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 sc