How to Build a Herringbone Countertop from Plywood

Updated October 20, 2026

This herringbone countertop started as one sheet of 3/4 inch plywood, a can of stain, and a whole lot of tiny boards, and it cost about $260 in materials, epoxy included. From across the room it looks like a fancy herringbone butcher block, and nobody has to know it came from the plywood aisle.

I built it for the butler’s pantry I made for my brother and sister in law. Sometimes I’ll FaceTime my sister in law just to catch a glimpse of it in the background. She uses it as a place TO SET THINGS, if you can believe it. Here’s exactly how to make your own, including the cut that earned me an F and how I fixed it.

Watch the Herringbone Countertop Come Together

Here’s how this herringbone countertop came together, from plain plywood strips to the finished top.

Materials and Tools for a DIY Herringbone Countertop

Supplies for the Herringbone Countertop

Amounts depend on the size of your countertop. One sheet of plywood covered mine. The links go to exactly what I used.

• 3/4 x 48 x 96 inch Sande plywood: the herringbone boards
• 1x2x8 ft clear pine board: the front edge trim
• 1x4x8 ft clear pine board: the front board the herringbone runs over
• Quarter round: a backing for any big gaps along the wall
• 1 1/4 inch brad nails
• 150 grit orbital sandpaper
• Wood stain: I used Varathane Early American
• Lint free rags: for wiping the stain with the grain
• Clear silicone caulk: seals the seams so the epoxy can’t drain through
• Countertop epoxy kit: a 1 gallon kit covers about 20 square feet
• Paintbrush
• Notched trowel: spreads the epoxy evenly
• Painter’s tape
• Plastic drop cloths: catch the epoxy that drips off the edges
• Shoe molding: covers the gap where the counter meets the wall
• Latex caulk: for the shoe molding

Tools for Cutting and Finishing

• Miter saw
• Circular saw
• Table saw: handy, not required
• Brad nailer
• Clamps: hold the stop block and the straight edge
• Straight edge guide, or a long level: any long, factory straight edge works
• Orbital sander
• Caulk gun
• Heat gun: pops the bubbles in the epoxy

You can find more of my favorite tools and supplies on my Amazon storefront.

Step by Step: How to Build a Herringbone Countertop

I built this DIY herringbone countertop right on top of a plywood base cabinet before the cabinet went into the pantry. You can also build one on a cabinet that’s already installed. Either way, you need a flat, solid top to nail into.

⚠️ You’ll be using a miter saw, a circular saw, and maybe a table saw. Wear eye protection and keep your fingers well away from the blades.

Step 1: Plan Your Board Size

Learning how to make a herringbone pattern with wood starts with one board size, and every single board has to match it. I went with 3 x 8 inch boards. Laid in the pattern, they gave me three full boards across the middle of my herringbone pattern countertop, with about half a board hanging off each side to trim later.

To pick your own size, lay out a few scrap pieces on the cabinet top and look at how many fit across. Wider boards mean fewer cuts; narrower boards mean a busier pattern. Whatever you choose, write it down, because you’ll be cutting a LOT of them.

Before any boards go down, attach a 1×4 pine board across the front edge of the cabinet top. The herringbone runs right over it, and the 1×2 front edge trim goes on top of it later, so the front of your countertop ends up solid pine instead of raw plywood edges.

Step 2: Rip the Plywood into 3 Inch Strips

Rip the plywood into 3 inch strips. A table saw makes this so much faster, but it isn’t required; you can make almost the same cuts with a circular saw and a straight edge.

Use a sharp blade. A dull one shreds the thin top veneer along the edges, and I had a few strips like that. Don’t toss them! Use those on the outer edges, where the shredded side gets trimmed off anyway.

Then sand the strips lightly with 150 grit on an orbital sander. Go easy here: the veneer on plywood is thin, and you can sand right through it.

Step 3: Stain the Strips in Three Shades

This is the trick that makes plywood look like real wood. I could have stained every board one color, but real herringbone has a lot of variety in it, so we’re going to fake it. I used Varathane Early American and split my strips into three even piles:

1. Darkest: two coats of stain, nothing else.
2. Middle: spray the strips with water, wipe them off, then stain.
3. Lightest: spray on a bunch of water and stain right over it without wiping, so the wood can’t soak up as much.

Always wipe the stain with the grain. Then lay a few strips together before you cut. My lightest pile looked a little too rustic for me, so I went over those again with water and another coat of stain to bring the colors closer together. Isn’t it looking good?

Step 4: Cut Identical 8 Inch Boards with a Stop Block

The pattern only works if every board is exactly the same length, so this is where you make quick work of it. Clamp a scrap block to your miter saw fence 8 inches from the blade, butt each strip against it, and cut. Every cut comes out the same. You can even stack two or three strips and cut them together.

Before you nail anything, line up a handful of boards and check them. Mine were just a hair off, some in width and some in length, which shows up as gaps once they’re in the pattern. So I ran them all back through the table saw and the miter saw to make them exact. Annoying? Yes. Worth it? Also yes.

Step 5: Lay Out the First Three Boards

Now the fun part. Start the wood herringbone pattern by laying three boards down the length of the cabinet top, mixing your three shades in an order you like. Play with it! Swap boards around until no two of the same color are bunched together, and step back to look at it from across the room before you commit.

Step 6: Nail Down the Rest of the Pattern

Put one brad nail in each end of every board, keeping each board as tight against the last as you can, so there are no gaps. Brad nail holes are tiny, and the epoxy covers them, but if you want them even smaller, a pin nailer works too.

Let the boards on both sides run past the edges of the cabinet; you’ll trim them in the next step. Where the pattern leaves little empty corners near the edges, cut small pieces to fill them and put two nails in each. Look at this beauty!

Step 7: Trim the Edges Against a Straight Edge

The front of my cabinet had the 1×4 pine board from Step 1, and the plan was to finish the front of the countertop with a 1×2 pine trim piece that sits tight against the herringbone. That only works if the cut is perfectly straight.

On my first try, I drew my cut line along a piece of old baseboard I had lying around. I got lazy and used the wrong edge, so my pencil slid under it. The line wandered. I followed that line with my circular saw, set the trim piece against it to check, and got an F. There was a decent gap. You can see it in this photo below.

Here’s the fix. I popped off the bad boards, which come right out since they’re only nailed. Then I cut and stained new ones. For the long edges, I clamped a straight board to the counter as a fence for the saw to ride against. Measure the distance from your blade to the edge of your saw’s base, and clamp the fence that far back from your cut line. For the sides I used my level, which is long and perfectly straight. Those cuts were perfect. Check every so often that the cut is still running straight, and move the clamps along as you go.

Other than a few tiny gaps here and there, it was pretty dang close to perfect. Probably a B+. What I’d do differently: skip the pencil line and clamp a long, factory straight edge, like a level or a straight edge guide, before the very first cut. Don’t be like me!

Step 8: Add the Front Edge Trim

Stain your 1×2 pine trim to match the countertop and brad nail it on top of the front board, so it sits flush with the herringbone. It finishes the front edge and hides the cut ends of the boards.

Once that was on, I moved the whole cabinet into the pantry, set it on its base, and added the face frame. That part is all in my DIY butler’s pantry tutorial.

Step 9: Do One Last Stain Check

Before the epoxy, take one more long look at the whole countertop in good light. A few of my boards were just a little too light, and so were the new boards I cut after the crooked cut. Once the epoxy goes on, those lighter, offensive boards would be the ONLY thing I noticed for the rest of the countertop’s life.

To blend them, dab a paper towel with barely any stain, let it soak in, and wipe each board with the grain until it matches. It buffs out little scratches and sawdust too.

Step 10: Add Shoe Molding Along the Wall

The counter didn’t look right just sitting against the wall. Shoe molding is a thin, rounded trim that sits in that corner, covers the gap, and hides places where the wall might not be straight. It’s a little taller than quarter round, which is fully rounded.

Where the gap at the back was big, I tucked quarter round in first as a backing, so I didn’t have to fill the whole thing with caulk. Then cut the shoe molding corners at 45 degrees. Brad nail it to the back and sides, caulk it with latex caulk, tape off the counter and the wall, then paint it.

Step 11: Caulk Every Seam Before the Epoxy

Don’t skip this one. Epoxy runs into any gap it can find. If it finds one, it drains right out the bottom and down your wall or onto the floor. Press clear silicone caulk into every seam between the boards. Pay extra attention to the big one between the herringbone and the front trim. Smooth each line with your finger, push the extra into the next crack, and wipe what’s left with a wet rag. It goes on white and dries clear, so don’t panic.

Step 12: Seal the Herringbone Countertop with Epoxy

Last step! I sealed mine with epoxy because I wanted a tough finish that could handle my sister in law’s KitchenAid. I gave it a matte finish, so it doesn’t look like shiny, wet wood. I’ve poured epoxy on a lot of countertops, including our epoxy kitchen countertops, with plenty of fails along the way. So I put everything I’ve learned into my epoxy e-book: the exact products I use, why I chose them, and how to care for an epoxy countertop. It covers granite, laminate, MDF, and wood, plus a faux marble finish.

If you’d rather skip epoxy, several coats of polycrylic will seal a herringbone wood countertop too. It’s thinner and less durable, but much easier.

How Much Does It Cost to Build a Herringbone Countertop?

About $260 in materials for mine. The 1 gallon epoxy kit is most of it at about $145. The rest is about $70 for a sheet of 3/4 inch Sande plywood, $15 for the pine 1×4, $10 for the pine 1×2, $10 for stain, and $10 for clear silicone caulk. Sandpaper, brad nails, rags, tape, drop cloths, and the wall trim add about $85 if you don’t already have them.

A store bought 6 ft chevron butcher block runs about $200 to $440 at Home Depot and Lowe’s, so DIY herringbone countertops aren’t a huge savings. What you get is a custom size, a three shade look you choose, and serious bragging rights.

Is a DIY herringbone countertop the same as herringbone butcher block?

Not quite. Herringbone butcher block is a solid hardwood slab glued up at a factory. Most store versions are actually chevron, where the board ends are cut at an angle and meet in a point. Herringbone uses plain rectangles that meet at a right angle. Mine is a herringbone wood countertop made of plywood boards under epoxy, and it passes for the real thing. Prefer the look of stone? Here’s how I made DIY countertops that look like marble.

More DIY Countertop Projects

• Epoxy kitchen countertops, three years later
• DIY concrete countertops, step by step
• DIY waterfall kitchen island
• Herringbone tile floor in my bathroom

📌 Save This Herringbone Countertop for Later

Pin this herringbone countertop tutorial so the stain trick and the board size are ready when you start your own.

Herringbone Countertop FAQs

The Bottom Line on a Herringbone Countertop

This herringbone countertop is one sheet of plywood, ripped into 3 x 8 inch boards, stained in three shades, nailed tight, trimmed, caulked, and sealed with epoxy, for about $260 in materials. If you tell a friend one thing, tell them to clamp a long straight edge before the first cut. My pencil line earned an F; the clamped fence earned a B+.

Have a question about cutting, staining, or sealing your herringbone countertop? Ask me in the comments. And if you’re a visual learner, all of my project stories are saved in the highlights on my Instagram account @crystelmontenegrohome.