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It is a little hard to tell from the plan above but the unit on the right has a wood countertop. We want the countertop to be fir to match the floors and bought a large piece of fir to work with. But...then we decided that we would try and use some of the old baseboard fir to make it instead. The wood still had a couple of coats of paint on it that first had to be striped.
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The boards had quite a cup to them after spending the last 110 years in the garage or in the house so I ripped them down to thinner strips and alternated them when they were glued up. By alternating them in the glue up means that if they cup any more or less they will just add waves to the top instead of a big cup. The board across the top is used to keep the boards inline during the glue up.
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Here it is after drying and being cleaned up with the scraper to remove dried glue. After this point the top was leveled a little with a hand plane and then 60 grit sandpaper on the random orbital sander.
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Here it is after the sanding...
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The top is made to look like it is 1.5" thick instead of the 0.75" by gluing a second piece on the front. This second piece also allows the edge profile to be routed in.
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Measurements were taken of the space for the fir top and was trimmed by hand to the line. I put a little back bevel in the cut to get the tightest fit to the wall and the other cabinet.
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Here it is all urethaned up after the cutting to fit the space.
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Here Kristen is painting all of the cabinets. The baseboard still needs to be painted and put on in other spots.
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your fir countertop is gorgeous - what a transformation!
ReplyDeleteMel & Brian