This kitchens walkthrough stays in the order the work happens.
An IKEA kitchen island provides a clearly-affordable, striking update in this kitchen remodel.
When you have your new kitchend island in, look at our kitchen collection for straightforward Handmade Kitchen Projects, IKEA method Over-the-Fridge Storage, and how to choose the right bar stools.
Hello, fellow Bekob! I’m Meredith Heard from Welcome to Heardmont and I’m thrilled to be here today. The road to our kitchen remodel was a long one. We were really getting somewhere with the room, but even after we painted our old kitchen island, my husband wasn’t sold on its looks or functionality.
So what’s a girl to do? Browse a million different websites, conclude that a $1500 new island was waaaay out of her price range……. then stumble upon the STENSTORP Ikea kitchen island for under $400! Yes!
(Bekob update 7/31/19: STENSTORP is no longer available at IKEA, but VADHOLMA is very similar.)
This was one of our first experiences with Ikea furniture, so I was happy to find that the island was a breeze to assemble and seemed to be really high quality and very sturdy.
The new IKEA kitchen island came with a wood top, which we’ve never had before, so I decided just to use the wood oil Ikea sells to treat it. The instructions tell you to sand first, then apply a coat of the oil, let it dry, and repeat up to 5 times. I don’t know about you, but this is NOT what I expected the oil to look like when I opened the can! I guess I was picturing something more the color of olive oil.
It goes on white and then soaks into the wood. You can see I used a foam brush to apply the oil.
One thing I noticed after applying the oil the first few times was that the wood became very rough as it soaked up the oil – the grain was raised and there were little slivers of wood standing up all along the surface.
You can see the remnants of the wood slivers on my sanding block below.
After every coat, though, the counter got more and more smooth. Luckily by the 4th coat, the wood only needed a slight sanding before it was ready to use.
Here’s our new IKEA kitchen island in its spot!
Wondering why we chose something with a smaller countertop, less seating space, and presumably less storage? Believe it or not, the open shelving on the opposite side of the island provides the well fitted place to store our pots and pans, mixing bowls, and even some of our prettier kitchen items that we never got to appreciate before.
The old island’s doors and drawers were so cumbersome compared to this open shelving. And the new IKEA kitchen island lets us bring lots of fun color into the space. Proof positive that bigger isn’t always better!
So true, Meredith! What a great find and striking kitchen! Thank you for sharing!
Readers, don’t miss out on more kitchen goodness from Bekob:
How to Design a modest-cost Kitchen Island, Farmhouse Style
Get This Look: A Colorful White Kitchen
Build a Countertop Spice Storage Bin + Printable Spice Labels
Originally published 04.20.2011 // Updated 08.06.2019
