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Notched Legs Make Shelving Easy
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Kitchen Island featuring Kent Legs 304-C36
with shelf frame installed into notched legs.
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A notch cut into your wood legs makes adding a shelf to any kitchen island or piece of furniture easy. All you have to do is build a shelf assembly with an outside diameter and thickness to fit into your pre-notched wooden legs. You choose the number of shelves, the shelf location, thickness of the notch and leg style. The variations are endless. We can cut the notches in your furniture leg order with our custom shelf notching service. Shelf Options How about a wooden frame with a stone top? Or a solid stone shelf? How about a wood frame with tile inset? For the kitchen island shown above, I made a rabbeted frame, and added shelf boards. For the Frame:
We rabbeted the frame stock so our ¾" thick deck would sit flush with the top edge. We then cut pieces to create the correct size frame. Because the frame corners get buried inside the island leg notch, the joinery winds up hidden. We used a very simple butt joint that was glued and fastened with countersunk screws. For the Shelf Boards:
We then fit three shelf boards to the inside of the frame. At the two board-to-board joints we put a saw kerf in the mating edges to create a floating spline joint. Be sure to leave some gap at the joints to allow for seasonal movement. | |  Table shelf spline joint. | | To hold the shelf boards in place we attached cleats to the inside of the shelf frame, and screwed into the bottom of the shelf board from underneath. For added support we installed a cleat under the shelf that spans the two longer frame pieces. TIP: If you are staining your project, you will need to pre-stain the edges of the boards, the edges of the rabbet and the spline to avoid looking at raw wood during the seasonal humidity changes. Installing the Shelf The full shelf assembly was to be captured in the four leg shelf notches, and would not be removable. Thus, it had to be installed as the table base is being assembled. After final assembly of the table base we fastened the shelf frame to the legs by screwing through the backside of the frame into the tapered island legs. Other Kitchen Island Design Notes Face Frame The face frame that creates the drawer openings was installed flush with the front of the legs so the legs become integral to the drawer openings. We used mortise and tenon joinery, and pegged the joints with our peg kit for a more traditional look. Aprons
The sides and back were made from apron stock. The bottom apron was a beaded apron. The top apron was square-edge. Each apron was tenoned, then glued and pegged into a corresponding leg mortise. Like the shelf, we added a spline joint and a light chamfer at the mating apron edges. Hardware & Finish
 The drawers run on 21" Blum tandem drawer slides with blumotion. The knobs are 1" K-12 solid brass knobs with wood screw in antique finish The finish on the kitchen island is simple- oiled cherry with eight coats of Whatco Oil, followed by four coats of carnauba wax - buffed out to a nice mellow sheen, sure to age nicely as the years go passing by.
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