Butcher Block Countertops in the Kitchen

When we lived in Cincinnati, my guy was Steve. He installed our crown molding. He added can lights to our living room and kitchen. He installed new shutters and built a copper covered portico at the entry to our home. If it was beyond my DIY skills, Steve did it. I had him on speed dial. 

Unfortunately, Steve wasn't interested in moving to Connecticut. Not that I didn't ask :-) Shortly after we moved here, my mom called to tell me that some friends of hers had lived in the same city we were moving to and they had an amazing contractor who did all sorts of work for them, including a home addition. They had moved about 15 years ago and had no idea if he was still in the business or even still living in CT but they did have an old phone number for him. And guess what? The number worked and we met up a few weeks ago. Enter Lou - my new Steve.

Lou and a few of his guys are coming to our house next week to knock out my ever-growing to-do list with jobs ranging from putting in a storm door to securing our wobbly banister to installing crown molding in our kitchen and dining room. Another job on the list is tearing out the farm animal tile backsplash in our kitchen:


It's cute but it's so not me. You may remember that I was planning on replacing the old tile with new Ann Sacks tile but I couldn't find any tile I liked that worked well with everything else that's going on in the kitchen. I have to work around these granite countertops and our home's original terra cotta floors:

I've decided that instead of retiling the backsplash area, I'm going to keep it simple (and cheap) and just drywall that area to keep it consistent with the rest of the kitchen. We're also having a few outlets installed and plan to move our coffee maker and mugs over there to create a mini coffee bar. For the countertop, I was originally thinking of trying to match the granite in the rest of the kitchen but I've since decided to go with butcher block. I love how butcher block warms up the kitchen:

{Miss Mustard Seed}

{Smitten Studio}