We searched hard to find just the right size butcher block and fell in love with this one. It was fairly easy to put together and very well made. Everything is great, besides the wire baskets. We had to go through 7 baskets to finally get 3 that were made correctly. But their customer service was amazing. Every monday morning for 2 weeks (it took 3 shipments to get the 3 well made baskets) I called Catskill, they took my adress and mailed them out, by Friday I had the new baskets! So if you get a Catskill product I would probably not do something with wire baskets, or atleast expect them not to get it right the first time. The butcher block is great and we have found it to work extremely well. My family has always had Boos blocks and it is a great alternative if you don't want to spend a fortune.