Saturday, April 24, 2010

Hello, countertops. Meet kitchen cabinets.

Anyone who's talked to me in the last eleven months knows that I've been threatening to put a countertop on my kitchen cabinets for a long time now, and this weekend I made good on that threat and started to build the substrate on which I'm going to install a laminate (Marmoleum, most likely). Here are a couple photos from the project so far.

The cabinets (just begging for a countertop under which they can hide and hold all manner of kitchen implement).

Cutting the MDF sheets that I'm using as a base for the countertop.

Checking the dryfit of the MDF pieces.

Gluing up the joints that will hold the MDF pieces together.

And here, after the gluing, is the countertop base. Now I just need to get the laminate and glue it down and I'll have a real countertop.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

B-E-A-UTIFUL! What color is the laminate going to be?

Ben said...

Thanks, Lisa. I'm still trying to figure out which color to go with. Right now I'm favoring one called Sahara (http://www.forbo-flooring.us/Default.aspx?MenuId=870) and one called Red Copper (http://www.forbo-flooring.us/Default.aspx?MenuId=851).

Mike said...

I've got some nice orange formica countertops that you could have.
Good to see some progress in the kitchen. Maybe you could have a Memorial Day feast cooked in there.

Anonymous said...

I think I like the red copper color better, but I guess it depends on what color the walls are going to be

Mom said...

Looks great, Ben! Good progress. Hope you're able to continue.

Steve Barnhart said...

Great progress, Ben. I'm glad to see you're wearing a respirator for cutting the MDF - that's nasty to breath. I hope you had some help lugging those sheets around. What are you planning to finish the edges with?

Janell said...

What happened to the butcher block idea? Just curious. You found some really good options for the laminate - I remember looking at some options before and didn't find anything like the samples on those pages. You and your secret website resources.

Mike said...

You need a new post called "hello formica, meet countertops"

Ben said...

Woah, I lost track of this post and just realized there were follow-up comments.

Janell, I decided to scratch the butcher block idea when I realized that Ikea didn't make one big enough for the countertop section I needed. Then I was thinking about mix and matching countertops (like a little butcher block section in the middle of the rest), but in the end I'm going for the simple, cheap marmoleum. I figure I can get fancy in a couple years when I redo this whole kitchen (ha ha ha).

And, Dad, I hope to be writing that new post soon. Stay tuned...