We hosted my brother's family for Thanksgiving, so I really needed to have this room presentable and it was a nice motivator to get the room to a usable state.
In my last post I had fished installing the drawers and I decided to work on the table top next to take advantage of a nice weekend where I could work outdoors. I purchased 3 butcher block counter tops that I got a good deal on. They are made of acacia wood which I have never worked with before, but I really like working with butcher block material because it is very geometrically sound.
Any butcher block will be made from several strips of 1.5" x 1.5" wood of various species. End on end pieces are machined together with finger joints. The strips are all laminated together to make a very flat, solid wood panel that can be cut down and/or glued together to make any type of furniture. What you will discover is how stable this type of wood material is compared to a standard plank of wood that could deform - warp, twist, check, split.
If you read my first posts about this project, my plan for this room was for it to have multiple functions. We need to use it for storage space, closet space, pantry drawers and have a table for working space. At first I had planned for the table to be adjustable in both size and height. I still may include more rails to place the table at 2 different heights, but my original plan to have a folding table top made from 2 butcher blocks went out of the window.
I decided against the folding table top for a few reasons. The main reason was because I did not account for how heavy this acacia wood is. It is quite dense but it is not very hard. I recently installed a butcher block made from birch and it was much lighter. So, I ultimately decided to go with one counter/table top made from two 25" x 96" butcher blocks.
I cross-cut both butcher blocks to 81" in length and then ripped a number of 1.5" thick rails from each. At first I did not have a straight edge long enough so I used one butcher block as the straight edge to cut the other. Once I had my first rail cut off, I used it as my straight edge going forward.
I clamped the rail at a 1.5" offset using 2 clamps then used my circular saw to cut each rail taking 2 passes. After cutting the rails I was left with one 8 inch wide piece from one butcher block that I would glue to another 22 inch wide piece from the other butcher block to make a single 30" x 81" counter top.
I glued up the large table top on my living room floor with a big piece of cardboard below. I lined the glue edges of each half with painters tape to protect the raw wood from glue marks near the seam. After clamping for a few hours I cleaned off the partially dry glue and removed the tape.
Next I needed to prep the back wall in the room. I bought some 3/8" dry wall to install over the old wall board with textured paint and the exposed studs. I installed a piece at the top and the bottom of the back wall and secured with dry wall screws. Then I ripped some notches out of the two long 81" length rails that will be attached to the back wall used to hold up the counter and shelf. The rails will mount to the wall at the two seams where the drywall and cork meet. The notches allow the rails to be bolted to the back wall and also cover the edges of the materials mounted to the wall. This will make for a clean look.
Here you can see the counter rail attached to the wall using 5" cabinet screws that go into each stud. This rail covers the new sheet of drywall installed on the bottom 1/3rd of the wall with the edge of the drywall going into the bottom notch cut into the rail. You can see one cork panel sitting in the top notch of the rail in the photo above.
During the next nice weekend, I took the full counter top outside and sanded it down really well. The glued seam was not too bad but there were a few areas where the glue did not squeeze out to the surface completely which left a few little voids in the seam where you could see some bubbly glue. Before the glue dried completely I took a knife and cleaned the glue out of the seam in those few problem areas so that there was a clear gap there instead of bubble of dried glue.
Here you can see part of the glue seam where I scraped out some of the glue leaving a small gap. I have some good wood filler but it is bright white which would stand out when finished. So, I purchased some acrylic paints to mix with the wood filler and had great results.
Here I just mixed a small dollop of burnt umber into the white filler and it looked amazing right away.
I then filled a few different areas with a light and dark color filler and then sanded the counter down again. Once sanded it was hard to find these seems at all so I think my color matching went well.
I then cut off the 4 corners of the table top by cutting a small chamfer into each corner. Then I routed the top and bottom edges of the table top with a chamfer bit on my router.
Next, I worked on the various rails that will hold up the counter and shelf. There are the 2 long rails for the back wall, then 2 medium length rails for the sides of the counter and 2 shorter rails for the shelf. Each rail had pilot holes and countersink holes for the long and short cabinet screws I used to attach them to the wall studs and cabinet sides.
Once I had the counter top and rails complete I brought them up stairs into the room and applied 2 coats of water-based polyurethane to everything.
I then installed the left over cork flooring to the back wall. The first row went along the notch in the bottom rail and then I stacked them row by row while offsetting each row so the vertical seams don't line up. Here you can see the small gap left for the top rail to be installed above the light switch.
Even though the cork is made to install on the floor, you can float it over a wall too with enough support. The rail held most of the weight and the tongue and groove design for the cork pieces kept it flat against the wall. I put in a few brads through the cork into the wall studs just to be safe and the top rail hid the top edge of the cork nicely while also holding it down.
The last step to get done before my brother's family arrived was to cut and install the wood trim for the cabinets. I purchased some poplar boards and ripped into 1.5" strips to then cut to various lengths and attach to the front of the cabinets with my nail gun. When I used the nail gun, instead of nailing directly to the face of the trim pieces (for final installation), I used a small piece of wood to stand off the brads so they do not go in all of the way. This way I can easily remove all the trim to sand down and paint before I reinstall them permanently.
This process allows me to get the exact sizing of the trim pieces before finalizing. My ceiling is not totally flat so I needed to use a spacer to force the top pieces against the ceiling properly.
The trim finished off the cabinets nicely and will be painted white in the near future...
I quickly cut out the shelf to size, then sanded and routed the edges. I am almost seeing the end of the tunnel.
Even though I thought the counter top was finished...I, mean it had 2 coats of poly on it. I decided that I needed to cut 2 slots near the back edge to allow for power cables to reach the receptacle under the counter.
I again, relied on my left over rails to use as straight edges. I cut some plywood cross pieces to clamp in between as stops for my router. I plunged 2 long slots through the counter with no issue. The poly protected the surface perfectly.
After cleaning up, I used my router again to chamfer the top and bottom edges of each slot.
Lastly, I installed some baseboards around the room and now have the room ready enough to share with my family and enjoy some rest over the long Thanksgiving weekend!
Next steps:
- Sand, paint and install trim
- Start to design the cabinet doors
