We got a surprise gift just after new years, a letter and pictures from the previous owner of the house. In case I haven’t mentioned this before, the house was owned by a woman whose daughter and grandsons lived in the house. These pictures should be from around 1970-1971 when the house was first purchased by them. The pictures help explain a few of the odditities we found in the house while working on it. It was clear that multiple sizes of windows had been installed in various rooms of the house over time, but seeing some of these older windows lets me get a better picture in my head of how the framing evolved as windows were changed out.

This was a super fun surprise to find in the mail!

Hit the read more link for about a half dozen more pics.

This would have been the west side of the house circa 1970. It looks like the land over there may have been recently leveled, and the master bedroom windws are radically different from when we bought it. The look like the same types of windows that we originally removed from an interior wall and one that we removed from the cellar.

This would have been the back of the house circa 1970. The back looks unchanged except for siding. The same windows, little awning and back door were all still there. When vinyl siding was added, it covered the limestone foundation and the window in the foundation.

It looks like a freaking jungle back behind the house. The letter mentioned that the whole property was rather overgrown.

This looks like the room that eventually became our kid’s room. I don’t think the windows that are stack on the wall were ever put into this room, that or they were replaced with different windows later on.

The same door was still there when we got the place, just missing a couple of the actual window panes.

I’m pretty sure that this is a picture of the old, burned down shed that sits at the edge of our property. It looks like it had already fallen down when they bought it, but I don’t see evidence of burning. Maybe they built a new shed down there, which subsequently burned down later.

Let me introduce you to our kitchen, in it’s very nearly completed form! We took several months off from doing any serious work on the house after finally getting the lady’s office and the kitchen mostly done. But as we were hosting Christmas this year, we realized we really needed to get some more work done, which meant finally getting the kitchen countertops in (plus we knocked out some trim and built a fireplace mantle).

This is a big, big post with lots of pictures and words, so hit the read more link to see it all. I’m including a lot of information about how we handled the countertops, since I had such a hard time finding good information when I decided to embark on this little journey and hopefully our experiences can help someone else who is considering copper countertops.

First of all, lets compare what we had with what we have.

This is what the kitchen looked like when we bought the house.

This is what the kitchen looked like when we bought the house.

And this is what our kitchen looks like now!

The entire kitchen was completely gutted and we just started over. The cabinetry was falling apart, it had been so badly abused over the years (it was decently built stuff originally). The windows belonged more in a summer cabin, not a north facing wall in a house that gets viscous cold north winds. We got ridiculously lucky and found exactly the window that we wanted at the Habitat for Humanity store in Kansas City. It was a brand new Pella, 3 separate panes. The center pane is fixed and each of the outside panes open. It really opens up the view out of the back of the house. We sacrificed some counter space to add a back door. The door currently just goes to a 6 foot drop, the deck will come later. Originally there was a 3 foot opening between the kitchen and the living room. We tore most of that wall out and made it a 12 foot opening (leaving a little stub wall on the east side). The little stub wall forms one side of a washer/dryer/pantry enclosure. There was a door from the kitchen into a bedroom, which we walled off. That bedroom eventually became my office, and it now has an entrance from another room. The kitchen got the same white oak hardwoods that are present in the rest of the house. The countertops will get addressed in detail below.

The only thing left for the kitchen is to get a range hood up and there is still some trim that needs done. I think down the road I’m going to build a movable center island with a butcher block top, but it’s not a top priority right now.

Like much of the rest of the house, it all feels radically different from what was originally here.

Now, on to the countertops.

We talked about a variety of surfaces for countertops, pretty much anything you can imagine (granite, tile, Formica, the fake granite stuff). But early on, I had run across some pictures of copper countertops that I became thoroughly enamored with and couldn’t get out of my head. Copper is definitely a non-standard countertop material, very few professionals will work with it because of the rarity. Granite was out pretty much due to cost. But, after running the numbers, copper was comparable to pretty much any other surface except for very cheap tile. The total cost for the job was less than $900 for all the material and new tools.

Copper as a countertop can be handled in a couple of different ways. It can be left raw, in which case it is incredibly anti-microbial and a great food surface. But, raw copper will develop a patina over time, meaning that its look will constantly be changing and it requires some different kinds of maintenance versus more traditional countertop materials. Its changing look is what makes it an attractive surface to many people. You can also seal it, which means it doesn’t have the anti-microbial benefit anymore, but its look won’t change and the care and maintenance is different. We opted to seal ours since we had a pre-applied patina on the copper.

Copper should also not necessarily be considered a lifetime material. It will dent. It will age. If you’re interested in copper countertops, you need to want a top that will develop character as it ages. If you want it to look the same 5 or 10 years from now as it does today, look for another material. Most estimates I found figured that a copper countertop is good for about 15 years (give or take a few).

I’m going to detail our steps here, as I did have a lot of difficulty finding good information on how to do copper countertops. I am deeply indebted to this forum thread, which had more information than any other source I could find online. ColorCopper also has a great video on adhering copper with contact cement. I wish I had links to everywhere that I looked to give credit to the dozen or so sites that I consulted during this, but unfortunately I didn’t bookmark them all.

Oh, and I am not an expert in copper countertops and offer this only as a description of my experience. If you choose to follow all or any of my steps and it goes horribly wrong, it’s not my fault. Do your own research prior to starting a job like this. Also, I apologize that some of the steps do not have pictures. I took as many as I could, but there were some spots were every available hand was actively being used to do something. The job was mostly handled by two people (the lady and I). Don came out the day we put the big sheets down and the extra set of hands was super handy.

The steps we followed:

1. We built the countertop base out of doubled up 3/4 inch MDF, for an inch and a half total thickness. We liked the look of the thicker counter, and by doubling it up it let us fully assemble the big run with the L turn as a single piece. Our tops are 25 inches deep, so we couldn’t just split a 4×8 sheet of MDF in half to double them up. You’ll see that there is a gap in the bottom layer in the middle. By leaving a little gap in the middle on the bottom side, it let me conserve material, otherwise I would have needed 4 total sheets of MDF instead of 2.

I’m going to keep complaining about this, doing this during December was stupid. It’s definitely a spring/summer job.

We built the base out of doubled up 3/4 inch MDF.

We built the base out of doubled up 3/4 inch MDF.

We sanded the edges to get them nice and smooth.

A note: We knew we had extra copper and we had a variety of building materials left over from other projects, so we experimented with folding edges and corners with some scrap material. I highly recommend this if you have never worked with copper before, as you do not want to learn as you go. My practice corners are a lot rougher than my final corners. I also experimented with how we were going to handle the one seam we would have. Our copper had a pre-applied patina, which a light sanding took right off, so that was out of the question. We also tried plywood and concrete board as base materials, but were not happy with the texture they gave to the copper. MDF is nice and smooth and we felt gave the most attractive look after the copper was glued to it.

This is one of the scrap pieces I practiced on.

2. To actually apply the copper, you don’t need a lot of tools. We used a 3 inch laminate J-roller, contact cement, a small paint roller, a paint brush and metal shears. For contact cement, we used the DAP brand in a red can. It says it’s not appropriate for copper on the label, but I found multiple testimonies of people using it on copper just fine, so we went with it. DAP in the green can will not adhere to copper well and should not be used. I also found a variety of people who use Better Bond Copper Adhesive. I discovered this stuff too late to order and get the job done in the timeframe we had. DAP is almost always available locally.

It doesn’t take a bunch of tools to do this.

The most important tools you need.

3. We got our copper from Metal by the Foot in Kansas City. We got a 16 foot by 3 foot sheet, which was plenty to do the full counter and the backsplash. Most major metros should have a dealer that has copper, but it can also be found online at many places. The copper we used is on the thin side for countertops, so it may be more prone to denting over time, but we knew that going in. Going with a thicker copper would have required ordering it and would have doubled the cost of the job. You can usually find copper sheets either raw, or with a pre-applied patina. A patina is the unique discoloration and aged look that copper develops over time. We opted for a kind of burnt bamboo look, though we considered several other varieties. The bamboo still had a lot of raw copper throughout it, which is one of the reasons we went with it. Some of the other patinas really obscure the raw copper, even though they are attractive in their own way.

We favored the bamboo patina over all the other different varieties.

4. To mount the copper to the MDF, you coat both surfaces with contact cement and let them stand for about 15 minutes. Contact cement has some potent fumes, so you need a well ventilated area. We, unfortunately, were doing this during winter, and so had to open our house up to some pretty cold temps in order to get it aired out well. I don’t think I would ever do this during the winter again, definitely would wait until spring or summer.

If you’ve never worked with contact cement, once you stick two surfaces together, they are stuck that way. There is no sliding it around or adjusting, so you need to get it right the first time. For the small piece by the stove, we were able to just drop it straight down and get it right. For the long run, we used dowel rods spaced out every few inches to suspend the copper above the MDF as we got everything lined up. Then we removed the dowel rods in the middle of the run first and worked our way out from there. We did this with the counter sitting near its final location (just pulled out from the wall a bit), as the big long L run was too heavy and unwieldy to move easily.

You can press the copper down by hand first, then use the laminate roller to thoroughly press it to the MDF, which takes out any air bubbles and gives it that nice smooth finish. With the laminate roller, work from the middle to the edges of the top, to drive any bubbles out. If you haven’t got it decently pressed down flat prior to starting rolling, you can develop crinkles which are impossible to remove. We ended up developing a few small crinkles as we went over the sink hole. Because of their location, they are usually covered up by our coffee pot, but knowing now how to handle the copper going over that hole, I think I could get it done without a single wrinkle developing.

We applied the contact cement to the copper on the floor.

Dowel rods will suspend the copper from the countertop as we position it.

Dowel rods will suspend the copper from the countertop as we position it.

This is me rolling out the copper on the backsplash. Unfortunately we didn’t get any pictures of rolling out the big sheet (because all hands were occupied).

This is me rolling out the copper on the backsplash. Unfortunately we didn’t get any pictures of rolling out the big sheet (because all hands were occupied).

5. Now you’ve got the big surface area covered and it’s time to do the edges and corners. Our copper was thin enough that I could hand fold it over the edge, then use the laminate roller to get a really nice, crisp edge. Thicker copper may require a metal brace to make the folds, which also may need to be done ahead of time. We had to double up the contact cement on the edges, as the edge of the MDF soaked up the first layer. We fully coated the top and edge first, then after the sheet was attached to the top, went back and added another coat of contact cement to the edge.

You may want to do two coats of contact cement on the edges, as it may try to absorb into the edge.

We folded over about a half inch on the bottom, which was plenty. Again, I folded it by hand, and then got the edge good and crisp with the roller.

We just folded over about a half of an inch or so on the bottom.

We did not wrap copper around the back edge, as we didn’t see any reason to do so. The backsplash would overlap enough to cover and seal it. Saved a lot of folding, gluing, etc.

6. I’m going to repeat this: Practice your corners before doing the final piece. We settled on a type of fold that leaves a little seam on each corner edge, but the seam faces away from the dominate viewing angle, so it’s virtually invisible. First, we would fold down the side that is going to be seen the least, leaving just a little extra right at the corner. That little extra was then folded around the corner. Then the more visible edge was folded straight down, overlapping the little extra that we just folded, with its edge right at the corner. The corners will take a bit of time, as you’re going to have to apply contact cement to every place that is being adhered down, and some of the folds will not have been covered the first time you put cement everywhere.

I don’t know if that description makes any sense without seeing multiple pictures of the process, unfortunately this is one of those spots where all hands were busy. I hope it does.

This is how we folded the corners, again it’s on the backsplash as we didn’t get pictures of this part on the big sheets.

7. I found several talented people who were able to form the backsplash and countertop out of a single piece of copper. I did not feel that confident doing this the first time, so the backsplash is a separate piece. If I had planned better, I could have made it out of MDF too, but I didn’t leave enough MDF scrap. So rather than buy another sheet of MDF and waste most of it, we just got some 1×4 pine (actual dimensions 3×4 inch by 3 1/2 inch). Mounting the copper to the backsplash went just like the big sheets, only there were more corners to deal with.

The backsplash goes together just like the full top.

8. After the countertop and backsplash were all adhered, we used lacquer to seal all of it. We tried polyurethane, but it altered the color too much. The lady spent two days applying the lacquer, four coats total. Lacquer has even worse fumes than contact cement, and after two coats we had to evacuate the house for a few hours and let it air out. Again, I’m never doing another job like this in winter.

Had we gone with just raw copper, I don’t think we would have sealed it. I would have just let it age and develop its own patina over time.

The lady seals the top with laquer.

The lady seals the top with laquer.

9. We used L brackets to secure the countertop to the cabinetry.

10. We just used LiquidNail to attach the backsplash to the wall. The challenge here ended up being that the pine wasn’t perfectly straight (when is it?). The short runs were easy, but the long run did not want to sit flush against the counter top. So we improvised, holding down each end and the middle with a variety of stuff to keep it in place. We left it like that for about 18 hours, which was plenty of time.

We had to build some custom clamps to hold everything in place on the big long backsplash.

We had to build some custom clamps to hold everything in place on the big long backsplash.

11. The final step was to put the sink in and silicone the edge between the backsplash and countertop.

We were able to cut out the sink hole with just a good pair of scissors.

Final job was to seal everything up with silicone.

And that was it. It took about a full week to do the whole job from start to finish, but that included waiting for the cement and lacquer to cure, needing to actually run our business and we took one day off because the outdoor temp dropped way too much to open the house up that day.

And this is what it ended up looking like!

And this is what it ended up looking like!

And this is what it ended up looking like!

And this is what it ended up looking like!

We had one seam in the actual top. We did not solder or weld it. We managed to butt up two machined edges perfectly and the lacquer provides the seal.

And this is what it ended up looking like!

And this is what it ended up looking like!

If you’ve found this post because you were looking for information on copper countertops, please feel free to post any comments or questions here and I’ll address them to the best of my ability.

So the lady and I go refrigerator shopping, find a few models we like and I go home to research them. What do I discover? That every single model of refrigerator is a heaping pile of crap that will breakdown, leaving you waiting for weeks for warranty work (if you read forums). And, conversely, that every brand is wonderful with high levels of consumer satisfaction (if you visit a variety of sites like Consumer Reports and JD Power).

Ugh, seriously, is it that hard to get decent info on a refrigerator? Consumer Reports is almost worthless. What I want to know is how reliable and well built a unit is.

We had been leaning towards a Samsung, until the CR forums and a couple of other sites made me leery of the brand with horror stories of customer service. But JD Power ranks Samsung as having the highest level of consumer satisfaction for five years in a row in refrigerators. I definitely felt that the design and quality of shelving felt better in the Samsung, but that doesn’t really say anything about how well built the actual guts are.

Aaargh. Anyone have any clues about refrigerators?

The thing that scares me most when Tam picks up a sledge is not that she will hurt me, or the house. It’s the constant sense that she is somehow about to take her own head off. But she does get in there and swing with the best of them.

These videos may not be that exciting, but the lady really wanted to show off that she could break stuff too, and Don wanted to share more of his demolition with some other people. Enjoy!

Oh yeah, these are from late may, about a week before we moved in. We realized there was no way we were going to get the kitchen done before moving, but went ahead and tore it all the way out so we wouldn’t be filling the house with dirt and construction debris after we had all of our stuff in it.

The kid now arguably has the best view in the house from those two windows facing north.

Okay, as most of you know, we are finally living in the house. We moved in back in mid-June, mostly finished. All the rooms were done except the kitchen and the ladytheorist’s office. The office just needed flooring and some paint, the kitchen was still completely gutted (just stud walls and plywood floors). Since then, we have finished both those rooms except for trim and kitchen countertops. The whole house is basically done now, except a number of rooms still need the trim work finished. The hard work is done though. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll try to get regular posts up showing the progression of each room.

Today we have the littletheorist’s bedroom. Her room had the least, structurally, done to it. No walls were moved or anything. We did replace the exterior door, replaced (and added) windows, replaced carpet with hardwood floors, insulated and replaced all the sheetrock. You’ll notice that virtually no before pictures of the house have carpet. That’s because it was so stained and smelly with dog urine that we tore it out within hours of owning the place, and before we had taken many real pictures of it.

And yes, you read that right, the teenager has an exterior door in her room. The room originally had an exterior door (the one that was broken into on the day we bought the house, but that’s a story for another day). We had planned on getting rid of it, but the windows we eventually found are not fire escapable. This is fine for the master bedroom, as it has a different kind of window in its bathroom. The kitchen, offices and living room also have other means of escape in the event of an emergency. This bedroom didn’t though, so we chose to leave a door in it for safety.

I think these are the first pictures I’ve put up with the flooring finished. That’s white oak that has no stain on it, but the polyurethane brought out the coloring and detail wonderfully all by itself.

We have gone with pretty simple, neutral white/off-white tones throughout the house, though we might change our minds on that eventually. In the end, picking out colors fried our brains after all the other work and decisions we have to make. The trim is just primered for now, we may add some color by painting it a bolder color.

We also extended the wall depth of the house on the west and north walls (both of the exterior walls of this room) to pack more insulation into them. Those two sides of the house take the brunt of the winter winds off the river. Before we redid all the walls, the wind just sailed right through them. Between the insulation and the new windows, the house is super efficient now.

We’ve also redone the electrical throughout the house. Previously, this room only had one or two electrical outlets in it. Now it has five. I probably overdid it on outlets in some rooms, but I really hate having to fight with cords to get things arranged how I want them in rooms.

Just after getting all the new sheetrock up.

Closet (sans door, which I still haven’t got up). At the old rental, she had a very small closet, so this was a huge improvement.

The infamous exterior door.

The door into the room. Originally there were built in shelves facing that door, but they were removed and walled off. Now our ductwork for heating/cooling runs through that space (Hooray for modern heating/cooling!).

This is an original shot of the single, small window facing north. You can also see what the original kitchen window looked like.

And now we have lots of glass facing north, all the better to soak that view up with.

That’s what the exterior door originally looked like (the boards being where it was broken in through). Seriously, one of these days I’ll tell that story. It’s absolutely my favorite story to tell about buying this house.

No one will ever appreciate the work and craftsmanship that went into that trim around this door. Due to a variety of reasons (mostly the level of the wall and the depth of the exterior siding), the simple preattached brick mold wouldn’t work. So I spent a couple of days handcrafting that trim, but it looks so good you’d think ti was just some off the shelf kit.

Original post follows:

Oh kitchen table
Faithful servant, held our tools
We repay with fire

Click for an even bigger fire!

Click for an even bigger fire!

Click for an even bigger fire!

Click for an even bigger fire!

Click for an even bigger fire!

Click for an even bigger fire!

Click for an even bigger fire!

and the complete unit. Sexy. Click for larger image.

We finally have our first room that is capable of fulfilling its destiny. The main bath now includes a bathtub, vanity with sink, toilet and hot and cold water. Yah! I’ve been wanting to post pictures of the vanity for so long, but have waited until it was complete. It’s a real work of art, and I give all the credit to the ladytheorist. She found this old dresser at an antique store and totally reimagined it as a bathroom vanity. It has inch thick marble tops, which ended up presenting the largest problem with converting it. Most people we could find who could drill holes through that marble refused. They were too worried about cracking it. But we finally found a guy in Kansas City who was happy to oblige, and he did a phenomenal job. All of the plumbing has been crammed into the top drawer, leaving the bottom drawer usable and the little tower drawers are fully usable. Even the sides of the top drawer should be usable if I install a couple of partition walls to keep people from putting things where they would hit the plumbing.

I still have some finishing touches, a few more pieces of trim and a door, but the room is fully functional and 95 percent complete, by far the furthest along.

We had a lot of really great things happen last week. The lady’s sister Carrie was in town and helped us paint for a couple of days, which was a tremendous help. Don and I laid hardwoods down in my office, and thanks to the painting, can lay down more in the master bedroom and master bath now. I’ll try to get more pics up later this week.

Click for larger image.

Click for larger image.

Click for larger image.

Click for larger image.

I’ve been stalking this little guy for the last month trying to get a picture, finally got lucky yesterday. He either lives, or routinely scavenges, in the ravine right behind our house. I got this shot from the window of the littletheorist’s bedroom. Needless to say, she’s thrilled that she has a beaver hanging out within feet of her room.

The warning labels on my new water heater just cracked me up. Whoever has to make these must just love their job.

More to come on the new water heater later, that post will just take longer to put together.

Warning: Improper installation will result in blood flowing from your faucets.

I can’t remember the last time I updated this place twice in one day. Anyway, it’s not an exciting picture, but it is the first room that has had any paint put on it, and that is terribly exciting! We got good work done today moving a couple of rooms closer to being finished. The ladytheorist got my office fully primered and I worked on the bathroom. All the marble is now sealed and the corners caulked. I could take a shower tomorrow if I wanted.

Click to see the ladytheorist in action, but bigger!

Click to see the ladytheorist in action, but bigger!

For some perspective, my office is made up of two old rooms, a bedroom and the utility room. The utility room is the space with the water heater in it in the following pictures. I was never able to get a shot of the original bedroom that showed it well. I hate trying to photograph rooms to show their size and shape.

Click to make the room look bigger.

Click to make the room look bigger.

And I know this doesn’t look much different than the bathroom shots I posted the other day, but this time the job is done.

Click to make the room look bigger.

Update: Comments are closed on this post as it is drawing an absurd amount of spam comments.