Seamingly Obvious

So, the island is finally DONE! We have a working dishwasher! And a working convection oven! I cooked a pork roast in ten minutes flat. Not bad, eh?

Of course, I don't have any pictures of the finished island - that would be too easy. What I DO have however, is a mini-tutorial on how to seam Ikea butcher block together.

From day one of island planning, Mike and I knew that if we wanted to save money by going the Ikea route, we'd have to seam together two pieces of their butcher block to get the proper size. When we looked into doing this online, we could not find ANYTHING on seaming Ikea butcher block. Sure, plenty of people were seaming end-to-end to use for counter tops, but we needed to seam it horizontally - the long way. After searching for instructions and coming up empty, Mike decided to bite the bullet and go for it. I don't know if it was sheer luck or sheer genius or both, but the end result looks damn near perfect. Can you find the seam in this picture? Yeah, me neither - but it's there somewhere:


If you are interested in doing this, here's the play by play:

We started with two pieces of 73 1/4 x 39 3/8" birch butcher block (which you can find here: www.ikea.com). To create our 48 x 65" island, we could have bought the smaller, cheaper 73 1/4 x 25 5/8" pieces of butcher block, but decided to use the remnant we'd be creating for our future laundry room project. Two birds, one stone and all. So anyway, we used almost the entire first piece of butcher block and added about 10" from the second piece - creating a nice, big remnant for the laundry room.

To begin, Mike made horizontal cuts on both pieces of butcher block, at the first possible seam (about 1.5 inches in), using a circular saw with a fine blade (the higher number of teeth, the better). He had made a guide for the circular saw, to ensure a straight, clean edge on both pieces. These cuts were very important, as these were the ends that would be seamed together and therefore, the cuts had to be as close to perfect as possible. An added bonus to having extra butcher block to work with was the option to re-do a cut if we weren't happy with the result - we'd simply move to the next seam and try again.

Once we had two cuts we were happy with, Mike used a router with a straight tip router bit to fix any inconsistencies caused by the circular saw. He ended up taking about 1/16 to 1/8 of an inch off each edge, again using the homemade guide for accuracy. He then used a biscuit joiner, roughly every six inches and a Kreg Tool (found here: http://www.kregtool.com/index.php) to put screws in between every biscuit. This was definitely overkill, but as we have an overhang portion on our island, where part of the heavy butcher block top is supported only by turned legs rather than a base, we decided to err on the side of caution.

Then, Mike applied wood glue at the new seam and used four HUGE four foot clamps to hold the pieces together. We spread the four clamps out over the 73" length of the island and they worked fine. We then let the glue dry for 24 hours. A tip: do NOT wipe glue residue while it is still wet. This will only cause it to spread thin and it will become even more difficult to remove when it dries.

After the glue had set for 24+ hours, Mike lightly scraped and sanded all glue residue from the top. He then made the vertical cuts needed to take the 73" length to 65". Once the top was properly sized, Mike again used the router, this time with a Roman ogee bit, to put a nice custom edge on it:



At the end of the day, this is what the island looked like (before dishwasher and convection oven were installed):
We still have to treat the top with mineral oil, but we are very happy with the results so far. Not bad for $400 worth of Ikea butcher block, especially considering the laundry room table we'll get out of it. Quite a difference between $400 and the $1000-$2000 we were quoted for finished pieces of butcher block this size.

Gotta love money-saving DIY goodness.

On an Island in the Sun

I wish. But, we do have an island! And, technically, it is in the sun.



Mike never ceases to amaze. He's about 2/3 done with our kitchen island. The pictures really don't do it justice. For one, those are just our old, beat up chairs in the pic - placed there so we could get a feel for the size of whatever stools we end up buying. And, the butcher block is just for temporary effect. It's not cut to it's proper size yet.

Now, for the specifics: Mike built the base, which will house our Asko dishwasher and GE Advantium convection oven, all by himself. What a man. I've been waiting about three years to test-drive these appliances. We snagged the Asko from the same place we bought our cabinets - a kitchen design center that was closing some of its showrooms. We got our shiny, Swedish dishwasher for about a third of the retail price.

Our Advantium convection oven was a craigslist find. No kidding. It was brand new, in the box - just happened to be a few years old. A contractor's client had decided not to use it, and we ended up buying it for almost a fifth less than what they're going for today. Sure, it is a few years old, but I'd call that a pretty decent trade-off.

Our butcher block countertops came from IKEA (best prices on butcher block e-v-e-r!). We will be joining two pieces of the butcher block together to get the size we need. Then, Mike will put a nice Roman ogee edge on it, using his new router bit. I've seen his practice pieces and they look really beautiful. Finally, we ordered four turned legs online to dress the island up a bit. Hopefully we'll have pics of the finished island soon. Mike is literally obsessed with this project, so I don't think that's a very long shot.

So far, the island project has been smooth sailing. There's only one little detail that's been worrying us (me): the trim work inside the panels. We're considering NOT staining the trim to match the rest of the island, but rather painting it to match the cabinet color. I was (am) worried it'll look too circus-y (that's a technical term, btw). At the moment, the wood trim is not painted at all, it's just wood color (another technical term). The wood color is pretty close to the color of our cabinetry, so it's not a stretch to envision the finished product this way. I'm sure the trim will look better once it's painted the actual cabinet color, with a nice brown-ish glaze to tone it down a bit. Mike is firmly in the circus camp. Me, I just don't know. Any thoughts, one way or the other?

As an aside, after repeatedly changing our minds as to the final shape and size of the island, it looks like we'll be taking down the two pendant lights that are currently hanging in the kitchen and replacing them with one pendant light similar in shape to this one:

We've given ourselves a deadline of October 10th for this project, as we're hosting a family party the next day. Fingers crossed.

P.S. We're in the market for four counter height stools if anyone has seen any good deals out there.