In addition to building wooden furniture and other items, I also like to repurpose old items. This workbench sat in someone’s basement for many, many years. The top has all sorts of dents, dings, and other marks that show it’s age. Now it’s a repurposed kitchen island.

It’s about 20 inches wide and 4 feet long, just perfect for a small kitchen island workstation.

Before

After cleaning it up and sanding it thoroughly, I added a bottom shelf (an old floor joist out of a church built in 1896) and simply applied several coats of Minwax wipe-on polyurethane. Add a couple wire baskets, fill them with potatoes and onions, and this repurposed kitchen island was ready to go!

What I learned

Patina is everything.

Yes, it is possible to distress wood and make it look like it is much older than it is. But you can only do so much. Old pieces like this have so much character and patina! If you have old wooden items around, consider restoring them and using them for new purposes. Give them life again.