Yay, butcher block! I absolutely love it. Honestly, I think the whole granite trend is a tragedy and I really hope everyone starts using butcher block. It's so pretty.

Walnut is really, really beautiful & lightens in color over time. In our kitchen, we have oak butcher block counters & they have held up really well in 2 years time. Regular oiling & immediate cleanup of any liquid helps keep them looking pretty. We did get a couple of water stains, but light sanding got them to nearly disappear. I love how it makes the kitchen not sound too loud, either. Well, other than my loud children & music going at full blast :)

RainyPenguinVintage,

I couldn't agree more. It's one thing if you have it but people seem to be obsessed with it when there are so many more interesting products out there.

As long as you aren't cutting directly on your counter (which I would not recommend no matter what the surface), you should be fine. Get a nice cutting board to handle the knifework!

I like the mixed-use of the white subway tiles with the butcher block island. I don't think the butcher block would go well with granite.

My only concern, as I have with any wood in the kitchen that would have potentially raw food on it, is care and cleaning.

I love the contrast of the walnut against the white of your cabinets. Adds a real depth.

We have walnut countertops and use a cutting board because it is very soft. Wiping off the liquids and oiling every other month helps keep the countertops look great. The walnut feels nice and warm (in contrast to granite). The walnut also helps cutting down on noise as it is not a reflective surface.

I love the picture! Just beautiful. We have reclaimed douglas fir countertops in our kitchen -- they're not end-grain butcher block, and they are finished with waterlox tung oil to be water resistant. I'm in love with them so far -- they're gorgeous (everyone who comes into the kitchen immediately starts stroking them), and easy to keep clean.

My problem with the shiny black granite countertops in our former apartment was that I couldn't ever tell by looking whether they were clean (or wet). I think my wood countertops stay far more clean, because I can see any crumbs or spills on them and so I wipe them down with a soapy sponge all the time.

ErikTheRed, I was surprised last year to learn that a lot of studies have actually found that wood cutting boards are just as sanitary, if not moreso, than plastic -- http://www.reluctantgourmet.com/cutting_board.htm. We don't cut directly on our countertops anyway, but I thought that was interesting. (I was raised on the faulty belief that wood cutting boards are icky, germ-infested things.)

I'm big into cooking huge dinner parties where I've got 1,000 things going at once in the kitchen. If I had butcher block I don't think I could stand the fussiness of cleaning up spills immediately. I already have a ton of wood furniture in my house and feel like the coaster Nazi; I'd hate to have to start telling my friends what they could and couldn't do with my counter tops too.

I loathe the granite counter tops in my apartment and would put in butcher block muy pronto if I could but would resign myself to being okay with them looking stained and well used much like the wooden farm table that is in my kitchen now.

I love it.
It's one of the "Dream" materials for when I eventually get a kitchen that I own.

I worked in an Italian/French fusion joint that had all butcher block counter tops in the kitchen. I loved them. We could do all our cutting right there, put hot pots on them, and they held up to a professional kitchen staffs use really well. In the twenty years or so that kitchen was open, I was told they re-sanded it down once. We sure weren't kind to it, and it still did really well. The occasional blotches and marks looked just fine.

It's my dream counter material if I ever get a kitchen of my own. I honestly found it easier to use, and so convenient.

I love this kitchen!! I have butcher block countertops in my kitchen and absolutely love them!! At first I started sealing them with a natural oil but I didn't like the outcome of that. Eventually I tracked down a product that I love. It's called Rubio Monocoat. It's made up of all natural oils and plant waxes that actually harden forming a water and stain resistant barrier. One coat is all you need. It only adheres to raw wood so when/if you get a scratch all you do is sand that scratch down and reapply the Rubio Monocoat to that area, it will only adhere to that sanded spot so there are no overlap worries. I love that it's an all natural product with NO VOC's. It comes from Belguim I believe and is just being introduced into the states. I was lucky enough to find this product in Minneapolis which is not far from where I live. I can't say enough good things about it. It applies easily, looks like it's hand buffed (doesn't look plasticy like some finishes can look), upholds well to water and stains and is ALL natural so there's no off gassing. If you are considering butcher block countertops but fear the upkeep then this is the product for you! Here's more info. http://www.monocoat.us/

I loved my maple butcherblock counters but had them replaced by granite after 10 years because they discolored so much around the sink area. It impossible to keep them from turning black around the edges of the sink and the faucets.

There were lots of things I loved about them, though and I kept the butcherblock on my island. I love it for chopping and it's such a warm look.

Vavavavooom!!!! Beautiful!

Your walnut is beautiful - I have an irrational dislike of granite, always feel I could be laid out on it, as in morgue...

Can butcher block counter tops be varnished/Polyurethaned like floors are if a water-based product is used? Anyone done it?

A strict definition of “butcher block” would define butcher block as northern hard maple. Butchers worked on end grain maple to insure the knife edge lasted as long as possible. In more modern times the definition has expanded to include many wood species. Readily available on the US market are Maple, Red Oak, Ash, Cherry, Walnut, Eucalyptus, and even Teak. More exotic woods can be found from custom fabricators.
Walnut is a wonderful species and when Michigan Maple Block Co introduces the wood on a mass scale back in 2002 it immediately became the second most popular species next to maple, I believe this to be the case because the coloration is opposite to the traditional lighter colored maple. In any event Black walnut seems here to stay.

Would advise against it. As others have mentioned Walnut is significantly less dense and weaker than Maple and would not hold up well under this kind of use. Let me share a story about a design we manufacture that uses both Walnut and Maple http://www.copelandfurniture.com/product.php?id=374 Actually the version pictured is all cherry but when we decided to introduce a walnut version of this bed we discovered that the deeply splayed legs lacked the strength and rigidity in walnut to accommodate the extreme engineering challenge of this design. We opted instead to use walnut for the uppers but a leg and base unit made of solid maple and stained in a very dark brown finish. The effect is good but we never would have considered it if it weren't for the inherent structural limitations of walnut.

Another great plus for walnut is its natural resistance to borers and termites. That's because it contains bitter oils (much like teak), and the oil itself lends a certain degree of water resistance, which is invaluable in a kitchen!

Contrary to Ben Copeland's comment above, I don't think you should have problems with splintering along the grain (which is the 'weakness' of walnut), as long as you don't have really large unsupported areas and heavy appliances. I have a huge bookcase/divider that is about 28 years old, made of walnut, at home. It's still as good as new. Even with a gigantic music set-up, all my childhood toys, the television, several hundred old vinyls and oversized books, ALL my parents' fine china (about 40 place settings in all I suspect), and a couple of heavy old appliances having sat in there all along.