At the start of the year my girlfriend moved into a new apartment. That meant new furniture. That meant I was to make the new furniture.

I jest. I really wanted to make it.

First, to impress the woman who means everything to me. Second, to impress the woman who made the woman who means everything to me. Third, because well I’m just starting out on my woodworking journey and I wanted to build my portfolio.

Win, win, win, I thought.

The Kitchen Island

It started off nicely, we chose a camphor laurel slab from a local supplier (Timber Slabs Warehouse), we transported it in the trusty woodworking/love bus and after some brief theoretical measurements I got started. I had never used epoxy on this scale before and jumped at the opportunity to try a product from the timber supplier (gifted for free, lovely guy btw). It was supposedly a thicker epoxy type substance that wasn’t as messy and is perfect for filling smaller gaps. From a distance it achieved this in spades however, upon closer inspection the minute cracks and splits were not adequately filled leaving me in a little bit of a pickle. My gut said to wait and buy a less viscous filler like thickened super glue to address those small imperfections. However, I’m not sure how many of you have used a kitchen with barely enough bench space for a chopping but let me tell you it won’t cut it. Certainly, not for my girlfriend who has been a commercial chef for three whole days or her mum who is no slouch in the kitchen herself. So I took what I can now wholeheartedly say was the correct route and did my damndest to fill the cracks with wood glue and sawdust, topping it off with some Rubio Monocoat (Cotton White if anyone is wondering). It hurt as a self-proclaimed perfectionist but it was necessary. Sometimes done is better than perfect. Besides, I will definitely fill them one day.

As usual I forgot to take good pictures of the process.

The next stage went a tad smoother as I quickly overcame my fear of Ikea furniture and assembled the outer two cabinets. We planned to make use of some very attractive soft close drawer slides and left over melamine I picked up from a friend, by custom building a two drawer middle cabinet. I nailed it first try and the drawers now close very softly into a very strong and square frame.

As the kitchen island started taking shape, we experimented with some different styles of handles I had made but the fit was wrong. Finally, we decided on some lovely, black, curved handles that contrasted perfectly with our timber countertop. One wrongly drilled hole, one new drawer front and the front, top and middle of the island were completed. Now for the back…

Nah kidding. No suspense. Aside from a $150 shipping quote, this was the easiest part. We quickly realised $150 for a $15 piece of backing board was not going to work and came to the solution of buying tongue and groove pre-primed boards and painting over them with matching white paint. I think the result speaks for itself.

My Girlfriend was impressed, win. My portfolio grew, win.