Build a Home Bar - The bar top

The top surface of the bar is arguably the most important part of the construction of any bar. Given the limited budget there were no fancy materials used, and the only part not available at the local Home Depot was the "Chicago bar rail" molding along the front.

The Bar Top was constructed in layers:

A Bottom layer of 3/4 inch rough plywood
A Middle layer of 1/2 inch birch veneer plywood combined with 1/2 inch rough plywood
A final top layer of 3/4 inch birch veneer plywood

The middle layer is split between birch veneer and rough with the veneer being used where the bar well is (towards the back). This gives a nice surface for the bottom of the well without requiring as much birch veneer (which is expensive when compared to the rough plywood!)

At the back edge there is a piece of corner molding that covers the edges of the plywood layers and overlaps about 1/2 inch to make a nice edge for the bar well.

The bar rail molding (not drawn very well above) is called a "Chicago Bar Rail" and was ordered from Outwater Architectural Products. The molding was shipped in two 8 foot pieces and is about 4 inches wide and 2 tall. It's meant to be installed at an angle to give a slightly downward slope. To accomplish this we offset the edges of the layers.

Finishing

All the wood on the bar (and in fact the whole basement) was stained using Minwax Red Maple color wood stain, applied with a brush, with a second coat applied with a rag. All the wood was then coated with Minwax Satin Finish Polyurethane. The top of the bar was given an additional 4 coats (for a total of 5 coats) of polyurethane.