Prefinished plywood as backsplash

[rwe2156]

What is the wood? Looks like sapele.

[Phil Thien]

If there was an award for clever use of materials, this would certainly deserve it.

And those counters, wow.

[FS7]

What is the wood?  Looks like sapele.

Yes, I bought quite a bit of quartersawn sapele for this project. It's my favorite wood and I use it often, and I have a great local supplier with good prices. I bought probably 150+ board feet between 6/4 (for the countertops), 5/4 (for the bar tops), and 4/4 (for the cabinet face frames, doors, raised panels, the bottle shelving and backers, and so on). I used a bit of mahogany plywood - at 3/4", it looks pretty much exactly like sapele (it might very well be), while the 1/4" (used for the bottom cabinet doors) is plain and looks more like utile or African mahogany.

[Stwood_]

Do you still need to cover that end cab on the bar?

[FS7]

Do you still need to cover that end cab on the bar?

I wasn't going to. That's probably the trickiest part of the whole thing, because of the nature of the countertop/backsplash/bar top dimensions, including the overhang. With the roundover on the countertop, I've only got about 1/2" to work with to cover the side and the face trim. That's one stud (roughly 3.5"), one sheet of underlayment (5 mm), one milled 2x6 on edge (1.25"), and then the sapele facing (probably 7/8"). So if I go out to the edge and to the edge of the countertop, that's a little under 6" wide, about 41" from the floor to the bottom of the bar top. Now, if I could do it over, I would have put edging on the end of the backsplash, but my plan had always been to cover that with sapele. Now that I have other ideas, edging would be *much* better, but I can't go back in time. So I can either make that piece of sapele trim wider and cover the exposed end of the plywood, which would require notching around the countertop, try to apply edging in place (maybe with CA glue), or cut some tiny piece of sapele trim to cover that edge. All will work, none are ideal.

To answer the original question, I picked the face of the prefinished plywood with the most character and made sure to minimize tearout. So I was going to leave that as is, especially since it's already finished and durable. Given where it is, it won't often be seen, so while it doesn't exactly match, I am not worried about it. After the fact, I could always cover it, but I didn't think it was necessary.

So, covering the end of the backsplash, yes, somehow, the cabinet itself, no.

[jteneyck]

Yep, stunning.  Let us know when the bar is open.  I'll be over for a pint, or some bourbon.  OK, maybe both.  

John