I have had a few questions about our Ikea butcher block countertops. Mostly how they hold up and if we are happy with them long term. We have had them for, oh about 6 or 7 years now I think. Could be a bit longer.
I am happy to report that I love them more now than the day they went in! While I will sand out major stains (like grape juice, oops!), I don’t sweat the small stuff and I don’t worry about forgetting a cutting board if I am in a hurry. I find all the little wear and tear just adds to the character!
We use the butcher block treatment oil from Ikea to season them. The first time we did this, I did about 5 coats, letting each coat sit about 15 minutes before rubbing off excess. Now, I recoat about every 4 to 6 months and usually only one coat is required, but I always go heavy handed around the sink area.
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Before treating next time I will lightly sand out the ring that was left behind by an olive oil bottle. Otherwise I just skim sand the entire surface before recoating. The entire process takes only about a half hour to do all my countertops, plus the 15 minutes of sitting time.
This countertop is on the other side of the kitchen (not like the room is big it just looks so different being right by the window!) and is where I roll all of my pastry dough.
The beauty of these butcher block is that you would never know that on the other side of this slab of counter is the biggest, blackest burn mark you will ever see! At Christmas time last year, Tim set up our warming station, but accidently put the heating element upside down so it was right against the counter. It wasn’t until we started to clean up and moved it that we even realized. I freaked out at first, but then simply turned over the countertop. Good as new! (Tim had never gotten around to fastening this piece in to the counter – and it turns out that was a good thing!)
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The one thing that is a thorn in my side is this raised edge sink. Not a good idea, no matter what counters you choose. It requires re-caulking often as water can pool up against the outer raised edge and cause the caulking to lift and water to get underneath. Obviously you cannot wipe crumbs right into the sink, which also annoys me. I do love the look of the white porcelain, and we will be switching this out to an under mount or farmhouse apron style kitchen in the near future.
We choose the Ikea butcher block because the price is so reasonable and I can honestly say the quality is outstanding! The wood has never raised even when water has sat on it unnoticed for a time. It is easy to maintain and it fits in with my coastal cottagey feel! Not to mention we were looking for a DIY option to help keep the total cost down.
So, there you have it. Although I lust after granite or marble when I see it in magazines, I really am in love with my butcher block and can’t see us changing it anytime soon!Today is countertop day! Can I get a holla?! Yes, we are still talking about our IKEA kitchen. DIYing an IKEA kitchen is no joke. So. Much. Work! The countertops were not DIY (thank goodness) – IKEA sent a crew over to measure and install the countertops. We are super happy with them and am glad we purchased them through IKEA.
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When we ordered our kitchen through IKEA we told them we wanted to purchase the countertops also. We chose our material and they did a rough square footage to come up with the cost. They also gave us their 3rd party company that installs the counters and told us to call them when we were ready to schedule the templating.
IKEA also told us that if we had the countertop company come out and the kitchen wasn’t 100% ready, they would not template. They needed the kitchen finished – including all filler pieces. They didn’t need every aspect of the kitchen finished, but wherever the countertop was going to touch cabinets or filler, those areas needed to be 100% finished.
As you can see in these photos, areas like the pantry and upper cabinets are not finished with all the filler, but since the counter wasn’t going to touch those areas we didn’t need them complete.
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I called the countertop company and scheduled them about a week out. That gave me a week to get the kitchen completely ready for the templating. I was up late the night before finishing little details at the last minute.
The templating process was fascinating! I wasn’t sure how they would do it, and watching the guy work was enlightening. Maybe I’m the only one who geeks out over this stuff, but I thoroughly enjoyed learning the process of coutnertops.
They used strips of balsa wood. Balsa wood is very soft and cuts easily. He laid out the strips and hot glued them together. Then he took a utility knife and easily cut the excess off.
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You can see how he made the small section for the wrap-around counter. This kitchen is starting to take shape and I am more than excited about it!
They took all these templates back to their shop to cut the counters. I guess I assumed they would just measure a lot and then transpose it to the countertops, but they used these real templates as stencils to cut the counters perfectly.
About a week later they showed back up with the cut counters. The first one to go on was our island overhang. Oh the excitement of seeing this finally and being able to visualize sitting here!
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Here’s our sink and wrap-around counter being slid into place. I am thrilled that they were able to do the mini countertop on the same slab and reduce the number of seams in the kitchen.
I’m not exactly sure how it works. I don’t know if it’s just holding the seams together tightly while glue dries, or if it heats it or what, but the seams are tight after this.
They also installed the under-mount sink. I forgot to mention, when they did the template, they took the sink back to the shop with them to make sure they had a perfect fit before coming back to install everything.
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Once the sink was in place they drilled a hole for the faucet. I opted to have only one hole drilled. He suggested to do another one for soap, but I didn’t want extra holes in my new counter.
I couldn’t wait to unpack our new barstools and put them under the counter. Lots of time will be spent sitting at these barstools!
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