I would be interested in seeing what you come up with especially after seeing your wood work and keyboard plate work thus far.
Personally I would buy the heck out of a maple and black walnut board with good styling. Maple is really the best wood out there for cutting boards but most of the boards I found when I was looking to buy were lacking in the ascetics side of things. If you google "maple and walnut cutting board" there are a ton of different attempts but nothing struck me as much as the board I just got in which is mostly just for aesthetics while functioning as a backup or for lighter work as mentioned previously.
Personally I would avoid using cherry with maple due to their hardness differences but that's just me. As you can see maple and black walnut is were I think the right functional compromises meet with a great aesthetics. Mahogany would likely look good in there as well.
Another thing you can try is building magnetic knife blocks. Potato pic to follow:
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Thanks ^___^
I always have maple on hand and am planing on making my mom a Christmas present out of black maple, you so might be in luck, lol. Is there anything close you what you like the most. I personally really like the look of older butcher blocks with long strips of wood. I also like checkerboard patterns, but I can see how that could easily be over done.
I didn't even think the different hardnesses would make a difference till you mentioned it (then again, I haven't done a ton of research on the topic of cutting boards). Thanks for the tip ^___^
Also, that knife stripe would be pretty easy to make. I think finding magnets would be the hardest part, lol