House Update ~ Chronicles of a bungled real estate deal ~ Kitchen Counters & Floor Part 1

We have priced just about every type of kitchen counter top there is at every home improvement store within 150 miles. We finally decided to do it ourselves. We still wanted a farm style family kitchen feel. I had a piece of butcher block that had been siting around for years unused, it was part of a kitchen cart kit that mostly got destroyed in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. I recently sanded it and mineral oiled it. It has ‘weathered’ really well over the last month, so we finally decided we were going to put in butcher block counter tops. When all was said and done we are also going to save over $3000.00 dollars by using real wood instead of a manufactured cheap laminate.

We really like the color and it compliments the stain on the cabinets as wells as the floor tiles we’ve picked.
So today we started with the “baking center” side of the kitchen. It was a straighter shot with no cut outs. We thought that would be the safer way to test the waters so to speak and make sure we weren’t biting off more than we wanted.

Hubby started by attaching the side by side units together and putting a spacer in the rear to straighten out the edges. He then cut a thin piece of CDX as a base top.

Don’t you just love my kitchen as a staging area?

Then we laid out the first two pieces to match the grains. Then hubby cut the back splash pieces and we leveled and attached the back splashes to each piece. Then we took them back off and applied a good layer of heavy duty liquid nails.

We lined them up well and then weighted them down (I knew some day hubby’s weights would come in handy) and left them to cure. Tomorrow I will sand them good and then mineral oil them so they can start to cure.

We decided on 18×18 inch ceramic tile for the floor, but are not ready to do the floors yet, those will be last. But, every time we go to Home Depot I pick up 6 tiles and have just been laying them in the kitchen. Eventually I’ll have all the tiles without having broken my back to bring them home (they are really heavy) and I’m hoping that is about the time we’re actually ready to do the floor LOL.

final blog signature.
Leslie

I just forwraded this post to my son – those are the kitchen tiles I want. The size and approximate shade.

Great minds think alike. My sister has something like them too.