Ikea Countertop Hack - Mountain Inlays

Thought I’d share another one of the projects I’ve been working on lately. My friend was looking for a subtle reminder of nature in her office space, so I made her a custom desktop with a mountain range inlayed for a standing desk using an Ikea butcher block counter. I used a fair amount of more traditional woodworking in addition to the x-carve, but you could easily cut out the full inlay pockets entirely on an x-carve. I set up a rail to help orient the desk through my 1000x1000 X-Carve - and I avoided the need for perfect alignment by making the triangles overlap. I then cut out the inlay materials on the table saw to fit. You could theoretically then just surface the whole table top to get things flat, but I just used a plane and orbit sander. Inlay woods are walnut, curly maple and red heart inlay into a 74" oak block.



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Nice work

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Thanks - I appreciate that!

Beautiful! I bet more people wished you were their friend after seeing that.

It’s a nice way to make something utilitarian really sing. Love it.

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Thanks, Susan!