Anyone do away with their kitchen table & create an island table combo
ML G
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
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DrB477
7 years agoPipdog
7 years agoRelated Discussions
Q re. Island/tables, table skirts, seating, contractors boo boos
Comments (31)Thanks budge1!! I just got off the phone with tabletops.com. Holy cow do they have good customer service! I emailed my problem, and in no time received a response from the owner, and he says he's received this exact same question several times and is going to work on putting something up on his website or offering something to deal with the issue. Says he's gonna get his engineers on it :) Nice. Anyhow, he says he's done something similar in his own house, and notched out the table legs (he used 4 legs, 2 butting up against the cabinets and the 2 end ones) and ran a small i-beam down the length on each side which rests in the notches. Then he said he used epoxy to level out the top edge that the soapstone rests on (since the i-beam's are never totally straight) and voila! Apparently it's been holding up for years. I might see about some cross beams still, and doing it 'ladder style' but it's nice to know someone else's experiences (and the guy's a table maker, so that gives me more warm and fuzzies.) Thank you so much for the tip!...See MoreAnyone build a motorized sliding table in your kitchen?
Comments (42)marcolo, I also think it is likely that the floor will get damaged no matter what material you choose--you'll need the absolute minimum of deflection or tile and even granite will crack. I'm pretty sure that I've NEVER seen signs in buildings with granite floors which bar people who weight over 250 lbs from walking inside due to their propensity to crack the granite slabs on the floor. 250 lbs distributed over two 30" x 6" long cabinet legs, is 125 lbs per leg and, assuming even weight transferance over the surface area, a downward force of 100 lbs per sq. ft. To compare, a two legged woman with size 6 feet (8" x 3") and weighing 140 lbs exerts a downward force on that granite of 420 lbs per square foot. If a 140 lb woman can safely walk over a granite floor, then I don't think that I have to worry about granite cracking. So does the photo localeater posted really look so heinous to you? Oh the DRAMA!!11!! It's not about the alternative being heinous, it's about what I prefer. Even if my preference is whimsically slight, it's still real, it's still something that I have to face every morning, afternoon, and evening when I'm in the kitchen. A very small effect magnified over a very long time exposure can produce a big effect. I'm sure that if we opened that topic on this board - little things in your kitchen that get on your nerves - we'd have a never ending thread. Even if it does, why not switch the function of the peninsula and make that your butchery station, with a sink handy right beside? When clean, the wood countertop will also be more comfortable for people to sit at than stone. I appreciate the original thinking. I prefer access to a larger sink than to a small bar sink. I prefer to bake with stone surface rather than on a wood surface. No one will be sitting, at least by design, at the peninsula, so their preference for wood over stone is moot. It's usually a feature people like to showcase in their kitchen, not hide. I'd love to highlight the beautiful wood too, but I can't have everything I want and so the question devolves down to arranging priorities - "do I want to highlight the wood or do I want to favor the continuity of the stone in the countertop?" alongside of "will I be more peeved about hiding the wood or having to face the discontinuity in the countertop surface material?" I think this is an awful lot of engineering to achieve a cumbersome result. The engineering is a no-brainer. If you think that this is an ordeal then be thankful your not having to face what I'm doing with many of the other systems in the house. The placement of that table loses you the ability to use the main sink for handwashing, cleanup and fluid disposal without making a drippy mess across the floor. With the table fully extended I can stand at the edge of the table and still have a 26" run of the sink directly in front of me. The space between table edge and sink edge is 12". If there is drippage between table and sink and that lands on the floor how exactly is that any different than if there is drippage on any other surface when I'm moving material across a distance of 12"? If I dripped on a countertop I'd have to clean the drippage. Same with the floor - if something lands on the floor, I'll clean it. You know, again, if we polled people on this forum and asked them if they ever transported wet material from one point in their kitchen to another point, even a distance as short as 12", and they dripped during transit, did they believe that the drippage that occurred signaled a design failure in their kitchen, I'd venture that most people would see that drippage does not equate to design failure. YMMV....See MoreAnyone Have a Dining Table coming off the island?
Comments (1)annakendo's kitchen has something like that. I think it looks nice: http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/kitchbath/msg0221530014284.html I also have a houzz idea book with some island-table inspiration pics that might inspire you as well! Here is a link that might be useful: Houzz island-table ideabook...See Morekitchen table in kitchen--do we need island seating?
Comments (13)You need to decide how you want to use your space. If you want people facing you while you're prepping (if that's how you will use your island) but out of your way, get stools. If you'd rather not have people bugging you but still have them nearby, don't get stools. If people tend to bug you while you're in the kitchen anyway and you'd rather have them out of the kitchen, get stools. All of this totally depends on whether you have the space for it in the first place. The distance between our island counter and table is around 4'. Not enough space for back-to-back seating, but we like it so we make it work. We don't typically have people sitting in both spots except for big parties anyway. If you have less than that, it won't fit....See Moreannac54
7 years agolakeerieamber
7 years agoML G
7 years agoH202
7 years agoStan B
7 years agolast modified: 7 years agosmm5525
7 years agorcis719
7 months ago
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