Back from the dead, it’s… KITCHEN!!! (ominous chord of music, women screaming in the distance)

Uh God. Yeah, so. The kitchen. Remember that? Well, the good news is I tiled the entire backsplash, all of it. Every square inch. Very proud. Pictures later. Now bad news. The countertop, which I poured several years ago, has yellowed considerably. I used a resin that swore up and down it did not turn yellow over time and granted, it happened pretty slowly but it indeed happened and it looks tolerable because it’s supposed to be water, but it’s definitely not the color I wanted. Ignore the cloudiness, that was intentional because the resin has clear glitter mixed into it. Here’s what it looked like freshly painted:

And here’s what it looks like now.

I found the original paints and put some dots to show you how far it’s gone.

Luckily I am the owner and creator of this kitchen so I can deal with this myself. Again, it looks fine because it’s supposed to be water but I want it how I want it and I’m going to get it to how I want it come hell or high water. So Cricket graciously took out my sink:

And my stove:

I bought a fancy sander that oscillates and I am sanding down the resin considerably until it’s pretty thin.

Once it’s the thickness and smoothness I need, I’m going to repaint all the elements which is simple because I can see exactly what I’m supposed to do through the resin. I’ll just paint them on top, no stencils required. After that the scary part happens. I won’t pour resin again, so I can either:

1 – Roll on several coats of a sealant which will leave a very slightly nubbly texture that I’m fine with, or

2 – Spray on several coats of a sealant which will leave a very slightly nubbly texture that I’m fine with.

Most people use resin because they want a glass-like smooth finish that’s easy to clean but that’s not necessary for my project. I can wash food smears off of a slightly nubbly texture just fine. That’s what a “leather finish granite countertop” is. It’s very slightly textured. I’ll conduct a variety of tests and leave them in the sunlight for a portion of the summer to see what happens.

I’m also going to swap out my incandescent kitchen lights for non-UV LED lights. That will probably help as well. Wish me luck.

 

Addendum:

Here’s a video that shows how resins yellow over time. Be careful which ones you use, regardless of what they say.

And here’s what I’ve bought to test out on my sample board:

 

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