Our kitchen isn’t all that big but when we did our outdated kitchen transformation, I felt like there was room for a small kitchen island. You know… like an islet. The extra room would be so helpful. I didn’t want to spend the bucks on one and Roy would have gladly built something for me but the first thing we did was look over our current “stuff”. Ends up we had the perfect thing staring us right in the face. Not everyone is that lucky I realize but what we used was something my dad had made me a few years back to hold appliances in a kitchen that was much smaller than what we have now. Ironically it was just the right height. It just needed a facelift to work in our current home. Sometimes it doesn’t take much to fix something up for another use. Below is what we did. If you need to build your own and like the rough wood look, you don’t need a lot of skill. Check out our Kitchen Trash Can On Wheels we made to go in the new kitchen. You might also want to check out our contact paper countertop in case you want to use the finish we used on that for the top of your small kitchen island.
Small Kitchen Island Photos
This is a few years back when my dad originally made the stand for me so I’d have a place to put some of my appliances. He made it to fit that spot exactly!
When I realized it would work for our small kitchen island the first thing we did was give it a fresh coat of white paint.
Next, some contact paper was purchased that matched the kitchen theme and it was placed on top. 
To make it extra sturdy, I’ve decided once this wears out I will put on a new cover of contact paper and then give it 3 coats of water soluble varnish just like I did for our bathroom contact paper countertop makeover. It turned out beautiful and sturdy! Check out that post to see the tools you’ll need to do it. It’s simple to do and worth the effort. 
I wanted a towel rack on the island, so rather than buy one Roy made one from wood and a dowel and two ends caps we had.
I panted it and added some bright towels. 
On the other side I hung a white metal hook to hold one of my larger wood cutting boards since we use the island for cutting a great deal of the time. 
It’s perfect and not so big that it gets in the way and it allows us the extra bit of space we need! 
