Week 293: Worktop

A week of very fast new internet, moving routers, nice chill cats, a lack of yowling, lots of sanding, lots of silicone removal, oiling, hoovering, and some fun Dungeons and Dragons.

Posted on by Rowan Manning.
Tagged with HouseKittensD&DDIY

  • Our last day in Matlock was a mix of working and getting internet installed. The latter half of the work day was with a far better connection, I got 1.02Gbps during one of my speed tests 😅 there are routers on every floor and still getting ~400Mbps in the attic 🎉

  • The cats were a lot more chill on the drive home. Over the course of the week they got more and more confident and were their normal selves by the end. Barely any yowling for attention and they just went to sleep. Maybe it’s also the time of day we drive and that we didn’t feed them before the journey.

  • Our kitchen worktop after the first coat of oil

    I’m really in a DIY mood so once we got home I started buying the equipment I needed to resurface our kitchen worktop. It’s solid wood, which is great, but the previous owner had varnished it and it was getting pretty worse for wear. This is going to be a boring description of a job I’m now really proud of.

    After doing a lot of reading and talking to my kitchen fitter uncle, I decided the best thing to do would be to sand it down and oil it instead of revarnishing. I’ll need to reapply oil every 6 months to a year but I can patch repair it if needed instead of having to sand it down again.

    So I sanded the whole thing down multiple times at different grits. I love my new orbital sander 👍 Getting the varnish and silicone off was a real pain in the ass despite my tools and I found that careful use of a wood chisel worked better than “official” silicone removal tools.

    There was a patch of rot beside the sink because water often pools in the area around the tap. This is because the tap is set into the worktop instead of the sink itself and the varnish has been degrading for years. I chipped away the worst of it, used a wood hardener to stop it rotting further, and then some wood filler to patch over the gaps. For a first try I’m quite pleased with it! I’m also pleased that the unexpected setback didn’t take the wind out of my sails.

    Today I applied the first coat of oil, I’m using Osmo Top Oil (Terra Satin) because it’s a little lower maintenance and I wanted a dark oak tint. Another coat tomorrow then I can hopefully do the caulking on Tuesday 🎉 anyway if you made is this far you’re more patient than I would be.

  • I played D&D again this week after a short break due to scheduling issues. It was fun, as usual, but I need to think about the pacing more. We got into the weeds of a few admin tasks and I need to get better at nudging to move things forward! Anyway I enjoy it a lot, playing this coming week as well to catch up a bit.