Installing new kitchen countertop

Hi

I'm looking to replace our tired old tiled kitchen counter top in the next 12 months. I've scoured the 'net and this forum and have seen a fair bit on how to make and finish laminated solid timber tops. I've also got Danny Proulx's book on kitchen cabinets (which is pretty good), some DIY magazine articles on kitchen remodelling, and even came across this interesting article on postform tops. You also see the DIY shows install tops all the time but they always skim over the finer points of measuring, cutting and fitting.

All these articles and books seem to me to be long on topics like carcass construction but are short on the "do's and don'ts" of actually building and attaching tops in general (solid timber, postform, tiled, etc). I thought I'd start a thread here to try and collect any useful tips on the selection and installation of tops (eg marking out, using sealants, cutting postform, etc).

As a specific question to kickstart the thread, are they any tips out there on attaching a postform top to MDF melamine carcasses? Can you just build a cleat on top of the carcasses and then screw the top from underneath? Is there a "more professional" way to do this?

BTW, my tip from experience is don't use tiles for your countertop unless you are prepared to use apply epoxy grout. Normal grout harbors germs and looks bloody ugly after you spill coffee on it!

Cheers

Andrew,
There's a few options for fixing your tops: blocks of 19 x 19 pine screwed to the carcasse and then a screw up into the top, full length horizontal rails to screw through, or commercially made blocks, either plastic or plastic/metal combination. Be wary however when fixing timber tops as neither the commercially made blocks nor the pine blocks allow room for expansion and contraction. If fitting timber tops I would recommend a horizontal rail with slotted holes.

Mick

my kitchen cabinets have a full length rail front and back and i just screwed through into the laminate tops, being really careful to check all screws b4 useing them. i have often found longer screws mixed-in with ones of the right length, and they were straight from the factory!!! one longer screw can ruin an entire benchtop if it comes through!!!!

for timber tops maybe you could only fix along the front rail and leave a gap at the back, and use the splashback to hold the back edge down so any movement would be accommodated. just ask at a kitchen showroom what they do, or just stick your head in a cabinet and have a look. they probably use a metal bracket of some kind, like the ones you use to fix tabletops with.

good luck.

A tip for you,
When cutting out the sink and hotplate, use a jigsaw with masking tape on the base, the tape will stop the base fromscratching your new laminate.

DO NOT USE A CIRCULAR SAW, i found out the hard way a few years back when i was on the tools. my supervisor recommended using a circular saw to cut the holes out. lets just say the circular saw was thrown from one end of the garage to the other.

G

Check out the Auction columns in the paper, they have auction sales where you may be able to pick up granite pieces suitable for bench tops.

Glenn

Has anyone ever built a solid timber counter top with a 2" or 2.5" slab of some sort?

What timber have you or would you use?
How would you dress it?

I am planing to do such top but only for the bench at the front of the kitchen, that is somehow separated from the rest. The one used for brekfast table.

there is a place in campbelltrown that has slabs of red gum, camphor laurel and some others, mainly hardwood, for reasonable prices. they can be dressed either by planeing or sanding, depending on how rough the surface is. they only cut the timber in the winter so there is less chance of cracking, warping etc.

G'day Andrew,

Not a big item for your project and you may already be using them but if you haven't, suggest you try Robertson Square drive screws and the INSTY-BIT.

Available from Sachys-Robertson who offer great advice and service. Used the screws/system for the first time this week - brilliant - which has been mentioned long ago in these forums - just taken too long to get my act together.

www.sachys-robertson.com.au

Brian:)

Thank you Re Do 4 me . . . . Campbelltown is right up my alley, or nearly anyway. Would you have an address or phone number?

Also, has anyone had experience in planing such large surface?
I have of course no machinery that can handle 30" wide, so it is rather buy a v/long hand plane and a lot of elbow grease, or mounting a gadget with two rails along the slab and a cross rail, to fix my biggest reuter and give the top a tuch up this way.

What do you suggest?

the place i mentioned is a mower shop, they also sell chainsaw mills and various other interesting stuff.
their name is R&H Mowers 4 hollylea rd leumeah ph.4626 1908 they don't always have a lot of slabs in stock so it's worth a phone call first to see what they've got. if you are after something special i think they take orders. they might even smooth the slabs for you. otherwise the router on rails sounds ok to me. maybe a big furniture workshop might put the slab through a sander or thicknesser for you.
good luck.

Marc, look under General Woodwork: Dressing a Blackwood Slab, or do a search , I posted a reply earlier that may help you.
Cheers
Barry

Hi Andrew,
In my first house I installed a second hand Kitchen with a tile bench.
I found 2 discdvantages.
1 It's hard to keep the grout clean.
2 Plates and glasses break extremely easy as there is no give in the bench.I'm sure granite would be the same in the breaking department.
Personally I think the rolled edge laminate is the most durable and easy to fit by the DIY.
This is what I did with second hand kitchen number 2 except i cheated a bit.
Family handyman has some great articles recently on fitting benchtops etc.Another good article is on scribing.
I found that walls are never square and need to be ordered oversized and scribed in.
I know everyone here likes to do things for themselves but the kitchen place that you order your $900 U shaped bench top from will for about $200 come out and measure,cut the special joins,come back scribe it in and install it connect the taps and
cooktop.
Thats got to be worth the $200.And thats what I did and it looks fantastic.

thanks
Micko

Andrew,
Have you got any windows or openings that require the top to be fitted to? If its a straight out L or U shape kitchen, its not really difficult to scribe the top to the wall. And rest assured, if you scribe to much, remember the wall tiles will cover the gap.
(or a really big tube of no more gaps). gennerally wall tiles will cover a 10mm gap. so if you got a typical U shape kitchen, thats a huge 15-20mm you have to play with.

if you ring a local cabinetmaker and offer him cash, they are generally good blokes who will try to help you out. ( the ones i know would) Give them a call and ask them what they would charge to scribe a kitchen top. the rest like cutting in the sink and hot plate is really straight forward that you can do yourself.

If you are really really worried, make some raw chipboard templates first and then mark them to your new top.
that way you can stuff up on the cheap stuff, correct your mistakes, and transfer it to your expensive Postform tops.

Hope this helps.

G

Thanks to all who have provided advice. There's some useful tips here.

Fortunately I have a galley style kitchen with a window down one end and a doorway at the other. Although the walls are probably not plumb or even, fitting cabinets should be a relatively easy job due to the simple geometry of the room.

Its a bit boring, but there won't be any windows above the bench. I've ruled out stainless steel and glass splashbacks, which I think look great in a modern house but probably won't suit our style of house (a 1930s Tudor). The backsplash will probably be tiled (which I can do myself) to blend in with the rest of the house.

We hope to put most of the value of the kitchen into the benchtop and appliances. I like the look of a solid natural top but I personally think they're too much maintenance to keep looking good and clean. I've seen what a hot

Current preference is to get a professional to make and fit a granite top. If too expensive, then I will install dark granite tiles with a matching epoxy grout. I'm hoping to "undermount" the sink, which will require some fiddly sealing of the top to the sink.

BTW - has anyone used Caesarstone as a countertop? What is the cost like compared to solid granite? It looks quite nice if you like the terrazo appearance.

Once my project is underway (hopefully next year) I'll start a web site and post some pics.

Thanks again - please keep the tips coming!

Having just been through this process in the past week (having had postformed tops made up), I strongly recommend doing what GCP310 suggests - don't assume that anything in the kitchen is square, and if possible make up templates first - I made the mistake of assuming the corners were square. Luckily I was able to recover by some splashback manipulation, but it could so easily have been a lot worse and I could have had to chuck out one of my new counters.
Also, I had quotes for Caesarstone and Stone Italia, which were both more expensive than the granite quote I got.

GEM auctions in Springvale had granite (or marble) countertops, for memory they were about $300 for a standard 600mm by 3 metres.
Cost more to get the holes cut out though and as heavy as buggery.
I've cheated and just bought 7 metres of laminated 'green' MDF tops for $748, including edging and joiners for the corners, this included cutting the ends so they marry up at the join.
Saved me a lot of trouble.
I haven't decided how to fix them to the cupboards yet but will probably use a L bracket to allow for any movement.
For soild redgum, there is a place in Apsley (near Naracoorte on the Vic side) that sell kiln dried slabs.
He claims they are stable and won't move as they are dried for three months.
Nice little drive from Adelaide, but don't forget the roof rack ;)

Came across this tool (what a great tool name!!!). Looks like a useful and inexpensive aid in fitting of benchtops to uneven walls. Its available from Mik International.

Looks like an ingeniously simple and effective tool, especially compared to a compass in a shaky hand. Has anyone had any experience with it?

The scribing tool looks good, but there are only 3 wheel sizes. The smallest is nearly 2 inches in diameter. The scrible line would therefore be nearly 1 inch from the wheel edge. I would have thought you'd be scribing for a smaller gap than 1 inch most times. You would finish up taking a fair bit off the back of your benchtop wouldn't you??

George

I agree - an inch is a lot to cut off a bench. I think the tool may be more useful for marking out a template first using cheap plywood rather than scribing directly onto the bench. I agree with earlier advice on making a sacrificial template using cheap plywood first - I've seen what happens in the construction of a bench when walls are assumed to be at 90 degrees but actually aren't!

I was thinking that the Perfect Butt may serve double duty in fitting built-in cabinets against a wall but it looks like its limitation is in the wheel widths. If the greatest distance between the cabinet's back vertical edge and the wall is mostly less than than 2cm then a 2 inch wheel would scribe a very inefficient line, and any gap larger than 4.5cm (a lot but not impossible) would be beyond the Perfect Butt's capability. Think I might stick to a scribing compass for built-ins...

ceasarstone is great to look at and reasonably easy to work with. the use of templates is a must however as when it comes to joining the stone together you only have minutes before the special adhesive goes off. to make the joints acurate you need to make a template of all pieces, scribing to walls etc.
i use 3mm mdf its cheap and easy to plane.
you can cut the stone with a power saw, plane it, sand it (with a special stone, the supplier should give a bit) and polish it up with a bit of 360 wet and dry and when done right looks a million bucks. although natural granite is the best.
if your going to install your sink below the granit top use marine grade ply as your substrate fix your sink as you normally would and fit your top over it making sure the correct recess has been allowd for.

with painted back glass for your splash back its as easy as making a template!!!! dont be put off by the cost as you paint it yourself. simply was the glass with meths and apply an enamel paint easy!!! careful not to scratch the paint when dry though as it will peel off oh and use neutral cure silicone to fix it with as acidic cure will eat the paint.

hey gaz. I think the job might be done by now. :rolleyes: