Sage – Author at Plaster & Disaster

This summer we built a 12′ bench along the outer wall of the dining room:

Then I screwed up the courage to sew a custom cushion for said bench:

That definitely helped it feel a lot more finished, but my plan all along was to finish the frame with a single 12′ piece of wood across the front of the bench — I just needed to wait until the fall when we would have the station wagon my stepdad leaves with us from September – May so I could actually transport a 12′ long board.

Recently I did just that, picking up a 12″x 12′ length of pine from Home Depot for about $25. I used my circular saw to trim the board to the exact length of the bench, and then applied wood stain (Minwax English Chestnut). After the stain dried, I brought the board upstairs to put in place, where I quickly discovered it was about 1/8″ too long. No bueno.

Rather than haul the whole thing back downstairs again, I used the our dining chairs as sawhorses and made the cut in the dining room:

Then I used my amazing nail gun (thank you Naomi!!!!!) to nail the board along the front of the bench frame. With it in place, the bench legs were looking a little wimpy (sorry, I forgot to snap a photo at that stage because I was busy squinting and trying to figure out what to do). So I used some spare boards to build out some simple new legs around the existing ones, nailing them in place. Here are some awful photos of that process:

And the bench was officially finished!

Except I didn’t like the dark stain. I actually did this a few weeks ago and have been living with it to see if it grew on me, but the more I thought about my plans for the dining room and wanting to have the table and chairs be the stars (I’ve got plans for those, more to come soon!), the more I knew that the eye-catching dark bench was not right. So I painted it white.

NOW the bench is officially finished. I like the white so much better — it’s Chantilly Lace, the same as the walls, and it just blends in so much more and will let other bold and colorful elements shine. Right now it maybe looks a little boring, but once we finish furnishing the space I think it will be just right. I do wish the front could be solid all the way to the ground, but I didn’t want to close off our AC floor vent and the heat register running along the whole wall.

All told this whole project cost me $175 — $75 for the wood and screws, and $100 for the cushion materials. For a 12′ bench, that’s not too bad!

Also, in case you’re wondering if I have stayed true to my cabinet painting schedule, I have indeed! I won’t do a full reveal yet because I still have a few steps left (which I plan to finish by November 6, as promised), but here’s a sneak peak of how things are looking:

Back in March, I explained my plans for the counters: white corian on the “L” that forms the main portion of the kitchen, and then butcher block on the island, the cabinets on either side of the pantry, and the passthrough between kitchen and dining room. I love the look of butcher block but worried it was too high maintenance for me to use on my main cooking surfaces, and I love the corian but it’s expensive so I was looking to minimize how much I needed. Combining the two seemed like the best of both worlds.

I forged ahead with getting the corian installed, and we really love it. Even though it’s white, it really hasn’t stained yet even when we spill and delay on wiping things up (though I’m definitely someone who wipes down the counter every night…I am messy about some things, but always clean the kitchen counters each evening). I love how bright it is, and the contrast against our new blue cabinets (still in progress, don’t worry you haven’t missed a reveal!).

Affordable butcher block -- Plaster & Disaster

The reason one of the doors is there but not the rest of the doors/drawers is that the one on the bottom hides our trash. We can’t live with that out in the open for the 3 weeks the rest are in the basement, so I’ve been painstakingly painting it in place.

But my progress on the butcher block has not been so timely. Even as the paint started going on these past few weeks, there were still remnants of the old blue counters hanging around on the island and base cabinet next to the pantry:

And the “coffee bar” above the “recycling station” on the other side of the pantry is still purely theoretical.

The big reason for this is that I have been struggling to find affordable butcher block for all these distinct surfaces. Each one is different dimensions, but I wanted the butcher block to be consistent which meant I couldn’t just cobble together a bunch of pieces from different sources (if I’d been looking for just one piece, for instance, I might have looked on craigslist).

But this weekend I knew I really needed to just make a decision already because with the cabinets almost done, it’s time to start wrapping up all the loose ends. I felt like my best bet was to figure out the right way to fit the various pieces together so that they could be cut from a single piece (or two pieces if needed), so Saturday I measured everything out to see exactly what I was working with:

Then I started searching high and low for butcher block, examining the dimensions of available slabs and considering how I could combine the pieces I needed to fit with those dimensions. One source that my stepdad directed me toward is Global Industrial, which sells really affordable butcher block tops. I could have gotten a 48″ x 30″ piece for $124, which would have worked perfectly and been a steal if I just needed the island top. But none of their available dimensions would have let me get away with buying anything less than three different slabs, which would really start to add up.

I kept googling around growing increasingly desperate, and that’s when I found butcher block being sold relatively affordably by Lumber Liquidators. First I found their maple butcher block, which is listed right now for $233.99 for a 25″ x 8′ slab or 36″ x 6′, but a few days ago was on sale for cheaper (I think like $125?).

However, when I read the reviews, people said that the pieces had a lot more color variation than the official photos made it seems, and that seemed to be born out in the photos that folks posted in their reviews:

I really wanted a fairly uniform and light wood, so that did not seem like the right option for me. However, I decided to search their site a bit more, and that’s when I found their Hevea butcher block, which also came in 25″ x 8′ and 36″ x 6′ options. And each option was $99.99.

I read the reviews and looked at reviewer photos, and the Hevea appeared to be much lighter and more uniform in color, with very positive reviews. Here’s one reviewer photo:

I was sold on the price and the look, but I still didn’t know how to get the pieces I needed for the best price — how many slabs would I need, and would the 25″ x 8′ or 36″ x 6′ be better? So I stared at my dimensions, ran a bunch of calculations (that makes it sound more complex than what it was, which was “addition”), and finally determined that I could get all four pieces I needed by purchasing two of the 25″ x 8′ slabs:

Two pieces would come to just $200, seemed like a really good deal for that amount of nice butcher block, plus the shipping was free if I had it sent to a local store for pickup. I figured out there is a store about 20 minutes from my house and we have a station wagon again (my stepdad leaves his Subaru with us September through May each year when he and my mom are living on a sailboat) so I knew I could actually pick it up. And so after procrastinating for seven months, I finally made the purchase!

I assumed it would be awhile before it arrived at the local store, but later that same afternoon I got a call from them saying it was in stock and I could come get it any time. I happened to have some free time because I’d just finished a coat of paint on the cabinets and there was nothing I could do but wait for them to dry, so I headed over right then and there and they very kindly loaded up the car! They fit perfectly with the back seats down and the passenger seat reclined back with the headrest removed.

I was so excited to see them out of their boxes, but Sam was at work (on a Saturday, what a drag) and I couldn’t carry them myself, so I patiently waited until the next day. Naomi and I hung out all day and so it was late by the time I got home. However, with the final hour of daylight I squeezed in the time to cut, sand, install, and oil the island piece (daylight necessary because right now my house is full of drying cabinet pieces that I refuse to expose to excessive sawdust). I’ll do a full post about this process soon, but in the meantime just wanted to show a shot of the island piece in place (showing the new kitchen cabinets, still sans doors/drawers!):

I’m pretty pleased, and thrilled that I went from having no idea where I’d buy these to having them partially installed in just 24 hours.

Please ignore literally everything else in this photo

Anyway, just wanted to share that update and some details on how I got the pieces I needed for the lowest cost. And if you’re in need of butcher block, buy them from Lumber Liquidators while the price is still so good! They would such affordable counters!