Friday, November 26, 2010

countertops finished!


The kitchen remodel took over all my extra bandwidth the past 10 days. But we are finally on the downhill slide and we are so happy with it.

We hired someone to spend a whole day sanding the countertops, and they were so smooth when he finished. Lots of the imperfections got sanded out and their beauty started shining through.

Once they had been machine sanded, we spent some time hand sanding them with a fine grit sandpaper.


and Ryan went around the edges with a machine sander to round them out.


for the finish, we used food-grade mineral oil. it's widely used for butcher block items, but when I read about mineral oil online it's hard for me to believe it is really food safe.


it gave the countertops a beautiful luster. for the final layer, we used beeswax, which isn't vegan. but i trust ryan to make sound judgments when it comes to eco-minded decisions for our home. he thought it would have the least environmental impact. i found making the beeswax paste to be tricky, and it was hard to apply it.


our countertops are all finished, and we love them, and i'm having a great time cooking and setting up everything. we had a little kitchen housewarming yesterday by throwing a Thanksgiving Vegan Waffle Brunch. Yum!

2 comments:

  1. hi tera,

    i promised myself that i would not be on my computer this weekend. but when i saw this post i have to break my promise. these counters are amazing. i showed them to my husband and we both are in love with them. i really love my kitchen, but i'd kill for these countertops. i'm so jealous! good job you two, amazing result.

    ~janet

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  2. You should be proud of these. It's not only a great repurpose, they're extremely beautiful and unique. I love the detail of the dots and arrows.

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