My wife destroyed the counter top this weekend

[Robmoo]

I've never understood why they make cabinets out of particle board. Stuff is heavy for a camper when you are trying to keep weight down. I've never understood why they kept making the crap, after seeing the first sheet get wet. It's just sawdust.

Moving on, I took 2 solid oak stair treads and glued them side to side. Only had to deal with one glue joint, since the treads were already glued. Cut the bull noses off or leave them if you want. I routed my own profile to match the kitchen table.

True that! They could spend a few hundred dollars more on better quality materials and have a much better product.

My table broke. I pulled the DW towards me and onto the bed that the table made and thought that it would hold. Doh!. I had some 1/2 inch marine grade ply left over from another project. I cut 2 piece to fit, glued and screwed them together so that the screw would not show on the top. I rounded the edges and painted it with urethane. Damn, it looked good! Nothing looks quite as good as wood. It was far lighter and stronger than the original.

 

[CampingFamily1]

As for why particleboard is used vs other.
1) Cost... particleboard is essentially made from lumber mill waste and it can be made on a continuous machine so output volume is huge with minimal labor.

When manufacturing companies prepare budgets for the next year, they take last year's cost, add 1-3% for raises (merit increases) and tell the engineers to go get savings that will offset the raises.

If the engineers are fresh out of clever savings ideas this year, they cut into quality, offsetting it with something cheap that looks cool and electronic, which customers eat up without looking at the underlying quality. After 10-20 years of cost cutting, it takes a toll on all around quality.

Which is why there are so many on popup portal and youtube to help each other when low quality components need a lot of repairs.

 

[Ed Llorca]

Make it out of corian or some other waterproof material and add an overflow drain. Otherwise then next time it happens you will regret your choice of going with wood.

 

[Steveo4090]

When manufacturing companies prepare budgets for the next year, they take last year's cost, add 1-3% for raises (merit increases) and tell the engineers to go get savings that will offset the raises.

If the engineers are fresh out of clever savings ideas this year, they cut into quality, offsetting it with something cheap that looks cool and electronic, which customers eat up without looking at the underlying quality. After 10-20 years of cost cutting, it takes a toll on all around quality.

Which is why there are so many on popup portal and youtube to help each other when low quality components need a lot of repairs.

Yes, they are very good at putting lipstick on the piggies. All the consumers see is the surface finishes before they sign on the dotted line. Then they got your money and there's no getting it back without spending even more money and time in court.

Sooner, rather than later, it'll be worth it for someone to do that after they've gone through an accident because of cost cutting measures and someone else is badly injured or worse. But I'm afraid that's what it'll take, along with a lot of media coverage, to get them to change. Their wallets need to be affected 1st.

 

[Toedtoes]

Yes, they are very good at putting lipstick on the piggies. All the consumers see is the surface finishes before they sign on the dotted line. Then they got your money and there's no getting it back without spending even more money and time in court.

Sooner, rather than later, it'll be worth it for someone to do that after they've gone through an accident because of cost cutting measures and someone else is badly injured or worse. But I'm afraid that's what it'll take, along with a lot of media coverage, to get them to change. Their wallets need to be affected 1st.

That's what it took for the auto industry to change.

 

[akriot]

Was she IN the camper at the time? How in the world can someone not hear/see that in a pop up?

And, if this is the second time, do you think it's intentional? Is she wanting to buy a new camper by any chance?

I'd be camping without my husband in the future if he did that TWICE.

Anyway, good luck with the rebuild and I don't blame you one bit for confiscating the plug. I'm pissed on your behalf.

AMEN!

 

[JoeW22]

Why don't you coat it with epoxy? It'll be water proof then

 

[FARfetched]

When manufacturing companies prepare budgets for the next year, they take last year's cost, add 1-3% for raises (merit increases) and tell the engineers to go get savings that will offset the raises.

I have seen a vision of the Special Place in Hell for the people who issue those cost-reduction directives. They are given an early-60s Chevy with four flat tires, rusted lug nuts, and a pair of pliers. They are told that "when" they change all four tires, they may drive out of Hell.

 

[FARfetched]

On a more serious note: if Mrs. Fetched did that to the Starflyer's countertop, it wouldn't give me the slightest bit of heartburn. I want to replace it anyway. (Actually, I might have done it last weekend, although it was a water spill rather than a sink overflow.)

 

[BillyMc]

DW did it in our house, destroyed the cabinets. Cheap easy solution is a wash pan a little smaller than the sink sitting in the sink. Put a couple small dowels under it for a gap to drain and leave the drain stopper out. The first time I blew my top and later felt like an @$$. The second time I decided it's time to find a solution to this and so far it hasn't been a problem again. Don't beat her up or down about it, just find a solution that works. Some people are just prone to getting sidetracked, I was bad when I was a kid. Got told a dozen times a day to stop daydreaming. To this day I don't multitask unless it's with things that don't require attention. The DW loves baking cookies, but about 1/3 of them would get burned because she got busy with another task and the timer mounted in the ceiling would go off. Solution was a Google Home mini in the kitchen. Now she simply says "Okay Google XXX minute timer". Can't remember where she had her phone last? "Okay Google call my phone."
Mom developed dementia and had problems remembering. I stopped saying "Mom I told you this already" because on day she ask if something was done several times and when I said that she started crying. She was so upset that she couldn't remember like she once could.

 

[Dingit]

Billy, do you have room in your sink for a "sink grid"? Might be more stable than dowels. Apparently they have become trendy in the past several years with new sinks.

I replaced the heavy MDF/laminate table in one camper with a sheet of pine. Not sure what it's called--it's not plywood but solid chunks. If it were a countertop it'd be called face grain plank. It is dentable but super light and with enough polyurethane layers, it's waterproof. I'd have no problem using it as a counter. Corian is too heavy for my popup--there is a lot of counter. But now that I think about it, is it heavier than that MDF?

 

[Lebowski16]

I'm gonna ask: is it possible she has a health reason for her absentmindedness?

Maybe when you redo the counter, you can install an overflow protector in the sink??? Heed the old saying: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Find a way to prevent it from happening a third time.

Or maybe shes stressed because she lives with a dude who wants to choke her whenever she makes a mistake. Guy’s mad about particle board.... get over it. Really. Worse things have happened.

 

[Jeep Guy]

Or maybe shes stressed because she lives with a dude who wants to choke her whenever she makes a mistake. Guy’s mad about particle board.... get over it. Really. Worse things have happened.

It is a saying moron. I would never actually choke my wife. And I am over it, I was just telling the story of how my wife destroyed the counter top. You read too much into things.

 

[lot_lizard]

Not a huge fan of faucets with sensors/timers, but that would be where my money would go. Easy to hookup and you never have to worry again regardless of what you replace the top with. I agree with others that a local counter/cabinet shop likely has a scrap this small. All colors are so neutral now that it would be hard to find something that didn’t look reasonable. It’s a pup after all

 

[WisMoxx]

I recently rebuilt our Coleman Mesa from the frame up. For counter tops I used some glued pine boards and stained them. Then put 3 coats of polycrylic with some sanding between coats. I removed the sink and stove from the lift up kitchenette, so I figured I wouldn't have to worry about too must moisture.

 

[RDWRER]

This weekend I took my daughter for a walk in the RV park and left my wife at the camper to rest. While we were gone, my very absent minded wife decided she would fill the sink in our popup with water to soak some utensils to clean them. She turned on the faucet and quickly started doing something else and forgot about the faucet running. Water overflowed out of the sink and started flooding the camper. She realized her screw-up and turned off the water and started drying out the camper. But water from the sink spilled over the edge of the counter where the sink is mounted. There is plastic edging around the counter and the counter is Formica laminate on top of particle board. The particle board soaked up water and swelled up to twice it's normal thickness on the edges. I was ready to choke her. So this fall I will have to build another counter top.

Wow. I hope you never make a mistake in life. I wish I could be perfect. Next time you make a mistake, and you will, I hope you are treated better than you are treating your wife.

 

[Wink]

Be kind, people. There’s enough hate in the world.

 

[Toedtoes]

I believe the OP was just embellishing the story with mock frustration at his wife.

 

[Stereo56]

I, too, interpreted the OP's comments as public beratement of his wife which suggests a lack of respect so critical to a healthy relationship. How the damage occurred was irrelevant. All he had to say was that the counter was flooded with water and expanded so he was looking for options. I'd be curious to know if his wife is so distracted because the responsibility for the bulk of the chores falls to her.

The laminate in my pop-up is peeling up. There's very little countertop exposed; there's just a little around the cook top and the sink.
I intend to replace the counter with a piece of Swanstone shower wall that I picked up at a Habitat for Humanity re-sale store. It's thin, light, and waterproof without the need for any additional coating.

 

[tfischer]

I'm honestly more concerned about the wife's mental health than I am how she has been portrayed here in an anonymous post where nobody knows the poster or the wife. Turning on the faucet "to wash some utensils" and then somehow getting distracted, deciding to sit outside (when the sink takes maybe 30 seconds to fill to overflowing) while the camper floods, seems beyond the envelope of normal behavior. And this is evidently the second time it's been done. If it's not intentional, there might be some serious things going on. I lost a sister in law to brain tumor/cancer and I saw this stuff first hand.