Our Kitchen Reno | Maple Countertops are IN!

Well, today was quite productive, “we” got the counters installed! I say “we” because hubby did the bulk of this work. Liam finally got the OK to return to Idyllwild Music camp, the wildfires are officially under control. So he and I helped wrestle a 12 foot piece of maple counter tops, and 2 8 foot pieces while Andrew made the preliminary cuts. Then I drove Liam up to Idyllwild while hubby continued on with all the fussy stuff. Liam was quite happy to return, he even came outside to pose for a picture before I left! (Big surprise, they left their room a mess when they evacuated last week!)

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I came home to this:

And all the counters were installed:

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So I helped hubby mark the cutout for the stovetop:

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and then vacuumed all the dust up. Then I cleaned the counters with mineral spirits and put the first coat of finish on. We’re using Waterlox. It’s a tung oil base finish that is more work to apply in the beginning than just an oil, but it’s more protective and won’t need the re-coating that oil finishes do. And we shall NOT be cutting things on this surface!!!!! (We do have some awesome cutoff pieces that will make great cutting boards though!)

Sorry the pics aren’t great (none of these process pix are…but it’s the only way these posts will happen, and I’m really glad I’m blogging about this, it’ll be helpful for us down the line, and who knows, someone else might find these posts useful as well!) BUT, with even one coat of finishe, you can see how awesome these counter tops are going to be!

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We’ve got more of this countertop to make a new top for the island. I’m so glad we did (so we wouldn’t have to drive back to Lumber Liquidators to buy another 8 feet) because you can see how much thicker the maple counter is than the standard Ikea beech counter that’s still on the island. Hubba Hubba!

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I’ve gotta say that this is the first day where I can start seeing the plan come together. Installing those cabinet boxes are a lot of fussy work, but in the end there’s hardly much substance to them until the doors and drawers go in, so having the counters on adds enough bulk and contrast that we can start to see it all come together! Woot!

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Here are a couple of shots of the tricky spot where the counter extends into the window sill – didn’t Hubby do a great job???

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One Response

  1. Hey, Candy! WOW! Those counter tops are things of beauty…and, yes, hubby did great on the window sill area, in fact, he has done a lot well! You two are brave to tackle that job yourselves.

    Job well done!

    So glad Liam is back at Idylwild