Christmas Counter Tops

We are re-tuning a kitchen for a family who just bought this 1960’s rancher. The kitchen was not very old and the cabinets were pretty good, so we decided to work with them. This kitchen tune-up approach is much cheaper than replacing a whole kitchen.

Here are some photos of the new counter tops going in. You’ll see some of the challenges we had to work with to get things looking right.

Since the cabinets were not installed perfectly plumb level or square, we needed to make some alterations to them and shim the new counters to get them to line up nicely at their seam. The old laminate counters we replaced were flexible so this problem was hidden. Our counter guys had a lot of tricks up their sleeves to make the fixes for the new solid surface counters (which don’t flex).

You can see the counter top installer’s well stocked truck with its work bench in the very front. Often they have to make small cuts on site. They need all kids of colored caulks and clamps and tools. It’s a real specialty, requiring great craftsmanship.

Once the counter tops were situated in their locations and the installers were happy, they mixed up color matched epoxy to fill the seams, then siliconed the counters into place. The sinks got “sink clips” which screwed the sink up under the counter tops. All this was prepped in the counter makers’ shop.

You can see that the sinks and faucets were pre-mounted before the counters went in, to save back pain on the part of plumbers and counter guys. We typically have the plumbers on site as soon as the counters are in. In this case we had them there at the same time.

We prepped the walls with cement board for tile installation. That happens after the counter is installed. You can’t see it but we installed insulation behind that as well. We should be able to wrap up the tile before New Year’s Day because of this prep work and planning.

We needed to get these counters and sinks working for our customers because Christmas was two days away. Everyone pushed to get it done. You can see it looked great!  And our lovely customers provided us with a pot of coffee and fresh, locally made donuts on Christmas Eve morning.