Butcherblock Countertops Pros and Cons (vs Laminate)

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hi all. Longtime lurker who rarely posts, but I have need of advice/opinion please.

I am planning a kitchen remodel. Budget is smallish to medium, of course I want to keep the $$ figure as low as possible, but I will be living with this for a long time and I want to **like **what I ultimately choose. My brother says don’t go cheap or you will regret it. Well, duh, but let’s keep it reasonable, mm-kay?

My home is an older frame house on pier and beam. For flooring I decided against ceramic tile due to possible issues with settling and cracks, and linoleum is not an option since it only comes in 12’ widths and my floor is 14’x14’. I am going with AquaGuard, I just fell in love with it when I saw it. Top two choices are thisand that and I want a nice blending of countertop and flooring.

The floor plan is what I’ll call open galley island. The stove will be along the outside wall of the house. For the island, on one side will be the sink and dishwasher, the other side will be raised about 6" for a bar, this will replace the kitchen table.

My first choice for the countertop is butcherblock. I love the warmth of wood, and it can be left its natural color or stained light to dark. It will be DIY installed by an experienced home carpenter whom I trust to do professional work. If I go laminate it will be a professional installation from Home Depot.

I found this thread from 2009. And this one from 2008. I’ve read up on care and maintenance but still have worries. For those who do have BB, my questions:

[ul]
[li] would you do it again? why/why not?[/li][li] did you seal it? did anyone use Waterloxand how well does that work?[/li][li] if you did not seal it, how often do you re-oil?[/li][li] for that matter, instructions say to oil it every day for the first week. how did that work out? how usable was the counter the first week?[/li][li] since it will have a sink in it: how much of a problem are water spots? how quickly do I need to wipe up water spills? and splashes from the sink?[/li][li] there will be a dishwasher; how did you protect the underside? one blog had foil placed between the wood and d/w for the steam from it[/li][li] of course I will be using a cutting board, but other than that, how well has yours held up to use, re stains and nicks and other damage?[/li][li] plus all the questions from the other threads… ;)[/li][/ul]

I thought about tiling it but am wary of having to replace cracked tiles and keeping the grout in good shape. So my next option would be laminate. Home Depot has two wood look samples (bottom of the page). The guestimated cost for installation would be twice the cost of materials for the BB, but it would be (1) professionally installed and (2) instantly usable, therefore negating (3) the labor cost and time and trouble of installing the BB. Plus the daily, weekly, and monthly maintenance of keeping the BB looking good. If I do laminate, I will get bullnose along the fronts, so only the exposed ends would be a worry. So for those who have laminate, my questions:

[ul]
[li] how satisfied are you with the durability and look?[/li][li] how are the edges holding up? any peeling?[/li][li] does it gouge or stain easily?[/li][/ul]

Thanks for reading my post, and TIA for your answers. I am looking for any and all opinions and suggestions.

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Since the OP is seeking advice, let’s move this to IMHO.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

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I’m not surprised to see I posted in both those threads. I’m still in this industry. My opinions haven’t really changed except quartz has gotten a lot better in terms of stability and color patterns.

I personally love butcher block tops. I only use mineral oil to seal. Foods the surface a few times the first couple weeks and then touch up monthly. It’s about the same level of maintenance as wiping crumbs off so not a big deal imho.

Will it stain? Sure. Will it develop wear patterns if you cut on it? Absolutely.

It’s a living surface and the patina that develops is part of its charm. If you can’t live with that, no problem at all, just choose another material.

4

I would go laminate. We have granite and hate it.

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**MikeG **I love the look and eventual patina of butcher block. I understand it will get nicks and stains over time, part of its charm as you say. There would be leftover wood from cutting out the sink and that would be made into a cutting board. My concern is the sink area, with regular oiling will that be enough to prevent major water stains and/or damage? I really want to go with BB, I just want to understand and hear from those who have it how well it stands up to the test of time. Do you recommend the foil above the dishwasher?

Buttercup Smith, granite and quartz are out due to price. My dear brother (again) is telling me I will hate laminate. He’s really chewing my ear about it. But I do believe it has improved since last he bought it. Or maybe he just really doesn’t like it.

If I can get confident that I will properly care for it, I want to go with BB. If I chicken out I will be getting the wood look laminate.

6

I had butcherblock countertops in a previous house and I really liked the look, in that house. The look was rustic, not particularly sleek or modern, but it was a house built in 1889 so rustic worked. The countertop also segued in to a thing we believe used to be the icebox. Very rustic. Anyway we called it “the icebox” and used it for storage.

I think the countertop was originally oiled, but we sanded it and sealed it with some kind of acrylic, which worked well for water splashes and the like. It was light, and got darker and yellower as it aged. It did dent pretty easily, but then we are kind of clumsy, as a family, and it was a rustic look anyway. And we lived there 15 years, during which we had young kids, doing art projects and scientific experiments.

During the time we lived there we sanded and resealed it at least once after the initial sealing. We put the acrylic on because it seemed to need oiling pretty often, and it really picked up smells. Like, even if we used a cutting board for onions and didn’t put the onions directly on the surface, the wood would smell like onion for days. After sealing, not so much. There were darker stains around where it met the sink, but it didn’t look terrible. There was one stain pattern where apparently we kept putting the same thing down, in a slightly different place, and I never could figure out what that thing was, but sanding and resealing minimized it. (The staining happened before we sealed it.) It wore pretty well really, but I am sure that it has since been replaced by granite.

I cannot speak to sealing off the underside for the dishwasher in that kitchen*, because we had a free-standing dishwasher that had its own butcher-block top. Could be it was purchased that way or the previous owner glued the top on, I don’t know. We did not seal it, and it was a slightly different color. Um, rustic.

Oddly enough (or maybe not, given my tastes) the kitchen in my current house has butcher-block look Formica for the kitchen countertops. On top of actual wood. I like it and think it looks fine; my husband would like to replace it with something else. You might think it was real wood for about five seconds and then realize it’s Formica. We have looked at various things, including bamboo. (I think the bamboo looks like plastic, myself. I mean, no better than the Formica.) Anyhow, it was this when we moved in in 2008, and as far as I know this could be the original surface as installed in 1956, and it’s holding up fine. Good old Formica.

I don’t think I would do natural wood countertops again. Loved the look, but too much maintenance.

*Amazingly enough, our current house, built in 1956, did not have a dishwasher until we moved in. There was some kind of thing lying on top of it (before installation) that looks like aluminum-backed bubble wrap. I guess it works, the countertop gets hot but doesn’t smell wet when the dishwasher runs. We had to take out four very useful drawers to put it in, but I gotta have a dishwasher.

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Hilarity N. Suze, 15 years experience, that’s what I’m looking for! I am not extremely worried about maintenance, just cautious. Enough to want tales of long experience. If I oil it well or seal, do I need to be paranoid about water or just wipe it down after using the sink, things like that.

The grandkids will visit maybe once a month. The little artist loves to draw and paint, and the boys will be rambunctious as boys are. Another reason besides the price to not go with granite, don’t want to be replacing my dishes too often. So yours held up well with the younguns? Great.

Rustic is fine, my decor will be country-ish southwestern. For the ends of the island on the cabinet sides I plan on putting up shiplap, along with covering a support beam with it.

8

I replaced the very little countertop in my small kitchen with butcher block 15yrs ago. And I still love them. I can cut anything, anywhere. Put hot, cold, wet things anywhere at all, without a thought, which really suits me.

My friend did some fine finishing of the edges, the first oiling, then installed it for me. At that time he gave me a tub of food grade tung oil, and his instructions were; “Apply once a day for a week, once a week for a month, once a month for a year, and yearly ever after.” Which is just what I did! It worked so well it took so forever for any wear to begin to show at all!

I still like them, and they still look great!

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elbows, how much did you use the countertop the first week? I’ve read those same instructions. After the first week it won’t be a problem to apply, like on Saturday night after using the counter.

That first week did you apply it nightly and use the counter the next day? Apply and use right then?

The two countertops, the sink/bar combo, will be 8-1/2 ft long.

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I’ll just throw in the old adage about sealing with oil since I always like the way it sounds:

Once an hour for a day, once a day for a week, once a week for a month, then once a month for a lifetime.

Dennis

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We just wiped it down after it got splashed.

I should note that it was oiled when we moved in. I don’t know what their procedure was, but droplets of water beaded.

When we sealed it, we sanded it down pretty good. When we resealed, we also sanded. We did that because certain areas were getting worn, but it took years for that.

12

I have granite now, but before I put those in, I had butcher block for about 20 years. I did minimal maintenance, but I don’t mind the “lived in” look. They were fine, except I was not too happy, though, when I had houseguests once and they decided to make some margaritas thinking: Hey, the countertops are cutting boards, so let’s just cut all the lines right on the countertops. Make sure people know that your countertops are NOT cutting boards.

You might want to consider some inlaid tile near the stove or in some strategic places where you can put a hot pan down in an emergency. I had a small section of tile integrated into the butcher block (right next to the range), and it came in handy at times.

Make sure you think of the entire design as an integrated whole, though. Just putting butcher block into any old kitchen might look like it was done haphazardly.

13

My parents had a piece of butcher block near the sink, that they used as a cutting board. It looked like it was used as a cutting board, but I always liked it.

I have white Formica. I didn’t think I would like it, but I do. It’s worn great in the 20 years I’ve lived here, it’s light, it’s easy to clean. It’s not as hard as granite.

We bought a 2’x2’ block of granite just for the piece of countertop next to the stove. Because it was cut from a scrap of someone else’s countertop, it was cheap. We installed it ourselves, because the countertop guy said it was too small a job for him to do. It was extremely easy–we just glued it to the cabinet. It’s really nice having a heat-proof surface next to the stove. It is extremely hard, and I don’t like putting glasses or plates onto it. But pots, pans, the hot broiler, it’s handy. We also use it as a large pastry stone to roll out pie and pastry. If the weather is very hot, I might drape an ice pack over it, first.

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I just used mine, the first week, without really thinking about it. It’s a small kitchen with a small counter, so it’s not like there was a choice.

I use mine for cutting, all day, every day, everything, never had a problem. Big part of why I chose them!

15

Thank you all for the responses so far. I’m getting excited, getting confident I can do butcher block! After all my research my one big worry was the sink area and water and the maintenance to keep it looking good. The character it will develop over the years is not only fine, it’s a feature not a bug.

John Mace, it will be a complete remodel, so yes I’m trying to think of all the details. The floor, the countertop, cabinets, repainting, the works. I’ve been dreaming about this for years, actively making plans for the past few weeks.

puzzlegal, the stove will have 30" on one side and 24" the other. I am considering what to place there for hot dishes. I will have a 30"x16" piece of scrap from the cutout of the sink, maybe that can be cut in half and one half be made into a cutting board and the other half can be used for a heat plate. If that doesn’t work out, I have considered some sort of tile there.

16

We had a nice butcher block section of countertop installed in our previous home when we redid the kitchen. It looked great, was easy to maintain, etc.

We didn’t do this when we redid the kitchen in our current house. We have gotten very used to those flexible plastic cutting boards. Have a dozen of them. Lots of advantages, esp. in terms of keeping meats separate from veggies, etc. Very easy to clean. We have so many we can let them dry for days between uses.

Would not go back to wood cutting boards just for sanitation reasons.

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Plastic cutting boards are not inherently more sanitary than plastic cutting boards actually. Because cutting on plastic leaves much deeper cuts where bacteria can easily breed, making them actually harder to get clean. Where as wood, being much harder doesn’t present so many such opportunities.

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Sounds exciting! Best of luck, and I hope it turns out well. You might consider keeping the island all at the same height instead of the 42" eating area. People often find having that large surface very useful on the island, and if you break it up, you lose that aspect. I have a 42" eating area on my island, but I have my cooktop on it, not the sink, so that serves as a safety feature.

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My plastic cutting boards fit in the dishwasher, and the drying cycle gets hot enough to sanitize them. Wooden cutting boards don’t like to go through a dishwasher.

You can also sanitize a surface with a little bleach, or a cleanser that includes some bleach, like Comet. You can probably use that on wooden cutting boards, although you’d have to clean it pretty well afterwards so it didn’t contaminate the next food you put on the board.

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I have considered that too. I’ve drawn out only about a dozen ways to do this remodel. My daughter told me to stop drawing. lol? You’d think after 30 something years she would know me…

(tl;dr Yes oh yes I have considered it)

I’ve always wanted a bar. And an island. My two favorite plans are this open galley island or an L shape with appliances along two walls and an island in the middle-ish of the room. The original galley design had the island part butting against the wall, but hey, I *could *pull that out a few feet. Either way leaves no room for a proper table. The dimensions of the room are 11’ x 14’, and with the kitchen in the middle of one side of the house I must leave a walkway on one side to access three other rooms. Six rooms, three on each side. I will be removing one wall, yes it is a supporting wall (either way) and the full floor plan will have the kitchen and living room one big room, separated by the beamed archway that replaces the wall. I considered moving the kitchen to a front room, but there are other constraints on that due to features I can not move, besides the time and cost. And it would not give me more space in the kitchen. So the plan is, one long room, 14’ x 25’, walk in the front door to the LR (14x14), archway, and exposed kitchen (14x11).

With the L shape I would lose a 2’ x 2’ corner of the room. Putting a 36" corner lazy susan there would eat up too much space. Somewhat-difficult-to-access shelves could be built there, access gained from the right side of the lower cabinet. An island where the table would be in order to add more cabinets, using the dead space under the table. Either island would be built in. Hence came about the open galley island idea, move the short L side 90 degrees and make that the island.

The original plan did have the stove in the island. This was to have the sink on the outside wall with a window, love this idea. The raised bar was partly to make room for the raised back of the stove. New appliances not budgeted in, plus where would I put the oven? If I did that I would want a separate cooktop and oven. Oh, one new appliance, a combo microwave with ventihood. The complications of putting that over the stove in the middle of the room was the reason to move the stove to the outside wall and place the sink in the island. I do not cook a lot, how important are ventihoods? A few times a year I make a big holiday family meal.

I kept the raised bar idea because, well, I’ve always wanted a bar. The outside dimension will be 4’ x 8.5’. No above cabinets planned. The least expensive option is two unfinished 12’ butcher block countertops cut to fit lengthways, using the leftover cuts for the outside wall on either side of the stove (perfect fits!) and using the sink cutout to make an actual BB cutting board. This will necessitate building some sort of wall behind the sink to support the raised bar. I would place outlets in the 6" wall. Or I could keep the two countertops level, and just figure out how to make the two join in a good-looking manner. And decide where to place outlets.

At countrymouldings I could get a custom made unfinished countertop for twice the price of the two 12’. For another $200 it would come with 2 coats of mineral oil. While the initial material cost would be higher, I wouldn’t have the headache or cost of building a suitable and supportable wall or adjoining the two appropriately. I would still have the bar, just level with the sink. Plus save hours of labor for $200? Oh yeah.

Oh goodness, mind spinning and rethinking, redrawing, reconsidering my budget (hush daughter!) Excuse me while I grab my pencil.