Create the Perfect Kitchen Nook With Non-built-in's

7 Materials
$500
5 Days
Medium

Creating the perfect kitchen nook takes some serious thought and planning. How much seating is needed, storage, lighting and style? Sometimes store bought furniture doesn't cut it.

I really love built-in benches, but I was not sure I wanted to commit because itā€™s not going anywhere after itā€™s installed. So instead of built-in benches, we made free standing benches that went in the corner and extend to the end of the table on two sides (coming together in the corner). This way we could move or replace without a renovation effort.

What we used:

1/2 inch by 3 1/2 inch wood planks, cut to length with support cross boards every foot on the underside of the bench.

After the top of the benches were completed, I added 3 inch thick cushion foam and then used a staple gun to cover with fabric. Make sure to cut your foam using a razor blade it is much easier than using scissors or a knife.


The legs are sturdy square outline design, using the 1/2 inch thick boards glued together using three plank thickness.

I had three butcher block boards left from our  living room built inā€™s using Ikea butcher block counters tops. It would have been great if they were ā€œfloatingā€ but because of the weight we had to add brackets to properly install.

Last spring when we added our butcher block built inā€™s for the living room, we also got the idea for the butcher block table. We used the extra-large butcher block island from Ikea and added the same style legs as the benches, then stained the same color grey as the cabinets (see  kitchen cabinet refinishing). The legs for the table were reinforced with metal brachets (pictured below).

The final decision was what type of chairs to add to the remaining sides. I thought about metal farm house chairs but thatā€™s a little too farmhouse for my house, so I went with faux leather modern chairs from Target.

The light fixture came from Amazon and in my opinion, ties it all together. Please visit my website for more detailed instructions.

Resources for this project:
See all materials
Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
Hometalk may collect a small share of sales from the links on this page.More info
Flawless C Designed
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
Go
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?
  2 questions
  • Carole Bisby Carole Bisby on Apr 25, 2020

    Love the idea your not stuck with it. How many people do I think that you can get extra around the table this way? Thanks for sharing!

  • Andrea Andrea on Dec 15, 2020

    Do you think it could be done and look nice if you have a 54 in round table? I love this idea but want to keep my round table that my father and I built many years ago.

Comments
Join the conversation
3 of 16 comments
Next