When I lived in Birmingham I had the pleasure of working with a couple in my neighborhood that were in the process of remodeling their kitchen. I built a large custom kitchen cabinet and refinished butcher block counter tops. Haley bought the counter tops from Ikea in Atlanta and brought them to me to work on. I did a lot of research before I got started and all the blogs made it seem so easy…. oh just sand it a little to get the factory coat off and then stain it and bam! you are done. Not so much. I don’t know if I had unreal expectations of how thick the factory oil coat would be or what but I sanded and sanded and sanded and sanded some more!!! I have a really good sander and I’m very thankful since I spent so much time using it. Once I got the factory finish off I started measuring everything over and over again to make sure all my cuts were perfect. I had to cut both pieces down to size, cut out the hole for the sink and faucet, and cut out a little notch to fit around a place on the wall. I had to make all the cuts perfect because if my measurements were off it would have messed everything up.
You can really see how dark the cabinet is compared to the natural wood on the counter tops in this picture. This is also before the hardware was added to the cabinet drawers and doors.
Starting the staining process. And the is the other side of the counter top that attaches to the piece with the sink. I used Minwax Special Walnut oil based stain. I ended up putting on 3 coats with at least 12 hours of drying time between coats.
I used a sealer that I had read about on 2 other blogs and they seemed to really like it but I wasn’t impressed. I’ve used a number of different poly’s on other projects and to me this stuff was the hardest to keep smooth. I had to sand it a lot between coats and I felt like it left streaks no matter what I applied it with. I ended up doing about 6 coats of sealer before I was completely happy with the way it looked and I let them dry at least 12 hours in between. I only did 2 coats of sealer on the bottom of the counter tops and I did that first so I wouldn’t have to worry about being so careful with them when I flipped it over to do the top.
The whole project was an adventure since it wasn’t something I’ve ever taken on before but I loved it!! I am so happy with the way the counter tops came out and I would absolutely do it again. Actually I hope to remodel a kitchen of my own in the future and install stained butch block counter tops because I like it so much.
I found your kitchen on the handmade home and just wanted to tell the wood counters you did were beautiful! I've had my 2nd set of IKEA butcher block countertops for 3 years and love them. I posted a long tutorial about the staining sealing process that has helped tons of people maybe it will help you on your next project.
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Your blog is actually one of the blogs I read before I started the counter tops. I added some other posts on here from my old blog and I used Waterlox and didn't like it at all. I don't know if it was because of the weather at the time I was working on the project but I found it to be a pain to work with. Your blog was very helpful though with other things and I was really glad I found it and referred back to it a number of times in the process. I will admit this blog post wasn't the best in the world and I put it up in a hurry after finding out that Haley's kitchen would be featured, I didn't remember I had other older posts on my old blog until it was too late.
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