How To Build And Shiplap A Kitchen Island

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This was such a great project! Before we even started our kitchen remodel, we knew we wanted an island. Once the wall was demoed, we did a bunch of configurations to see where and how big we could go. We wanted to maximize the space we had.

There are a lot of things to consider and I explained it all in, Kitchen Cabinets Going In.

Kitchen Island - 3 cabinets connected together

For our island, we basically attached 3 base cabinets together, two 18" base cabinets and one 27" base cabinet. Then in order to dress is up and finish off the raw side, we decided to do a shiplap detail.

I couldn't just add shiplap to the back, at least not the kind we do. We use sheets of underlayment, cut into 5 7/8" strips. We've done this shiplap treatment in many other projects!

Farmhouse Powder Room

Bedroom Accent Wall

Home Office Wall

Living Room Wall Makeover

It's definitely a cheaper route to the traditional tongue and groove shiplap. We love it! And we have plans to do this in the living room, master bedroom... and more!

Priming underlayment for back of kitchen island

Anyhooo, back to the island.... We used a full sheet of underlayment cut to the size of the back of our island. Primed, glued and nailed to the back of the cabinets.

underlayment attached to back side of island

Now we are ready to shiplap! This is the fun part!!

I cut all the pieces to size and primed them. Then it's just a matter of gluing and nailing them in place.

It's a pretty easy process. I use nickels as my spacer between the boards.

Now it's time to add trim. This way all the edges are covered. It will make the whole island look finished and complete.

In the next photo, we were trying to figure out the trim before we even got started with the shiplap. It's all a part of the process. Did we want 1x3? or a 1x4? or 1x6? It helps to tape them up to get an idea.

If you look at the front side edge of the cabinet, you will see a tiny lip on the side from the front face of the cabinets. The shiplap is almost exactly the same thickness, which worked out perfect! Our trim will completely cover that lip!

Here Hubby is adding the trim to the corners for a seamless look. We aren't adding the bottom trim where it meets the floor, because our flooring isn't going in quite yet. So, we used a piece of flooring plus the 1x4 and that gave us the length for our trim pieces.