I don't have solid wood, but do have a bottom of a box car. It looks like bucher block and is oak.

The bottom of a boxcar? You have to tell me the story about that. Where did you find it and how did you you convert it into a counter top. Amazing.

And the term I was searching for above was "salvage yard". I think I'll go online and Google store display cabinets, shop counters,ect. just to see what kind of hits I get.

In the finished kitchens, look up trailruner. She has a beautiful solid wood counter top.

There are a lot of places to find salvage wood, (at least here in CT). FOr counters you need a lot of sq ft --- old bowling alleys have become popular.

If you cant find what you need, you can always get new, but hand hewn to give an irregular sort of wavy surface. Then of course you can distress it too .... which is really an art to do subtly.

Maybe reclaimed is the term you're looking for?

We have a wood counter on our island that isn't butcher block, but we built it out of lumber we milled from our acreage. We shaped it like a shallow box to invert over the underlayment (which was also our temporary counter), so it looks much thicker than it is. I would think you could stain to get the darker look you're after, and as Mtnrdredux said, you could try to make it look used or more irregular.

Before:

After (island itself still under construction):

Thanks for the replies, the pics and the reference to trailrunner. I went online and found lots of great images of wood counter tops in kitchens and read about new and reclaimed wood. This is definitely what I want in my old house kitchen, and I'm going to make it work. Probably won't sleep tonight with all the visions going through my head.

Also learned about "Waterlox" brand Tung oil as a finish. Not only for a wood counter top but for an older wooden floor with a great patina like mine.

You don't have to live near an architectural salvage yard to have old wood counters. We ordered our antique pine boards from our locally owned lumber yard. It's full of knots, knot holes, nail holes, etc. The guys who put it together in their shop actually thought I wouldn't like it due to all the markings. But it's perfect!

It is finished with Good Stuff for Wood.

Here is a link that might be useful: my kitchen

Oh my gosh, allison. Drool. Thanks for the heads up about checking out the lumber yard, I wouldn't even have thought about that. And I'll write the name of the finish done you mentioned.

Schoolhouse, please note that Waterlox is not food safe. Do you want to be able to prep food on the wood surface?

Thanks.

fyi, Good Stuff for Wood is food safe:

Here is a link that might be useful: GSFW

Our island is finished with Waterlox (as are our cabinets and all our interior doors and woodwork), but we don't cut on it.

Thanks for the concern flwrs, but I don't anticipate prepping food on the counter. Mostly it will be for a place to sit the microwave, toaster and maybe the canopener. Sounds like it might be non-toxic tho, that would be great.

My kitchen is so small, I hope I'm not getting grandiose ideas. :)

Sorry about that. In other posts people said Waterlox wasn't good to use if the surface would be used for food prep. Although, if you aren't going to use it for that, it doesn't matter as much. :) (I should know to verify stuff before posting--again, my apologies.)

No problem. I only knew because I'd seen people saying that so many times here, too, so I'd looked it up before.

I think people meant that if you want the wood surface for chopping, Waterlox wouldn't be the finish of choice. I roll dough and do all sorts of food projects on our Waterloxed surface...just no slicing or chopping into the finish.

Would waterlox be appropriate for a kitchen table? I have an oak table whose top is in desperate need of refinishing and was considering doing this while the kitchen is down for remodeling. We eat at this table daily and I'd like something that would protect the wood without needing coasters for drinks. Any experience/thoughts on this?