Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Cheap + Cheerful: Countertops

In my previous post describing how we DIY'd (yeah, that's a verb now) the kitchen cabinets, you may be wondering how we decided up on that glorious butcher block countertop.
Well, the pre-renovation budget (in which we had unicorns and sparkly dreams) allowed for marble countertops.  Since we wanted this kitchen to be a crowd-pleaser, we thought we would do a light marble slab.  The size of the countertop is not large (around 6 feet by 2 feet) so its really not THAT bad a budget hit.

Needless to say, the budget for the countertop was cut to basically $0 so that's when we decided to get creative (aka Cheap + Cheerful!) and resort to checking out IKEA butcher block countertops.
NUMERAR in Oak

You can buy them in various sizes and finishes. We chose Oak, a nice medium shade with a pretty traditional edge. I found this countertop just now and kinda wish we had done this one, which I definitely don't remember seeing at IKEA, possibly because IKEA is so disorienting:


Anyway, we had it cut to fit and installed in place of the white plastic business that was formerly there:

So far, I really like it. Its not that easy to keep clean though, and I have already make cut marks into it accidentally with knives. You can make it more personal by having a custom edge cut into the sides although its not my style (a bit too traditional, I think) but it would be a good way to set yourself apart from every other IKEA butcher block:
Image via Apartment Therapy

Other blogs I have read, including House Tweaking recommend a mineral oil treatment to keep it glossy and clean. That seems a little too much work for me personally, because I have a very demanding kitty and there's white wine to drink, y'all. 

Have you ever used IKEA in a pinch? What were your results?

2 comments:

  1. What a neat idea! PS: I noticed you mentioned Young House Love in the other post, EXCELLENT BLOG, I was going to ask you if you read them, you must get such great ideas from them!

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  2. Yeah I pretty much love them so much I hate them. Thanks for the comment!

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