My New Cooking Demo Worktop

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From watching my KeefCooks cooking videos, you might think my kitchen is blessed with an island
unit that I can stand behind and you can see the action from the front. But actually, it isn't. For the last few years I've been using a ramshackle assemblage of our dining table with one leaf folded down, a Black & Decker Workmate, a folding support thing that spans from table to Workmate and raises the height by about 6 inches, and a big, solid slab of oak sitting on top of all that. It took a long time to set up and put away, and also I've been getting fed up of the overwhelming oakiness of our kitchen.

I decided to create a new solution - basically a tabletop with folding legs - long ones to reach down to the floor, and shorter ones to sit on the table. And then I needed a fascia to help stabilise the thing, and to conceal what lies beneath. I chose some grey slate-effect laminate flooring for the top - it's only 8mm thick, so it's not too heavy.

The only thing I'm not happy about is the colour of the softwood trim around the edge. I'd bought some coloured varnish that claimed to be light oak but in actual fact is quite orange. So for the near future, I'll be changing the colour of that in post-production of my videos. I tell you, this video lark is all smoke and mirrors.

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