Make your own butcher's table/kitchen island unit

One of my long-held wishes - to have a house with a large kitchen, big enough for a dining table and plenty of cupboards - was fulfilled when I moved from London to west Dorset in 2018. In fact, it was the size of the kitchen, with its large windows on two sides with views of Chesil Beach and Portland Marina, which sold the house to me. 

But as any keen cook knows, you can't have too many cupboards or worktop space. I had been hankering after a modern butcher's style table or island unit for awhile and my son, who is a professional chef, pointed out that such an addition to the kitchen layout would be very useful. 

These pieces of furniture do not come cheap. Even an Ikea unit is upwards of £100 and many are designed and built for decorative rather than practical purposes and may not be that sturdy. It was Pinterest, the image sharing social media platform, which provided the inspiration for my own butcher's table - a simple frame made from galvanised steel tubes (like scaffold poles) and key clamp fittings, with wooden shelves, mounted on castors for mobility. 

 

Initially, I intended to put a woodblock top on the table, so that it could be used as a chopping board, but my husband suggested something more style - a Formica and plywood top. We found a company which could supply a bespoke Formica worktop, and we bought two other pieces of plywood (which we varnished) for the other shelves. The metal frame was bought as a kit from Simplified Building UK, and the castors came from Screwfix. 

I am delighted with the end result - it's both stylish and practical, and it has enabled me to liberate some of the cupboard space in my kitchen. 

Recipe for 1 metal table from consisting of: 

4 x legs/upright poles 

2 x horizontal poles 

1 x central pole to support the middle shelf 

8 x flanges to support the poles 

4 x Key clamp fixings 

4 x castors (ideally, get 2 with brakes) 

1 x worktop 

1 x middle shelf 

1 x bottom shelf 

Simplified Building UK supplies table frames as a kit, but there are a few things to bear in mind before you order the frame.

Things we learnt when making the table. 

"Measure twice, cut once!"

Standard kitchen cupboards + worktop are usually 900mm high, providing an egonomically practical worktop. You will probably want your butcher's table/island unit to be roughly the same height as your existing worktop, so aim for c900mm as the total height of the unit, including the combined thickness of the worktop and bottom shelf, and height of the castors.

When ordering the wood, take into account the fact that a standard kitchen worktop is 600 mms deep and 40 mm thick. You need to also factor in the thickness of the wood for the bottom shelf. The middle shelf will be narrower and I recommend ordering the wood for it after you have assembled the frame.

The castors will add c75-100mm to the height

The flanges have a rim of c20mm, adding 40mm to the width and length of the frame

So, if you are planning to put a standard width worktop on your table, the metal frame will need to be 400mm wide. I used 600mm high poles for the legs, with 2 x 25mm thick plywood for the middle and bottom shelves.

I purchased a Formica and plywood worktop 36mm thick, 1050mm long. 

The frame itself is easy to assemble using just an allen key (included with the kit). The Key clamp fittings just slide onto the tube and are set in place using grub screws. The middle shelf simply rests on the frame and worktop and bottom shelf are screwed on, ditto the castors. 

 

Optional extras:

Storage baskets

Saucepan lid rack

Wine rack

Suppliers:

Simplified Building UK - key clamp table kits (and other furniture kits)

Farmwood Timber - Birch plywood worktop with Formica laminated top

Worktop Express - standard and bespoke woodblock worktops in oak, beech, ash, walnut etc