How to make your own DIY giant cutting board to use as kitchen decor. Make it exactly the size you need for much less than you’d pay to buy one!
I’ve had my eye on these oversized cutting boards that are so popular for quite some time now. They’re a great kitchen decor staple and the thing I like about the larger ones is that they fit in nicely in today’s oversized kitchens. I have a pretty good cutting board collection, but I do find that the regular size ones often look a little puny in some of the kitchens that I style for our photography business. I’ve had a hard time convincing myself to spend upwards of $200 on one of these fancy cutting boards though because I knew that we could probably just make one ourselves. We have the tools, Chris has the skills. 🙂 So we challenged ourselves to do just that! Here’s how we made our DIY Giant Cutting Board!
Materials Needed for the DIY Giant Cutting Board
Of course, the first thing you need is a really nice piece of wood. The one we ended up using is actually quite a bit chunkier than when I see used for the cutting boards you can purchase, but I like it. It really gives it a strong presence in these big kitchens. We found our piece of wood at a local sawmill that we discovered is just a few minutes from our house! We’ll definitely be back. The wood we picked up was beautiful and this piece of maple was only $10! You can’t beat that!
You’ll also need two other little strips of wood for the cross pieces. These aren’t necessary, but they add to the look if you’re trying to mimic the fancy high end cutting boards that I’ve had in mind. We just used pine for this. You can use the same wood at the rest of your cutting board if you like, but we wanted to use a different wood so that it would pick up the stain differently and make the cross pieces stand out. Also, you can paint your cross pieces for a higher contrast look, but we wanted something a bit simpler so that it would work in lots of different kitchens.
Other than that you’ll just need a bit of wood glue and all your standard wood-working tools.
Making the DIY Giant Cutting Board
We started by mapping out how big we wanted the cutting board to be, including the handle, and choosing which end of the board to use. Our board had some little bits of live edge-ness going on, so we had to decide whether we liked that, or wanted to leave it out. We kept it and just removed the bark from the those areas.
Then we decided how long we wanted the handle to be (ours was six inches) and drew the handle shape we wanted onto the board. We wanted this to kind of mimic an antique bread board, so we the handle shape we chose isn’t perfectly square and flares out a little at the end.
We cut out our cutting board using a circular saw and then sanded it down nicely on all sides.
Then it was time to add the cross pieces. We measured where we wanted the cross pieces to be and how big the cut-outs for them wood need to be, then we routed out the spots for them. Our cross pieces (or “inlays” as Chris prefers. Fancy.) were 1 1/4″ wide and 1/4″ deep.
Once everything was cut out we just added a bit of wood glue, stuck the inlays in and clamped everything together overnight.
Finishing the Cutting Board
There are a lot of different ways that you could finish your board. If you want it to be food-safe, you could just use a cutting board oil on it, or you could stain it with a natural stain like strong coffee before oiling. Since our cutting board is just for styling purposes, I have to admit that I just went ahead and used real stain on it. It was quick and easy and I was able to know exactly what I would end up with, color-wise. I did give it a good coating of cutting board oil when I was done staining to give it more of an authentic look. If I ever do use it for serving, it will just be with plates and/or parchment on top, so the stained finish will never come into contact with food.
And that’s our DIY Giant Cutting Board! I think one of these would be great for serving snacks on an island, or for filling big blank backsplash area next to a stove. Have you ever thought about making your own cutting board?
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Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.