Kitchen Countertop Phototacular

I've been promising this for awhile; here (finally) are some pictures of the kitchen, all put back together. First, a small (sorry) picture of the way it used to be. You can't see much, but the countertops were dark and had a thick shellac on them.

Now, after much sanding (thanks to the Mr. and his dad) and staining (thanks again to the Mr. and his sister):

(Picture 3 is pretty much a wall-o-wedding gifts. Y'all will probably recognize a few things, there. Thanks again, everybody!) We used Cabot Polystain (a water-based stain/sealer combo) in Pecan Satin and so far it's held up really, really well; it's really resistant to spills and made for a really hard surface. I'm not too worried about dinging it. I'm sure it will happen, at some point, but we're having to be much less careful with it than we expected we would.

Updateration

Okay, many apologies for the delay. Until yesterday, there hasn't been much to report; the Mrs. took a break this weekend to visit with her parents (and, apparently, refer to herself in the third person). However! Mom and I were industrious yesterday evening, and between sunning on the back patio and watching the dog try to decide which bush to make His Fort, we got the guest room painted! Pictures forthcoming; we left before it had dried and lest my blog readers believe us to be a) horrible painters or b) fans of the "mottled" look, I decided to take pictures during our next visit. The color is an interesting one; it was the top swatch on a Valspar sample that went all the way down to a deep olive green--"Sweet Kasha" is the color name, whatever that's supposed to invoke. (Sidebar: have I mentioned that I almost painted the kitchen "Moby Dick?" Being the paint-company color name-er must be interesting.) Anyway, the color reads as creamy white when it's not next to something that's really white, but next to the white trim it has the slightest trace of spring green. I'm pretty happy with it. The walls had been a peaceful lavender-ish gray, but since all of the bedding and such that we have for the guest room is green we figured we'd do well to change it. I think that's it for now, but here's what's coming up:

• The Guest Bedroom, before & after
• The Great $5 Chandelier experiment
• Painting the Kitchen, or: 'Adventures in Hiding the Goofs I Made Whilst Trying to Trim Wallpaper With A Dull Blade.'

Excited?