Butcher block counters, another great deal at Ikea

This choice of materials for most of our kitchen counter surface turned out great. Ikea sells four-foot ($89) and eight-foot ($169) sections of good quality birch butcher block counters. The wood cabinets and the wood countertops really warm up our stainless-and-black appliances, which can get a bit chilly-looking otherwise.

BELOW: Here's another example of how we saved some dough at Ikea. These simple bar-top brackets are called Robert, for $7.50 each. At Home Depot or Lowe's, similar weight and quality items and you are up in the $20 or $30 range, if you can find them!

BELOW: The breakfast bar consists of a four-foot section of laminate countertop from Ikea, in the "Stone effect Brown" pattern. Hubby mounted this the back of the base kitchen cabinets and backed them with (cheap but pretty) plywood underlayment, stained Walnut color. To access the corner cabinet from the bar side, we installed it "backward" (with a hole cut in the plywood) and added a door ordered from the same pattern as the cabinets (Ikea "Adel" medium-brown.) The cool thing about the Ikea system is that you can order individual doors like this with no hassle, they are in-stock.

PS: Craigslist bar stools, $20 each. Recovered the plaid cushions with a shearling pillowcase!