[Strawbale] Natural, inexpensive kitchen cabinets

[Alan Abrams]

There are several sets of wood kitchen counters I've made still in service
after many decades--the oldest being about 30 yrs old, made of some
indeterminate rocky mt 2x10's. can't recall what finish was used in those
less discriminating days...

There are two other sets at least 25 yrs old, using 5/4 sugar pine
slabs--including some planks over 22" wide.  (I have a 6' offcut of that
batch in my office, used many times as desktop in a peripatetic career.)
One set for my cousin includes a sink counter, and was finished with Watco.
(dunno if Watco is still around--it was extremely aromatic stuff--probably
could be used as a substitute for Agent Orange)  The counters are battered
after raising 4 children, countless dogs and cats, and going through two
husbands, but still holding up...

A newer set--only 20 yrs old--6/4 (net) sugar pine and water based varithane
(the can had the image of a girl on roller skates)--is in perfect condition
and beautifully mellowed.  I've done many other pine counters in the
intervening years, and consider it to be an ideal material if properly
detailed.  (OTOH, I've seen many Bally type maple counters--flat grained
"butcher block--curling up and splitting apart.)  to my eye, no counter
material is more beautiful, and to the spirit, none more appropriate for
preparing food.

But like any other counter material you could name--wood counters should not
be used as cutting boards.

Daring the fates, I recently installed a black walnut sink top with an
undermount bowl in my new bathroom, with a glue joint running through the
cutout.  It's finished with tung oil--so far so good, after 8 months,
resisting even toothpaste, which seems to be one of the most caustic
products to wood finishes.  (the top was made by Marcus Sims of
Treincarnation, who raids construction sites to collect the tree trunks of
bulldozed forests...)  

Alan Abrams
www.abramsdesignbuild.com