3-in-1 Expedit Kitchen Counter

Materials: Expedit Shelf, Vika Amon Table Top, Capita Legs

Description: So my wife and I were setting up our first home, and it's a small but beautiful white box of a place with a minimalist excuse of a kitchen along one wall of the living room.

We figured we needed some sort of dining table, plus more kitchen counter space, space to work at our laptops, plus general storage... all without taking up precious living room space. What better solution than to use the Expedit bookcase on its side as a storage base for a kitchen/dining counter!

Sure, we've seen lots of hacks with Expedit shelves, Capita legs and various table tops, but I thought I'd just share the little touches that made this project extra special.

1) Ingredients: One Expedit Shelf, assembled. Check!

2) The underbelly of my Vika Amon table top. Note the asymmetrical positioning of the Capita legs, cuz of my cantilevered design!

3) Since I knew the cantilevered top would have to take a lot of stress, I figured that I had to secure the Capita Legs to the Expedit with more than just double sided foam tape. This is a closeup of how each Capita leg base was screwed into the Expedit. I had to chisel away bits of plastic to fit the screw heads. (The bits of 3M tape were just there to help me position the legs accurately.)

4) The metal cap hides the screws completely!

5) The penultimate step... just before popping the table top onto the plastic feet.

6)The gap under the table top is perfect for keeping our 2 laptops and with mice and cables away for mealtimes!

7) The table top floats away from the wall for more comfortable seating (no one likes to be squeezed against the wall). The resultant gap is perfect for keeping table-top accessories like utensils and tissues. Our Nespresso machine lives there now.

8) The finished Kitchen-counter/Dining-Table/Work-Station. 3-in-1! Completed with a few Kassett boxes and Stig stools. The open shelving lets light through to our kitchen, with space to display our books and knick-knacks.

Enjoy!

P.S. The curvy wooden thing is an stool I made as a freshman design+build project in architecture school. Cost me a bomb to fly that back home to Singapore from Pittsburgh, but it is so happy to have the place of honour at our dining table! (And it's way more comfortable than the Stig stools!!)

~ ucn, Singapore