Maple Coutertop with Quilted Front

I work at a Salon in Central Phoenix. We just remodeled and I built the bar area for the clients to have refreshments at. It’s a ~9+ ft. long, 20” wide”, 2” thick maple countertop with a 3.5” quilted maple front. It’s sitting on a birch plywood shelf I bolted to the wall I framed. It also has L channel steel holding each side firmly to studs on each side. The thing is like a rock! I also framed/drywalled the slanted wall to the right where the plasma TV is going. I’m going to coat the bar(s) with glazecoat soon, but we needed it installed ASAP, so it’s just got a few coats of oil-based poly right now. I’ll be sanding it down and epoxy coating it soon. I’m also building another bar perpendicular to it for the bar refrigerator, microwave, and cappuccino machine. I just picked up the wood this last week. Can’t wait. I got some great deals on the maple. All together the project cost about $648 to build, including all of the framing, drywall, steel, maple, finish, glue, etc. Pretty cool.

When I laminated the top together it was just a little over 10’ long, 20” wide, and 3” thick. Luckily for me I have an incredible planer. The thing must have weighed over 200 lbs. I had to lift one end at a time and manhandle it back and forth since I was by my lonesome. The planer took it like was a playtoy. The planer weighs about 2500 lbs or more. It didn’t even budge. I’m so glad I bought big tools. I don’t think I could have done this without them. The sliding table saw came in handy for trimming. I had a friend help me install it and I cut it to fit on site. It was good experience. I want to do wood countertops in my house in the future. I also want to do a table similar to this. Now that I know how heavy it is though… I’m going to arrange for help.

-- Thomas Porter, Phoenix, AZ, www.thomasporter.com