The previous owners of our house fitted wooden worktops in the kitchen. While these look nice, they need constant maintenance (re-oiling every three months) to stop water getting in – which we don't have the time to do to the standard I'd like, as it effectively means not using the kitchen for a week every time we do it (three sections of worktop, each needing multiple coats which, when working full time, we can only do one coat a day, especially in the colder weather when everything takes longer to dry).
Can I sand down the surface and varnish/lacquer it instead, in order to better protect it while reducing the maintenance liability? If so, what properties do I need to look for in the varnish?
Best Answer
You can apply varnish on top of oil, but the oil should not be fresh / wet. It might help to go over the surface with fine steel wool and mineral oil to prepare it. You could consider Danish oil, which is a combination of varnish and oil.