Cutting the butcher block.

Let me start by saying I have a really awesome neighbor. He owns “Cabinet Transformations of Ohio” and so when I invited him to look at our kitchen and hear our plans, he jumped on board! He took the lead with helping us remove our boomerang counters, cut and fit our new counters, and he’s coming back to connect our sink and install the new counters soon.

Eugene and his sister took a trip to Ikea and bought two 96” pieces of Numerar Oak butcher block countertops for $169 each. {We actually bought another smaller piece just in case, but we didn’t end up needing it.} We left the wood slabs in our kitchen for a week or so to adjust to the temperature/humidity of our room.

Once our counters were gone {hallelujah!}, our neighbor laid the butcher block on the cabinets, measured, lined them up, and traced the sink template onto the wood…

And just for kicks, here’s a sneak peak at my beloved sink…

I’ve never been so excited over a sink! It’s an undermount, low divide stainless steel sink from MR Direct that I snagged for $188.89 with the drain baskets and shipping. Oooh, aaaah. :)

Once my neighbor drew his template line for the sink, he drilled starter holes in each corner…

Next, he carefully cut slightly inside the line…

Once he got close to completing the round sink cut, he got really smart and screwed on this small board onto the piece of butcher block that would be falling inside the cabinet…

So when he finished the last cut, the board kept all in place so he could easily remove it without a big crash. {So smart!}

The only thing I would have done differently in this whole process would be to remove everything from under my sink. Sawdust mess!

Next up, he used this handy-dandy sander to patiently sand the slightly jagged edges back to the line he drew using the template…

{How sweet is this dusty action shot!}

It took him a little while to get it all sanded evenly and to the line, but when he finished, it looked fabulous!

After that, his next step {along with help from his son} was to cut & piece together the remaining pieces of counters…

You can see the pieces joined with screws and wood glue here. I didn’t go with a diagonal cut after some recommendations from other contractors. they all said it was nearly impossible to get it to fit perfectly and sealed well. The kitchen {and it’s existing cabinets} are far from perfect, so the straight cuts were just fine for us.

My neighbor also rounded the edges on the sink hole and sides of the counters…

Next up, sanding & sealing!