucker is bullet-proof now.

Sand and lacquer the top with a few layers, sanding between each layer

To finish, we simply sanded and lacquered a few times and voila! We now have a gorgeous island for only $80!

Our next step is to tile the island wall with recycled stone. Stay tuned!

Countertops!

Here are the "counters" we have been living with for the last few months since we installed the cabinets. Yes, that's just plywood. Being a foodie who loves to entertain, this was definitely a challenge to keep clean on a daily basis. If you look closely enough you can probably see oil drippings and wine stains.

Sub-counter plywood 3/4"

In customary Harpole fashion we absolutely refused to spend anything anywhere near the $50-95/sq ft price tag for countertops. Our solution? A whopping $300 total for supplies for concrete  countertops! But! There is good news and there is bad news, friends. Good news was that we had an outstanding favor for Bryce doing taxes for our concrete artist friend, so we traded for his artistry. Bad news was that there were HOURS AND HOURS of Bryce-labor and a really big mess. Thank God IKEA sends out their cabinet doors with a protective film on the door fronts. We are keeping them on until we're done with the heavy lifting ... oh, probably in 2015.

Most people do a project like this before they install the lovely sink, but we are living in this kitchen as we build, and we had to have water.

Even with all this wrapping we still got concrete everywhere. And Bryce really liked to use my lovely stovetop (UNCOVERED) as a place to set his tools!

Here's a breakdown of our process.

Metal lath

Atop the plywood goes metal lath. It's basically mesh. It can be found in any hardware store; we went local as always. This strengthens the concrete poured over it.

Layer of Portland cement + playground sand mixture

Then Bryce pulled his first all-nighter of about 9 in a row and poured basic Portland cement mixed with playground sand. This builds a substructure for the finer cement. Let me insert a very important fact pounded into my head by my dear old dad - cement is merely powder. It is not the hard stuff you walk and drive on every day. Concrete, on the other hand, is the hardened substance of cement mixed with water. Get it straight or my dad with correct you!

Cement sub layer

This was probably taken at 3 AM. My husband works so hard!

First layer of fine white cement

Our lovely artist friend with whom we traded services came over for a Saturday and worked his magic with finer cement, a little silica, and some very fine sand that had gorgeous sparkles. When the sun hits the counter like it does every day for hours, you can see the sparkles. Lovely! Charlie (artist friend) pasted this miracle mixture all over Bryce's first slab of concrete (see, now it's concrete because his cement mixture hardened over night).

Close-up of texture and very faint sparkles

Round undermount openings are tricky for hand-troweling cement countertops

 Much to Charlie's dismay, we installed a rounded undermount sink instead of a straight square opening. Harpole's wouldn't have it any other way than working with the most challenging angles! But he filled in the sections beautifully.

Close-up of building up the edge

Close-up of Charlie's handiwork on the rounded corners

Detail of the trickiness of building the edge

Here is the countertop today. Bryce just about killed us with pulling another all-nighter pouring poly-urethane every two hours for EIGHT LAYERS! This almost fumigated us out of the house! He couldn't keep the windows open too wide to air because he didn't want the night bugs flying into the light and dropping. Screens were installed last weekend. 

Counters to date

We still have to sand this layer to rough up the high sheen and then add one more chemical who's name I can't remember, and we will be done! We had to stop at this point because I had a house full of family and I couldn't deny my foodie fam from cooking! Sorry for the poly-urethane nightmare headaches, Sis!

Stay tuned for final countertop photos! I am on the search for lovely backsplash ideas, so please post any suggestions!