Today was the day that I had the pleasure of delivering and installing a "very large" kitchen island top for a major kitchen remodel that friends commissioned me to make. I've been calling this the "kitchen continent" since the beginning because of it being larger than a mere "island". I was very excited when they asked me to contribute to the project for sure and their plan really was a transformation from "dank and dingy" to "open and airy". This slab was constructed from Vertical Grain Douglas Fir and measures 51" wide by 81" long and is 1.75" thick. The (final) finish is Target Coatings EM800cv...more on that later. When the entire kitchen project is completed, I'll post a final-final photo or three, but will still start out with a few at the end of placing and securing the island top today. I'll then follow with a bunch of commentary and photos from the build.

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Making a large slab isn't "rocket science", but the "large" part does enter into the fun. The material for this monster basically came in to the supplier as 16' boards which were halved before loading them onto my trailer. Accordingly, here's an exciting "baby picture" of the project.

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Each of these boards were flattened at the jointer and taken through thicknessing so they could be sorted and arranged to provide the best overall grain and color pattern for the large surface. That created several barrels of nice shavings...very quickly, I might add.

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