Wood Bar Top

After we purchased our house, the first thing that had to go was this little wall in the kitchen. It really closed off the kitchen from the living room and dining area and we wanted to open it up. The difference it made by knocking out that wall was crazy! Check it out below!

Before

After
Obviously there were other changes between the two pictures as well: paint, a new light fixture over the island, decorations, etc., but what a difference it made knocking out that wall and opening up the kitchen to the rest of the house! Check out the remodel journey for how we achieved this look.

The first step was tearing out that wall with a sledgehammer. Demo was fun!

After the wall was tore out, here's what we had to work with. (sorry, these pictures aren't the best quality)

As you can see, we had some adjustments to make in order to give us a level platform to mount the bar top on.

We layered a couple 2'x4's in the gap (as seen below), then we drywalled, mudded, and the new wall (as seen above). Now we have an even wall to mount the bar top.

We had to do some measuring and fitting so that we could adjust the wood as needed. We purchased our beautiful piece of wood from a local saw mill.

Out in the garage we cut it to size, sanded it, and varnished it with lacquer. We didn't want to stain it because we wanted the natural colors of the wood to come out. We needed the lacquer however because we needed the bar top to be waterproof and wipeable. The lacquer definitely helped to bring out the natural beauty in the wood. Lacquer will change the way your wood looks.

Now for the mounting! We used liquid nails to glue the wood to the wall, and then we used a nail gun on the underside of the bar top to secure it in place. We also added 2 L-brackets on the underside to give it support. We purchased our L-brackets from Lowe's, but Hobby Lobby has a much better selection so check there first! I wish I would have known at the time that Hobby Lobby had a huge variety of L-brackets and shelving mounts.

How's it looking?!

And for the finished picture again! I LOVE LOVE how this remodel turned out! Thanks again to my cousin and her hubby for their awesome help this weekend! This project took one weekend to complete, but touch up took a little bit longer than just the one weekend. We had to re-texture the drywall, paint the new wall that we built up and add a chair rail under the bar top to close up any gap that was visible.

Hope you enjoyed this remodel project!