Project: Combination Kitchen Island/Eating Table (Build)

[Curt Harms]

For background, our younger daughter and her now-fiancé just moved into a tiny, recently renovated walk-up studio apartment in Old City, the more historical part of center city Philadelphia. (second floor thankfully, rather than higher!)

Looking great, Jim. Your kids are fortunate to have someone like you to design and build multifunctional furniture. SWMBO took me through the Betsy Ross house in Philly's historic district many years ago. Things back then were 'cozy', there was no room for stuff from Ikea.

[Jim Becker]

Looking great, Jim. Your kids are fortunate to have someone like you to design and build multifunctional furniture. SWMBO took me through the Betsy Ross house in Philly's historic district many years ago. Things back then were 'cozy', there was no room for stuff from Ikea.

Betsy's house is "palatial" in size compared to the Chitlin's little studio! A small portion of our garage is now storage for a dresser and a whole bunch of other household things and there's a set of six chairs that are living on our back porch, servicing the big eating table I made for back there last year. And a closet full of clothing. And their camper and car. And, and... LOL They had to seriously "downsize" from the 500 sq ft studio apartment they last had here in D'town over by the train station!

[Jim Becker]

More work on the cabinet portion of the project has transpired including some doubling to account for the space where an apron will slot into the cabinet when the Island/Table top is in the non-extended setup as well as getting the drawer slides installed and accommodations for fastening the table top to the cabinet once it's delivered to the "clients'" apartment. The screw holes in the back were also filled as this will be a black painted surface tucked away under the top.

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I had a nice piece of ash hanging out in the shop that was remarkably just the right size to create the drawers from after flattening, resawing and thicknessing. This material is also off our old property so I'm glad it's "staying in the family", as it were. There are four pieces in the photo...they are just lying there in "bookmatched" position 'cause they were pretty.

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Since I had already installed the slides in the cabinet carcass, sizing the drawer components could be done by taking off directly from the project. I like this better than "trusting the design" because, well...sometimes things change during construction which can render pre-conceived dimensions as being false. The drawer width has to be pretty exact, so by placing the sides up against the slides, it was possible to sneak up on the perfect width for the fronts and backs. Please note, I'm not using fancy, interlocking joinery for these drawers as you'll see when they get put together, but there will be very good strength.

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I found a nice piece of thin plywood hanging out in the rack which was just large enough to make two drawer bottoms from. That provided the required dimension for the grooves that the bottom would sit in which "conveniently" was the size of a "plywood" router tool I had on-hand, but rarely use. So the grooves got run on the router table as a first step before sizing the drawer bottoms. (The router table has now joined the jointer/thicknesser and bandsaw "island", replacing the DP which substantially reduced the additional duct components I needed to finally complete the network...one wye only)

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A dry-fit of a drawer (they did end up being identical in size) provided the means of calculating the drawer bottom size using rules and accommodating the depth of the grooves...for a perfect fit

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Since those photos, I started the sanding process on the drawer components so I can get them assembled and pre-finished. I'm likely going to create some sliding trays for more organization as there is enough depth to do that.

[glenn bradley]

I have been following with interest. I owe SWMBO a rolling island / fold up grandkid eating station for the kitchen. Fortunately it depends on her making a decision on the kitchen remodel which has been dragging on for a couple of years. Sooner or later she will make up her mind and then I will have to deliver. I am tagging this thread so I can add it to my bog-o-ideas for when that time comes. Thanks for taking the time to post everything.

[Jim Becker]

Thanks, Glenn. There are so many permutations of something like this and I'm sure you'll find what works best for SWMBO and the kiddos. If you do go mobile, consider using stout, quality casters that double lock and build them into the base so they are hidden normally. This method does require "getting down on the floor" if you need to move it, but gives the built-in look ot---
oherwise. This is how I did the island at our old property...it served as the prototype for all the rest of the cabinets and was also functional in that the only door in the house prior to the big addition project that one could bring big things in was the kitchen door. Hence, the reason it was mobile.

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I only had a few minutes in the shop today due to some medical and other kinds of appointments, but I did get the two drawers glued up and in clamps after I finished sanding the components. The one in the photo had a slight half millimeter out of square so the diagonal clamp fixed that.

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[Michael Burnside]

Very nice work Jim. Liking the progress reports and learning your processes, well done. Looking forward to seeing how the top comes together since it is something I haven't done before or seen much of. Any particular reason you didn't go with undermount for the drawer slides? That ash is going to work very well to compliment the carcass and it's super cool the wood has a backstory.

[Jim Becker]

Very nice work Jim. Liking the progress reports and learning your processes, well done. Looking forward to seeing how the top comes together since it is something I haven't done before or seen much of. Any particular reason you didn't go with undermount for the drawer slides? That ash is going to work very well to compliment the carcass and it's super cool the wood has a backstory.

On the drawer slides...cost because I had them "in inventory".

The ash for the drawers will be reflected later in the project so I'm happy I had it available for that purpose. In fact, I need to dive into the "lumber tent" and grab another piece of ash so I can mill up material for some additional enhancements for those drawers. 'Gonna be hot and steamy in there, but...I needs a board.

The top was surprisingly straight forward relative to the slides to open for the leaf. The apron and legs will be "more fun" because that's where some MCM style comes into play and a sub apron has to slide into the cabinet when it's in the "smaller" configuration.

[Jim Becker]

I got a little time in the shop today after lunch; most of which was taken by milling some ash for trays that will go in the drawers as well as some "not very nice" poplar that will be used to work out some leg details before I commit to the nice walnut. Of course, that also meant emptying the DC bin again. LOL

And then there was a bit of this kind of thing, crosscutting parts for both the tray supports that go in the drawers and the tray sides. I thought I had some plywood material to use for the bottoms of the trays, but alas...i was about 8mm too narrow. Sheesh...gotta hit the home center tonight for that after dinner.

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The trays will slide on these supports fastened to the sides of the larger drawers. This means things are "double decker" for creative space utilization.

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While the grooves on the drawer box fronts will be hidden by applied drawer faces, the trays will not have that. So some small, end grain plugs were glued into the groove at front of the tray sides and they will be flush trimmed to nearly disappear. In hindsight, I should have reversed things for the trays and any end grain would have been hidden. I always have the option of some thin, shop-made veneer to cover the tray face.
The trays will get internal dividers made from walnut that's been milled down to about 6mm/.25" thick for things like silverware and other kitchen things.

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[Jim Becker]

So just to complete the thought...and as you'll see shortly, it's a moot point, at least for this project...once the slot fillers are flushed up, they more or less disappear.

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Next up was to assemble the trays...simple thing, right? More in a moment. After the glue set, the corners were pinned with dowels. This is an easy method to do simple butt joints on drawers/trays, avoiding dovetails or other multiple cut joinery methods.

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The trays look great! Except, a minor brain fart. For these trays, the long dimension was supposed to be on the inside of the short dimension to fit the space. The pieces were cut precisely; no measurement error. Enter the human mind...which was still in "drawer" mode and therefore, glued those suckers together with the short sides inside the long sides, making the tray exactly twice the thickness of the material too narrow to fill the space. There were two choices to recover from this...rebuild the trays with new material which is time consuming or simply "clad" the trays in walnut to make them pretty and fit the space. I chose the latter as you will see shortly. This worked out nicely and the dividers were already planned to be walnut.

I will note that the two drawers were also pinned with dowels, at least in the front while screws were used at the back since they will never be seen.

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"Meanwhile", it was time to start on the legs. Rather than jumping right in with the walnut, I chose to make a couple of prototypes from some gnarly poplar that needs to go into the trash anyway. Template cut on the CNC from .25" MDF, followed by tracing and using the bandsaw to get the rough shape and as soon as a new piece of tooling arrives from Mr Amazon, I'll pattern route them to final. These legs are splayed outward and include a small portion of the apron. They match the design of the legs on the MCM coffee table I made them a couple years ago in the "temporary gara shop", also from walnut.

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[Jim Becker]

At this point, the drawers and trays are done and just need sanding. They will be finished at the same time as some other elements.

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[Jim Becker]

Moving on, the interior movable shelf for the cabinet is ready for finishing...this is what they wanted for inside. While it's a bit of a span, there is an integral stretcher both front and back that's stout enough to deal with this over time and with what they are likely to store on it. Were this for my own use, I would have equipped it with drawers.

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Next up will be the face frame work for the cabinet, so the remainder of my time in the shop yesterday was spent filling up the bin in my dust collection system. Literally. But I have a start with the material required. I'm using a bunch of walnut boards that have "interesting characteristics" to work around, but this is a good purpose for them given most components will be narrow, etc.

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[Jim Becker]

So the flush trim tooling that I ordered arrived right on time. This is a half-inch by 1.5" LOC compression flush trim by SpeTool. It's very nicely made and I'm looking forward to getting started on the table-end legs, starting with two prototypes "just to be sure" and then the real deal.

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Today was face frame day and I started that off by using the CNC to make the profile I wanted for the two vertical stiles on the case. It only took about 5-10 minutes to create the simple toolpaths that took the 25mm thick material down to 18mm "in the middle" with a bevel at the edge back to full thickness. I was originally going to rip them off at the table saw, but another two minutes allowed just cutting them while the workpiece was still on the table. They only required some quick sanding to be ready to go.

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The rest of the face frame was pretty basic work with careful fitting. I originally didn't design in a "toe kick" area but thought better of that and adjusted accordingly since this is where one will stand while doing food prep on the "island" area of the finished project. Since the "toe kick" is recessed back, I needed to cover up some exposed plywood, so a few scraps of 10mm solid stock took care of that and it really will not be all that visible "down there" at floor level.

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That was today's progress and I'm very pleased with how this is coming together. There are, however, a few little tricky things coming.

[Jim Becker]

Ok, so that compression flush trim router tooling I showed in the previous post is outstanding...I don't think you can see it in this photo, but the surface appears nearly polished on the edges of my prototype legs. Impressive fluffy shavings came off that puppy too! The .25" MDF template worked perfectly...tape and CA method for attachment.

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Here you can see that I've placed the prototype legs with clamps so I can do some fine tuning of the apron layout. It looks wonky this way for the moment, but it really was a good decision to do this, both for a dry run on shaping the legs and for getting things right for what will be supporting a bit of weight in the end. Several angles shown.

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Meanwhile...the cabinet carcass and face frame is done. The later already has the Rubio Monocoat (Walnut) done just to get it out of the way. This air dried walnut from our old property has such beautiful coloration throughout.

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A good part of my time today was taken by milling up more walnut to make the apron and leg components. I originally thought I'd have to use the one 8/4 board I have but found a 6/4 board and a 5/4 board that was perfect for the jobs. To "lose less" while face jointing it flat, I broke it down a bit. Here's an example for the legs...temporarily marked them with the template and then did an angled rip before heading to the jointer. For the legs, this also makes the bandsaw work easier than having them both in one piece like I did for the prototypes.

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[Jim Becker]

Once all that chip and dust making was complete (including filling another bag with the same for the trash), I got to work on the apron that will be at the end of the table side of the top. The piece isn't complicated in dimension and those came from the layout twerking possible with the prototype legs clamped in position. What's a little more involved, albeit not difficult from a woodworking standpoint, was the need for two recesses in the back of the apron to capture the ends of the table slides. Because this is a small table, even with the small slides I used, they pushed just a little closer to the table end than the intended location of the 25mm (1") thick apron would allow. I chose to use both a router and hand tools to create the 15mm deep recesses, starting with a small flush cut tool in the router after making a template.

Here's the back of the apron marked from the "plan" that's on the bottom of the table as well as the tooling in a collet ready to go

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I chose the smaller router for this job, but in hindsight the larger base of it's bigger sister would have been a better choice due to the width of the recess being what it was. But three passes; the first with the template and then two more using the actual recess as the template got the job done of hogging out the material.

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And then it was on to "old school" with a router plane and sharp chisel to clean things up. These will not really be seen unless someone is lying on the floor under the table for some reason... ...but it's still nice to make them, um...nice.

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And here we are with the end apron (and side support blocks) completed other than roundovers, sanding and some "knock down" considerations. It was a good day in the shop.

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[Michael Burnside]

Heck yea, things are looking awesome! Great idea building the face frame details with your CNC and the drawer trays look really great. It's details like that which make it a custom piece.