The Laundry Room Makeover: A DIY Waterfall Counter.

 

Once I got the laundry sink utility tub covered and done, man, I was pleased as punch!  Time to keep rollin' through the room, right?  Next was a DIY waterfall counter over the unstacked machines.  

A few things to wrap up the laundry sink area though:

-- since I had a crossbar at the back underneath, I propped another piece of wood up under vertically to push the back of the sink up to nearly level like a normal sink (can't find that photo, sorry)

-- since the sink was filled with stuck on paint, thanks to the interwebs I learned that you can use rubbing alcohol to remove it and wow, totally works like a charm

-- since the wood lath was bare, I used tung oil* to seal it up though it can be painted, painted in a design (which I almost did), stained, sealed....I mean, the options are endless

-- since I tend to get splashy at the sink, I stuck some subway tiles to the wall, used pencil trim* around the edges, and exactly like the kitchen backsplash, added color to the grout

 

I also bought some pegboard sample pieces, spray painted them yellow and stuck them on the wall.  Didn't much care for the look though.

And then obviously of course, I added the patterned oversize pegboard.  Which, to be honest, I'm going to replace.   Not due to the pattern, due to, it's, it's a bit weird even for me.  And too big.

Ok, but we're here for the DIY waterfall counter.  

What's a waterfall counter?  One that's not just the top but also continues down the sides.  

Is it trendy?  Sure is.  But, in my defense, it's a look I envision myself appreciating for the long haul which justifies its existence here.

See, I figured, if the machines were unstacked and I had a countertop over the machines, the likelihood of laundry being folded and put away quicker, ahem....this would speed up that process.  

And truth be told, it has!  Not every time though, haha, I am a normal human.

Thankfully Mike went with me on that wood buying power trip before prices sailed out of control, before I screwed up my back, and we picked up four pieces of four by eight, three quarter inch plywood.  Two pieces of swanky maple veneer and two just plywood.

That's where I saved me some money.  The maple ply was about fifty three+ bucks a sheet (holy ouch Batman!!) while the regular stuff was about twenty-ish bucks less.

The regular ply on the left under, the maple ply on the right.  Fancy, eh?

See, my plan was to sandwich the two together to create an inch and a half thick counter with exposed edges.  While the lesser plywood doesn't have as clean edges as the fancy maple, it's clean enough that unless you are reaaallly looking, you wouldn't know.  Though now you'll look because I'm pointing it out.

Regardless, money saved.

Spent a few hours out in the garage cutting down my entire wood purchase with my spiffy Rockwell saw* which is probably what killed the blade but no worries, it's happy now with its Diablo.*

For my particular set up, and dimensions will be different depending on your machines, wants, needs, and desires, I went with 62 1/2" wide by 30" deep by 40" tall.  Sorta slightly weird width but it was based on leaving a four inch gap between the machines for storage space.

Right, so all I did really was sandwich the pieces of plywood together, cut the 30" dimension along the eight foot length, then cut the width across.  Same with the second set of plywood pieces, cut the 30" dimension, then cut the 40" tall legs.

What worked was screwing the pieces together from the blah plywood side, the face that wouldn't be seen, so that kept things aligned.  And leaving the screws in to keep it that way.

A few randomly placed screws from the "bad" side.

I attempted to get fancy here, cutting forty five degree angles where everything would join up upon assembly.  Sorta worked, sorta didn't do a terrific job.  But, do note, it's extra figuring you need to account for to make sure the angles are going the correct way and such.

I reaaallllllyyyy took my time here as I did not want to screw up and have to buy more plywood.

Ok, back in the basement, this was the hard part:  installation.  There is zero room in this little room to finagle around so there was no assembling then fitting.  It was assembling around the machines.  Yeah.  

Hah.

Tricky.

Before assembly happened, I banged in some chair glides* where the plywood was going to meet the floor.  This served several purposes, the main one to raise the plywood up a hair in case of water on the floor.

Some 1 1/4" Teflon glides there on the bottom, props the whole thing up a bit.

Slithering the top across the machines, I snuck one side up under, skootched myself and stuff and tried to  and made, and made myself as small as possible and align and screw from below together and....it was not easy.  A lot of swearing.  A lot of sweating.

Plywood is freakin' heavy, even cut down to these sizes, whewie.  Oh look, the stencil paint is done too!  I love it like crazy!

I couldn't get the critical side, the seen side, lined up perfectly which was making me bonkers so I spent a bunch of time on it only for it still not be exactly right.  Because it was making bonkers, I ended up filling the edge with Durham's Water Putty* and it's fine now.

Ran outta hands.  This corner clamp* was helpful but not enough so.

Despite trying a series of pocket holes* to hold this sh*t together which failed miserably, I ended up going with corner brackets* inside underneath where they can't be seen.  I need new gloves* already, sigh.

It's hardly perfect but considering the lack of space I had, it was just me screwing around down here, I'm not a carpenter, and a myriad of other excuses, it's not so bad.  Not bathroom mirror joint quality, but not utterly horrifying.

Slid the sink side across, dropped down, tucked it up under, then screwed it in from the side.  Aligned terrifically, easy assembly, poof done.  Why couldn't the first side have been this easy?!

Lots of hand sanding later, on went a nice coat of paste wax* after which I used a power buffer* to buff the sheen.

In retrospect, what I should have done was cut strips of the fancy stuff, trim the plywood underneath short in depth, like to twenty seven inches instead of thirty, then glue in the fancy stuff for a total edge dupe.  Buuuut.  I didn't think.

Woot!

In the end though, I am super duper wildly happy with this DIY waterfall counter.  SUPER happy in fact!

It's coming together, this lil' room!  Almost done!  Stay tuned!  

Jump to the next in the series here!

*The tung oil, compact saws, Diablo blades, chair glides, water putty, corner clamps, women's work gloves, and pocket hole jigs are Amazon affiliate links.  The pencil trim and corner brackets are Home Depot affiliate links.  Mwah, thanks!  Please see the "boring stuff" tab for more info.