No wekend is complete without Home Depot

Although I wish it was....

We did get some time off today, but we had to do a few last minute things for our electrical inspection. We had to make a Home Depot run to pick up some things for the inspection and for the countertop seal and wax. The electrician was here all weekend getting us ready for final electrical inspection. C and I had to attach plates to where the phone and cable tv wires come out of the walls. Even though this isn't within the scope of the electrical inspection, the city where we live is really strict and the electrician said he's seen people fail for less. We also had to patch around a few plates that the contractor hadn't gotten to yet. Again, the inspectors will fail you if they can see any hole around the plate. If they fail you, they write a list of corrections and you have to have another inspection to have the corrections signed off. The problem is that the new inspector usually reinspects everything and often comes up with his own corrections. It's a hard cycle to break.

We also had to seal the countertops. We purchased a food-safe sealer for them (especially made for concrete countertops) since concrete is so pourous. If you don't seal, you end up with what can be called a "patina" which means a lot of stains that show the wear. I actually like wear and tear on concrete - I love the look of a polished garage floor that shows some cracks, patching and yeah, a stain or two. I'm not so sure I'd like a big spaghetti sauce, or olive oil stain on my wine-colored polished terrazzo countertops. (Terrazzo is the name of concrete when you polish it down to reveal the pebbles in it). The sealer will also help keep the color rich, dark and "wet" looking. So, we sealed the countertop, and once the sealer has a chance to set for a day, we'll apply carnuba wax. The wax is a food-safe plant-based wax made especially for countertops. It will give additional sheen and stain protection.

In terms of maintenance, we'll have to wax once a month and seal once a year. Some people think that sounds like a lot, but I'm fine with it. The initial sealing took about an hour and a half because it was two coats. Future coats should only take 30-45 minutes. We'll see how long the waxing takes, but I'm not worried. Have you ever seen someone wax a car with a buffing wheel? That's basically what you do, so I don't think it will be too bad. It's really a trade off - granite, butcher block and some of the manufactured stones need to be sealed and tile needs to be sealed and occasionally regrouted (in addition to having to wipe grout lines every day). So, there's no free lunch on countertops. I've come to the conclusion that there is no perfect answer for countertops even if you spend a lot of money.

We were a little worried when the sealer went on so cloudy. We were really hoping that it would be clear when it dried. It would stink to have something foul up the countertops at this point. We were also concerned that the countertop needed to be resurfaced - that is a real pain involving using an acid solution to burn off the top layer and going all through the grinding and polishing again.


Fortunately, the sealer dried clear and glossy, just the way we wanted it. We got our first glimpse of what the finished countertops would look like and we were very happy! We went to bed thinking that if we get up tomorrow and they still look this good we are home free!