Updates on Some Old Posts

I thought today I'd write and give you some updates on a couple of posts I wrote a few months ago. The first post, which I made back in early November, was about a "new" kitchen counter top that I'd "installed." Instead of buying a new counter top, which Lisa and I had actually planned to do that day, we purchased a Rustoleum product called "Countertop Coating." It was supposed to make our old counter top look brand new. I included photos of how it looked at the time, which was fantastic, but I said that what would really count is what it looked like in three months. Well, it's been three months!

And the result is this: I'd give the product a C-. It DOES look great at first glance. The photo above shows you what the kitchen looks like today. Gone is that ugly, glaring red that we'd had before. And the paint is smooth enough that--unless a visitor really got a few inches away from the counter top and inspected it--he or she would never know that it was a painted counter top. So all of that's good.

On the other hand, if the visitor DID get just a few inches from the counter top, he'd notice that the counter is NOT perfectly smooth. No matter what type of ultra smooth roller is used, nor how careful I was to smooth it out, the pain still on close inspection looks a little bumpy. Worse, if the bumps are run across with something heavy and ungiving--something, say, like the bottom of a tin can--the new paint can be pulled off. In our case, that reveals the ugly red that's beneath it. You can see an example in the photo to the left. The photo shows both the wrinkled effect of the new paint and a gash in the paint that shows the red beneath it.

Overall, though, I still think the product has uses. After all, our kitchen counter gets used a lot, and there are only maybe 10 or 15 spots like the one in the photo above, and at about 1/2 centimeter in size, the one I've photographed is easily the biggest. The rest are about the size of grains of salt. I'm actually surprised that the paint has held up as well as it has. I didn't expect it to do so. I think it would make an excellent alternative in a less heavily trafficked area, maybe on the counter of a bathroom sink in a guest bathroom. But I wouldn't use it in the kitchen unless (like us) you absolutely HATE your current counter top color.

The other product I wanted to give you a quick update about are the compact fluorescent light bulbs that I've installed throughout my house. As I mentioned back in November, I replaced our old incandescent bulbs two or three at a time until they were almost all replaced. At this point, the ONLY incandescent bulbs in our house are in our garage door opener in our garage (which is used so seldom that I don't think it's worth changing them out) and in two fixtures in our bathroom in the basement (which have odd bases and I haven't found bulbs to replace them yet). My goal was to make the house all CFL's by Christmas, but with the exception of those bulbs I actually finished at the end of November. So I've had two complete cycles of my utility bill with the new bulbs in, and I compared them to the bills from two months ago. And the difference is right in line with what I'd been told they would be: In both months, I've saved a little more than 20% in my ELECTRIC bill (my gas bill, of course, is unchanged). That translates to about $15 a month. It's not a huge amount, but it's a difference nonetheless. It will take me about a year to save on the bills what the bulbs cost me, but after that I'll practically be MAKING money when I turn on lights in the house!