DIY Alert!

Y'all may remember I bought, and Steve installed, this:

Well, I love it. The only bummer, though, is that to keep it looking new and gorgeous, one must massage it every 4-6 days with mineral oil. Otherwise it shows all manner of dried water schmutz and looks like this:

Hideous, right? BUUUTTT.....I have a son who is certified gunsmith and a Cerakote expert. He popped over here Monday night to help remove my sink and has hauled it off to Santa's workshop to perform his magic. He has the same sink and has followed the same process at his house (minus installing it before the Cerakote) and he's very happy with the results. I'm so pleased he's so good at what he does and all will be well in the end!

In the meantime, as is typical with houses, once the sink was removed I started thinking about finally doing something with the counter tops. I had talked myself into living peacefully with the fake wood grain Formica all these years not because I like it but because I've been loath to spend the money it takes to get what I really want: soapstone. BUUUTTT, now that we'll be making the sink perfect, and we won't want to have to remove it again once it's back in, I figured the time is right to make a move.

BUUUTTT, I still don't want to spend the money for soapstone, partly because it's a bit over-improving for the neighborhood and partly because I prefer not to have to live under a bridge when I'm 80. So I've decided to paper the counters. Like I did with the bathroom floor.* 

Squeee! I'm so excited about this project! Here's a before shot. I'll post afters after.

*I just realized I never posted pix of the bathroom floor project. My bad. Here's a shot of the paper flooring I did to give you some idea of what I intend for the kitchen counters. The counters will be a bit lighter, though. More like Carrara marble (I hope).