Baby's bottom butcher block

Boom.  Countertop.

YEEEEAAAHH!

 Look, it's the continuous plane of countertop I've always wanted!  No more random cabinet and stove jumbled together with Grammy's buffet and shoved together in the middle of the room.  Basically, it's one giant work table with a stove in the middle.  With so many windows and doors around the perimeter of the kitchen, this makes up about 90% of our counter space.  At 73x56", we can easily fit 4-5 people working around it and...

 

... it's got an 8" overhang so the guests on the cooking show can have a place to tuck their knees.

It clocks in at the whopping price of free because my dad made it out of a maple butcher block table he found discarded on the sidewalk and some cherry that he cut over a decade ago from the woodlot next to the house I grew up in.  (OK, wait, I think he may have spent a few bucks on the oil we used to condition it.  And I suppose we should also consider the time and/or skin he put into it.)

It's tough to tell how baby-soft it is in the photos, but trust me, it feels niiiiice.  While Dad worked on cabinet details, Gabe and I practiced our de-whiskering skills.  This is a process you would use to "finish" wood surfaces that aren't getting a varnish-type coating, such as cutting boards, rolling pins, or this fabulous butcher block countertop.  It's a pretty simple process that makes a huge difference. First, wipe the surface with a damp rag.  Then dry it quickly with a blow dryer or heat gun.

That's my Star Trek blow dryer. 

Fact: my blow dryer gets used more often for home improvement than actually drying my hair. I spent about a half hour looking for it for this project before finding it in the basement...next to a box of plastic film used for shrink-wrapping drafty windows in the winter.

The water and heat raises the grain of the wood ever so slightly. Look closely and you'll see and feel that the wood fibers all raise in the same direction.  If I had a microscope that could take photos I would demonstrate this for you. Then you take some pretty fine sandpaper and sand only against the direction in which the fibers are raised, like shaving against the direction of your hair.  Do this a few times until you can hardly feel the fibers anymore after the blow-drying step. It's pretty simple and doesn't take that much time.  (Here's a video if you're just dying to see it in action.) We did it 5-6 times and now it feels fantabulous.

After you've de-whiskered all the whiskers, dump on a whole bunch of butcher block oil and wipe it in.  Then do that a few more times until it looks smooth and wonderful.  We used J.E. Moser's Butcher Block Oil at the recommendation of my brother Andy, who knows these things. (Happy birthday, Andy!)

Here's another view.  (Still in love with that stove, btw.)

We are super duper excited to have a real countertop.  We've also had stone templated for next to the sink.  Ooooh, can't wait!

Champ helped clean up all the sawdust.  What would we do without him?