I’ve just put the last coat of varnish on our new kitchen benches. To cut a long story short (which I know is not like me at all…) when we purchased this place 8 months ago, the kitchen was only 2 and a half years old. The ppl we bought off were old (60′s?). Their kitchen renovation was not to our liking (read: ugly laminex bench tops and nightmare inducing, very disturbing feature tiles). I sourced some wooden bench tops from labs being renovated at work. The timber is beautiful, and so it should be, I’m told it’s Queensland rainforest! Kinda hard to get now with our sensible anti-logging laws (no dig at Canada intended : ) Anyway, after spending about 30 hours sanding the “protective” paint off the benches (after the benches laughed at paint stripper- as expected!), cutting, installing and varnishing I’ve finally removed my ventilator to ingest my cup of tea.

So it got me thinking, who remembers the days when personal protective equipment included
- holding your breath
- closing your eyes and
- turning your head…

These days I don’t enter the garage without putting on my safety glasses. Am I really getting old too?? Where did I put those picture tiles? Were they that bad?

Photos to come if you’re interested…

and cutting and installing them, I’ve finally varnished and finished them.