Cami Graham is the owner, photographer and writer of her blog, TIDBITS, which features decorating and DIY tips, recipes, kiddie crafts and more. Cami has been featured in publications such as Country Living, Good Housekeeping and HGTV. We partnered with Cami on a unique DIY kitchen project, which paired beautiful butcher block countertops with a BLANCO sink and faucet. You can read about Cami’s project below.
Reposted from TIDBITS.
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If you’ve ever had to live without countertops in your kitchen, you are familiar with the joy that fills your heart when you finally have them. We are chipping away at the progress on our new kitchen, and I want to share with you an update for building our beautiful white oak butcher block countertops.
Why Butcher Block?
We have a U-shaped kitchen, and we are doing a little mix of countertop materials.
Truth be told, I initially really wanted all marble countertops – but after evaluating the cost of this high maintenance material, we opted for butcher block – something we felt more comfortable doing ourselves and would save us hundreds.
I think having the mix of the warm wood countertops and just a bit of my favorite stone will be quite lovely. We still need to add the backsplash which is a small piece of the same wood on the countertops.
Type of Wood
We used white oak wood for our butcher block countertops. Oak is a hardwood, making it a more durable choice for countertops, compared to something like pine, which is a soft wood.
I think white oak is our new favorite wood because it is warm without having dominant red or orange tones in it. We played around with a sample and decided we loved it when we added a pickling stain and then sanded it off.
It leaves some white running through the grain and makes the wood overall softer in color. It is just so pretty. You’ll be able to see that difference in the process shots below.
We found our white oak from a friend who has his own finishing company. We were like a couple of kids in a candy store seeing all the beautiful wood he had. It was a pretty easy choice for us to go with the white oak after seeing how lovely it looked.
All About Our Sink
I drool over large Farmhouse Apron front sinks – the bigger the better! I’m thrilled to tell you about one of my kitchen sponsors, BLANCO, who worked with me to share this fireclay sink with you. This particular sink is their BLANCO PROFINA Apron Front Sink in White.
The color, the texture, the size . . . everything is stunning!
Our pull down faucet is the EMPRESSA™ Kitchen Faucet in Polished Nickel. I love the slight, warm tone without being too warm. It feels timeless to me and looks great with the marble.
Summary
My husband loves to work with wood, so this was quite an enjoyable project.
I love the warmth this countertop brings to the kitchen space and how it coordinates so well with our European wire brushed white oak wood flooring and all the other cooler colors and elements in the space.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this post and learned a few things. Most of all, I hope it inspired you to create with your hands and discover the joy in doing so.
You might also enjoy seeing a round-up of kitchens that have inspired many of my design decisions for this space.
Thank you for reading! You can also watch this post in the video down below.
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BLANCO also partnered with Cami for an RV kitchen renovation. Click here to see how she overcame her small space!