The term ‘Butcher Block’ wasn’t something I was familiar with. I kept coming across the term when looking at kitchen countertops and some of the different styles. It also seemed to be a style very popular with smaller things like cutting boards. I really liked the look of the style, but had no idea how it could be achieved. Initially, I thought this would be out of my skill range to replicate.
The term originally came from the massive wooden blocks that butchers used to cut their meat upon. It is now commonly used to represent countertops that have been made by gluing together strips of wood. Here are some examples of butcher block countertops by B&Q.
Not that I would be looking to prepare any meat on my new creation, but I thought what better way to learn than to try something new, and see what happens. What was the worst that could happen if I used bits of leftover scrap wood? I settled on the idea of attempting a small end table with a butcher block style.
Watching tutorial videos on youtube and reading up on the process was a good place to start. This gave me a basic idea of what I needed to do. I had to scale down my ambitions due to the tools that I had at my disposal. Many of the examples I had seen were professionally made with seemingly expensive equipment.
I wanted to incorporate some different colours into the wood, so I bought some bottles of wood stain (of varying colours). In total, I had three different colours to use which would hopefully create an attractive pattern.
I cut the wood pieces I had bought into different sizes, stained them, and then placed them alongside each other to recreate the butcher block style. Using wood adhesive to bind them together, I then clamped them all tight between two boards of MDF to make sure that they were as close together as possible to try and reduce any gaps in between the pieces (in a sort of ‘sandwich’). Placing two more clamps either side helped to create pressure from all angles. This kept all of the pieces together and therefore reduced any potential movement.
When the glue had dried I then trimmed off any additional end pieces to make sure the top was an even square shape. I was pretty happy with how it turned out considering this was my first attempt. As you can see from the photos below, the gaps were relatively minimal. However, I didn’t feel like the different colours worked quite as well, so I decided to put a layer of beeswax over the top. This somewhat reduced the effect of the different colours, but I felt like it worked better overall and created a darker finish that I was happy with (giving it a more ‘rustic’ look in the end).
For the legs, I used wood from a table that I had made a while ago and didn’t need anymore. I reassembled these existing legs and screwed them into a plywood board that I placed underneath the butcher block tabletop. Next, I painted the legs white to differentiate from the darker tones of the surface of the table. I felt like this worked well and created a nice contrast in the overall look of the table.
This end table turned into quite a versatile piece of furniture, in that it fit into most places, either in the living room or bedroom as a bedside table. I ended up putting it in the living room. This was a good learning experience. It offered a nice alternative to some of the other pieces of furniture that I had made before. The Butcher Block style really added some character to the final product, and taught me something new along the way.