Our island is 51 x 60...Is that close enough? I'm not sure whether you're thinking 48x40 is large or small.

I'm not sure what your designer meant, since I'm pretty sure she didn't mean '9 foot wide' boards.. So either 9 ft long or 9 inches wide?

Ours was made by my dh and our ds out of 2 x 6 Douglas fir boards. They are flat with narrower boards on edge around the perimeter...So it looks 3 or 3 1/2 inches thick, but is really shaped like an inverted shallow box which we dropped over counter underlayment that we put on the island first.

Thank you, rhome! Your top looks very nice and I get exactly what you mean about an inverted box...very clever indeed. I think my island at 48x40 inches is a bit small, but I have no one to blame but myself. The kitchen designer dude had it bigger in his drawings, but I scaled it back a bit. Uh, I was wrong, he was right on that one.

And dang, I proof read my post three times and still screwed up. I meant nine "INCH" wide boards, not nine feet. Duh. I guess my point there is that I don't know that I've seen boards that wide for a top. Maybe they intend to cut them down to six or four inches. And isn't pine a very soft wood? That's what I was concerned about there. But I will say, the designer showed me tables in her business that were made of pine and stained a very dark color. She had purchased these in Dallas and they were kind of interesting. You could still see a bit of the knots. She said she had slung all kinds of books, tiles, etc. on them for years and they still look good. As I mentioned, I want my top to look beat up to begin with so when I beat it up, it will all be okay.

Thanks again,
pup

Pine is soft...But so is our fir. If you want beat up looking, you'll get it with pine. :-) We don't baby ours at all, and it has some minor dents. DH, the woodshop teacher, says pine is a little softer than our fir...Unless it's the special kind (heart pine) that's used for flooring, which I'm assuming the Lowes stuff you're talking about isn't.

When we did ours (3 yrs ago), we just decided that it was an inexpensive experiment, so if we hated it in a few years, we'd sand it down, or change it. So far, so good! I would recommend Waterlox for the finish. I'm going to refresh mine this summer with a new coat or two.

My DH is building the island right now. If yours is "dinky" I guess mine will be even more so -- the top will be 30 by 50 inches. In our kitchen that's all there's room for.

The top will be walnut -- planks glued together. We considered walnut edge grain butcher block but decided to have a more table-top looking top. The body of the island will be walnut with gumwood panels on each end and gumwood panels inset into the doors on one side.

Edge grain and end grain are the more popular choices for an island especially one that will be used for cutting. A plank top --flat grain -- will have more the look of a piece of furniture, like a table rather than an island.

Sanitation is a consideration.

If you intend to cut on the board, then you will want hard rock maple or other hard species that are NSF rated for food handling (this means the surface is non-porous enough that it can be properly cleaned after handling raw foods.)

John Boos makes maple butcher block. Other companies also do.

We have boos maple island. Have had for nearly 10 years. We have their oiled finish, and cut right on it. It is very convenient.

If you intend to use as a decorative surface, and do your food prep on actual cutting boards, then this probably will not matter to you.

Seems like wood is a hot topic lately. Although we bought ours custom, our manufacturer also introduced a DIY line that's almost as cheap as IKEA but has way better quality. I read a few other posts of people who have bought them and liked them alot. Maybe your DH can play golf instead of spending forever making a wood top!

Here is a link that might be useful: Craft Art DIY Wood Countertops

There's a two-part epoxy that you can basically just dump on the top and have it be totally waterproof. I don't know the brand name of it, but people call it 50-coat or 60-coat, because it's equivalent of putting 50 or 60 coats of poly on the top. You'll get scratches on the finish, but probably not on the wood top itself.

Besides Ikea, a less costly butcher block top can be made from wooden tops meant for workshops. We got ours from a woodworking shop and put 2 together and then had them planed. Hard as a rock nice and thick.

Hey, thank you for your comments...I do appreciate them all. When I think about all this, the problem with this island top has always been me. I CANNOT make a decision on it. I've made hundreds of decisions over the last few years as we've totally renovated this 60+ year old lake place that had been sorely neglected by previous owners. But for some reason, I just can't pull the trigger on this one. That's why I finally brought a decorator in for the first time. That and because I need some window treatments custom made.

Sayde, I'm only calling MY OWN island dinky. Mine could definitely have been a little bigger for my kitchen...as I said, I screwed that up. Island scale has to fit the size of the kitchen...too big or too little are both not good. Your top is sounding good.

Melsey, I did check out that link and it's pretty interesting. Price seems very good to me. The only thing was I could not get a real good look at the tops. I'll check it out again later.

I may just start a whole new thread with pictures of my kitchen and ask for people to play the "trick out my island" game with me. HA!

Thanks,
pup