DIY Kitchen Island From A Lawyer’s Desk

I snagged an old lawyer’s desk made of real wood that is SUPER large for only $75 including delivery off Craigslist. Although this desk is not my style, I saw its potential to transform it into a functional DIY kitchen island for our home. Be sure to scroll to the bottom to watch the video! 🙂

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I’ll walk you through step by step what I did in my video tutorial at the bottom of this post – but here’s an overview.

Replace Legs

In order to change the desk height of 30″ to a counter height of 34,” I needed to remove the legs and build new ones. I constructed legs from 2 x 4’s and attached them using my Kreg Jig and screws.

Paint

The next thing I did was paint the whole piece. I started out painting it with black chalk paint that matched what the previous owner’s of our house painted the kitchen cabinets. With this paint I didn’t need to use a primer, but when the finish dried I wasn’t happy with its appearance. It was too matte and it showed many imperfections. So later I went over it again with Rust-Oleum’s semi-gloss black and was much happier.

Create Storage In The Middle

I unscrewed the track for the middle drawer and moved it to the middle of the center cavity. This would work as a pull out drawer for the middle storage space. I added a piece of 1/2 thick birch plywood to the bottom of this cavity and another as its door.

Countertop

The top that came with this lawyer’s desk was very large, but not quite as large as I would have liked. In order for this DIY kitchen island to fit to scale with our space and the pendant lights we chose above, I built a new countertop. I found three closet doors on clearance for only $10 a piece! One I had to cut down to add between the other two making the countertop the right width for a 10 inch overhang on three sides of the island. I secured the countertop to the desk using my favorite wood glue, screws, and brackets for support on the overhang. Then I applied four coats of polycrylic on top to make sure the finish was scrubbable and stain resistant.

Finishing Touches

I installed bar pulls from Liberty Hardware to match the hardware on my existing kitchen cabinets. I also added a magnetic latch to the bottom of the center door.

DIY Kitchen Island

Oh man, now that everything is finally said and done, I love it! The drawers offer so much storage and the central cavity holds all the appliances/large pots I used infrequently.

Since I poly-ed the countertop of the island with so many layers, it’s actually durable. We have had blueberries squashed on it, juice spilt on it, and hot things set on it without any issues! It behaves a lot like a laminate countertop to me.

I love the “cutting boards” on both sides that pull out – they get so much use! They were originally meant as extra work space for the person sitting at the desk. Seriously so serendipitous!

I hope you’re impressed with how I reimagined and repurposed this wood desk. If you enjoyed this post on the kitchen island and want to see more projects I have done in the kitchen, my DIY small kitchen makeover is a great place to start!

Oh and I almost forgot!! Here’s the video: