Wooden worktop.

 Hello everyone how are you all today?

The weather has changed yet again and today it's cooler and the threat of rain is on the horizon. I have a lot of laundry today, son and hubby's work clothes plus some from in the week so my Tumble dryer is working , my kitchen smells gorgeous at the moment with freshly baked bread and scent boosters. 

So as you all know my lovely husband built our kitchen from scratch every unit, tiles and plumbing all done by his hand.

We went for a wooden work top, because we wanted our kitchen to look country style. It took him 3 months from start to finish with the local wood yard making regular drop offs, in the end the delivery man got curious and asked what we doing with it all and when we told him he raised his eyebrows and wished us luck. We didn't need it as my husband is very good at what he sets his mind to.

I was over the moon with it and enjoyed being in there. How ever over time the varnish started to wear and actually got sticky, quite embarrassing really. It was clean but didn't look it. Earlier on this year we decided that we would strip it down , re stain it  and then varnish it. I was blown away by just how much it had faded and i was also quite proud that it took 5 years to need re doing.

Here is the before picture of the worst spot in the kitchen , this is where i do most of my baking, dishing up and what not.

You can see the scratches and varnish that has worn away.

Looking a bit better. with no varnish.

2 coats of stain later and it looks so much better.

The stain only took 2 hours to dry altogether ready for another coat.

Just look how beautiful it looks with a coat of varnish. We did  give it 2 coats to re seal everything and also extra protection.

The work top is now back to it's beautiful self and it is not sticky in places anymore, it looks stunning and the shine is unbelievable. 

Now the trick is to keep it that way. No cleaning products at all as they just ruin the varnish. A soft damp cloth to clean any spills or crumbs. I dust it daily to minimize any build up of grotty shit. We have bought some large work tops mats , silicone ones that are heat proof and i put that out every time i do anything and clean it up after and put it away. No DRAGGING anything across the surface and no hot cups or mugs to placed on it either. I know it seems like a lot but i love the work top and want to keep it looking good for another 5 years. I will also buy some Beeswax to buff it  and keep the waterproof going .I have got a lot of boards and trivets to help with keeping stuff of the top it as well.

It took us a week to do , i had to move everything out and do one side at a time. I ended up with the tiniest of work spaces to do everything as  you can see below, teeny tiny area.

I am so glad we managed to get this off our to do list for this year. I love my kitchen and it's one of the busiest places in our home so it's important to me to have it functioning and useable at all times. Even though it was only a week it felt such a long time as i wasn't able to bake or spread out anything. 

Now it's all back to normal and it's bread day today. We have the world's largest bread board and that was home made too.

Everyone take care

Love Ftm🍂