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Make a movable island for flexible use of kitchen space

130lbs kitchen island made movable with casters.

We’ve just had kitchen fitters in, and we’re very pleased with our new kitchen. Part of the job was removing cabinets from a short wall on one side.

We wanted this area to be flexible rather than more cabinets – therefore the idea was born of an island to move about as an additional cooking surface as well as workstation for working from home.

When we’re done with it, we can push the island to the wall to pack it away. To set it off, a box seat to give us extra storage. Voilà!

movable kitchen island

Related: Update freestanding kitchen island with VADHOLMA rack

The trickiest part to consider for this project was choosing the right wheel.

Because the VADHOLMA has wooden legs, it was determined that ‘bolt hole’ castors would work best, with no greater than an M10 bolt size. The reason for this is to ensure that the wood inserts that hold the castors would fit well, and the leg would remain stable at the bottom. Point to note, the leg width dimension is approximately 35mm x 45mm.

There are other factors to consider when choosing the right castor wheels as well – wheel diameter, overall height, material and load capacity. In the end, we chose wheels that had individual load capacity of 70kg, and total capacity (of 4 wheels) of 210kg. That is plenty, bearing in mind the island weighs about 60kg. We went with a rubber wheel so it can grip the tiled floor. We chose 2 braked wheels rather than 4 because the non-braked wheel is a little less obtrusive.

Materials:
IKEA VADHOLMA

VADHOLMA kitchen island with rack | IKEA.com

  • IKEA VADHOLMA kitchen island
  • 80mm Swivel Bolt Hole Braked Castor wheels (x2)
  • 80mm Swivel Bolt Hole Castor wheel with brake (x2).
  • M10 thread-in wood inserts (x4)
  • M10 bolts (x4).
  • Medium duty M10 metal washers (optional)
Tools:

Movable VADHOLMA kitchen island:

  1. Flip the VADHOLMA over on to its top.
  2. Drill holes into the bottom of the legs to the length of the bolt. Drill the hole so it is sized for the main body of the insert.
  3. Screw the wood inserts into each leg till they sit flush with the bottom of the leg.
  4. Take a castor wheel and thread the bolt through the bolt hole of the wheel and into the wood insert. Tighten the bolt. (fyi, we used the washer here as our wheel actually had an M12 bolt hole).
  5. Repeat for all 4 wheels.
  6. Done.

Note, we have the braked wheels on one side and the regular ones on the other side.

movable kitchen island
movable kitchen island
Update:

So, the single wood insert failed after a couple of days, so we decided to go for 3 in each leg, and to glue in the last one with epoxy. This has done the trick to date!

This was a very satisfying hack, credit for the inspiration to my wonderful wife.

Overall, we are very pleased with how our movable kitchen island turned out — it rolls around really nicely now. The kitchen fitters were in admiration too!

~ by Farhan

The post Make a movable island for flexible use of kitchen space appeared first on IKEA Hackers.

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