Pandemic Projects - Kitchen Countertops

This as not exactly *my* project. In fact, it was an amazing reno done completely by @patrickrhone as my birthday present!

You see, back in the early 90s when I bought the house, the kitchen renovation was one of the first projects my ex and I took on. We ripped out 7 layers of flooring (including carpet), cleaned up ridiculous mounts of cockroach excrement, took out all appliances and a falling-apart sink, installed a tin ceiling, put in new cabinets gleaned from my mom's place and my dad's basement, put in the 1950s stove our friend Joe had found at the side of the road, and painted. And then we installed DIY concrete countertops.

Concrete was a new material for counters then and our method was trial-and-error. We tried once to put them and move them in (they broke), then poured them in place and failed, then finally learned enough to put them in place and they survived (albeit with a few glitches, we called it "patina.") It took us forever to find a food-safe sealer for them; we finally found one that was used for vegetable transfer stations.

And since then they have sat, though they had gotten really pitted and ugly and worn down over the past few decades.

I had had plans to redo them for years, but it had never happened. I had even hoped to do them this summer, while we were at Summit, but the shows and life and such got in the way.

Until Patrick snuck in on my birthday, while I was working all day, and did this magical transformation! Aren't they beautiful? Thank you, honey!