Oh Boy!

Well today we had a little help.  Our friend Daryl came and helped Kade install a few doors.  Those things are a pain in the butt!!  I'm sure it doesn't help that we're working with an older house!  I was working on painting in the middle bedroom while the two of them were installing doors in the master bedroom.  It was really nice to hear them both blabbing incessantly and laughing all the time  :)  That makes me happy.  (and it REALLY makes me miss our friends!!)

Anyway...Thanks for the help Daryl Gene!

I got the first coat of stain on the kitchen countertop.

It's looking good...oh man, I hope it fits on the cabinets/sink properly :)

Here's a closeup of one of the tongue & grooves.

For some reason I just love that look.

Oh...an update on the Silestone Quartz countertop.

They sent their "chip specialist" (yes, that's really his title, not sure that's a good sign)

out to work on the chipped spot.  I'm not going to lie....

we all agree that now it looks WORSE!!

Now it has a funky gray hue to it as well.

That just looks terrible...

Here's "pre" chip specialist.

I don't know...I'm just not happy with it.

Time to email them again and see what else can be done

So I painted the middle bedroom...one coat...and it looks awful.  I HATE the color.  It looks like a really pale pink.  Sorry, but my walls are no place for pink (maybe for my tank top or flips flops though!!)  I have an old quilt that I want to use in that room...and it's just not going to work with that color...so off to Spickermans tomorrow to get a new color.  I'm thinking something with a hint of yellow.

Staining the Wooden Countertops

Over the past month or so I've been testing a bunch of stain colors, mixtures, with wood conditioner, without wood conditioner, etc. so I can finish all of the wooden countertops.  FINALLY...I think I've got something I like.  First of all

NO WOOD CONDITIONER!!

I just could not get the stain dark enough when I used it!

What I ended up doing was Minwax English Chestnut, Minwax Dark Walnut, and then another coat of English Chestnut.

That sure doesn't look very dark.

There are so many pieces of countertop, lol

That's looking a little better.  I think one more coat of English Chestnut and they'll be finished!

These I actually stained over the course of a few days.

Remember to let them dry FULLY before putting polyurethane on them!