Tri my world: Installing Wood Countertops

Hey you guys! Guess what? We've installed the countertops in the office!

After cutting the countertops, installing them only took about an hour. We wanted to connect the countertops in the corner to create one solid piece. Our goal was to create a system in which we could tighten the two countertop pieces together to minimize the gap at the seam between them, and we used some great tips from my dad to do this! First, we placed both pieces on the floor upside down and roughly lined them up.

(Prior to taking them off the cabinets, we traced around the cabinets on the bottom side of the counters so we knew the boundaries of our working space down there.)

We then took two boards, one for each side of the seam, and cut them to fit within the traced area we had. To tighten the counterrop pieces together, we attached these boards to each countertop piece, connected the boards with threaded rods, and used nuts to pull them together. We drilled holes through both boards to insert the threaded rod in first to avoid alignment issues. The threaded rod came from one 20-inch piece that we cut to the length we needed with a small saw.

With the rods in, we used 1-1/2 inch screws to attach both boards to their respective countertop (via pre-drilled holes).

Six scres on each side may have been a nit excessive, but we didn't want the boards to bow at all when we tightened them together. We then loosely tightened the nuts onto the threaded rods so we could flip the countertop and set it on the cabinets.

With the countertop in place, we pulled them apart slightly so we could caulk the seam. We chose almond colored caulk to blend with the color of the countertop.

After caulking the entire seam, we pushed the countertops together, tightened all the nuts down, and used damp cloths to wipe the excess caulk away.

Since the caulk shrinks as it dries, we gave it a second round after everything was tightened and dry. After all the nerves involved, we are very happy with the result!

And here's a look at the underside after tightening.

To finish up, we used L-brackets to attach the countertop to the cabinets by pre-drilling holes and screwing them in while pressure was applied to the top.